We made it to our final destination in Turkey, Bodrum... sad thing is it's rained in Bodrum almost every day since we got here but along the way though we visited some fantastic locations. Matt Strathdee joined us onboard in Bodrum for three nights which was great (our first guest!). Unfortunately the weather wasn't at it's best but we found some wonderful anchorages along the coast east of Bodrum.

After leaving Cold Water Bay we covered 55 NM in one day across the Gulf of Gulluk (back past Marmaris) under almost perfect conditions, we reached with our Gennakker up for hours just sunbathing and adjusting the autopilot every now and then. Our first stop was a beautiful small and sheltered harbour called Serce Limani with a tiny entrance almost completely hidden from the outside. Once inside we had a great dinner ashore in the local restaurant with a British couple we anchored next too, they were happy to relay many years experience in the Med and Turkey in particular and Mike and I were happy to listen. They were particularly envious of our plans to sail the Carribean next year as they had very found memory of being their themselves. I think for British sailors (of which there are a lot out here) crossing the Atlantic for tropical paradise is a common life dream.

Since Serce the days have started to blur into each other, we've only been doing very short distances, a couple hours or so just drifting from one anchorage to the next, I can really only remind myself by reading back over our logbook! (link on the right). Knidos had some fantastic ruins and Mersincik stands out in my mind for the natural beauty.

In the gulf Hisaronu Korfezi we were thrown some spirited winds that had Mike and I practising all points of sailing and reefing of the sails. We had two days of dead calm mornings building quickly to force 4 by lunch and then climbing to force 7 before dying again to dead calm again by early evening. It could have been frustrating but it was fun because we had no real distance to travel so were just sailing for the enjoyment of it.

Our safety gear is now more complete, we have our new ISO 9650 life-raft on board which is an ocean category raft in addition to the coastal raft that was onboard when we bought the boat. We've also installed a new Jonuoy inflatable danbuoy and horse-shoe. Our replacement lifejackets (which we're collecting now in Athens) are the only part of the safety kit still outstanding. I would recommend to anyone who is planning a similar trip to purchase as much as you can before leaving home. We did all the research but thought it would be cheaper and easy to find stuff over here.

So we've leaving for Kos, Greece today, it's only a short distance but I'm a little apprehensive about heading into the Greek Islands again. Turkey has been a little haven away from the Meltimi (strong north wind) but we hope to find better weather this time. Kos is also meant to be the best marina in Greece, which may not be saying a lot but we're looking forward to it. A quiet night would be good because Bodrum must be the noisiest anchorage in the world! The main beach is lined with nightclubs (you can see the neon lights in the panoramic photo). We left the marina and took an anchorage against the dramatic backdrop of the Castle of St Peter but we've been pestered by Gullets for their loud music who also choose to admire the view at all hours. I had fun one night sending one away at 11pm with our blinding bright spotlight.