Ta ta Turkey (almost)
14 June 2010
Kumbahce Bay, Bodrum
We are currently holed up at anchor waiting out a blow. Kumbahce is the easternmost of the two bays, separated by a promontory capped by a fortress, that make up Bodrum's seafront. It's a picturesque little spot from the sea, but the Turkish Waters Pilot describes it as "a churning decibel hell". Closer examination through binoculars gave a hint as to why. Along the bay are ranks of bars and restaurants, including the exquisite culinary delights of a Burger King and a McDonald's.
At either end of the bay were expansive open air discos sporting speaker stacks capable of liquefying the kidneys at a range of several hundred metres. On the eastern end was 'Halicarnasas', which recently boasted itself as being the loudest open air disco in the Mediterranean. On the Western end were several other establishments that seemed determined to wrest the title from it. Among these was a huge catamaran of the type used as high speed ferries between islands. The roof had been removed with a tin opener and gantries erected bearing laser lights and yet more giant speakers. At the front were two searchlight of the type used to target B52s on a high altitude bombing run. This thing, apparently, set off at one in the morning loaded to the gunwales with already well-bladdered holidaymakers and wandered round the bays blasting them even further into insensibility with a mixture of lager, vodka and club/garage/shed/shithouse classics at 140 dB. It returned, so the notices said, at five in the morning and those that had inexplicably failed to fall overboard were unceremoniously disgorged in a dishevelled heap on the quay.
As darkness fell myriad coloured lights and signs lit up and reflected attractively, if somewhat gaudily, on the water. Then the music started, firstly from the bars and restaurants whose pathetic sound systems were able to do little more than make our ears bleed. About midnight the big guns from either end of the bay kicked in. We were anchored a fair distance from all of these and so were able to converse in the cockpit after a fashion by leaning close and shouting in each others' ears. Unfortunately we were situated roughly equidistant from all of them and so received an equal mix of all of their auditory offerings, which presented itself as a wall of white noise with nothing else distinguishable other than the underlying 120 bpm thud that seemed common to every track in every establishment.
Still, thank God it was too early in the season for the catamaran to be running.
We weren't supposed to be in Bodrum. We weren't even supposed to be in Turkey - we had been trying to get into Kos for the last week. We wanted to do the paperwork to check into Greece, fill up with 1000 litres of diesel (£250 cheaper than doing it in Turkey), replace two new domestic batteries and convert Einstein's Turkish passport to an EU one while there was still an EU to do it in.
Kos is reckoned to be one of the best (and cheapest) marinas in Greece and the town has all the facilities we would need. Unfortunately, too many people seem to know about this and no matter when we tried to book a berth for they always came back with "Sorry - full up". We're going to give it another go on Wednesday.
We left Finike on the 5th May, soon after having had our preconceptions of the place challenged. We had always liked it for its sleepy rustic charm; a slow, friendly little backwater serving the needs of the largely agricultural community surrounding it. We were surprised, then, to hear from Faik (blogs passim) that there had been a little ruckus in the town the night before resulting in two men being shot and one stabbed. This fazed us a bit. This town was populated mainly by farmers; laid back sons of the soil - slow to anger and slow to, well everything really. If they had a disagreement we expected them to resolve it by the judicious use of vegetables, throwing carrots at each other, that sort of thing:
"Damn your eye, Sir. I demand satisfaction!"
"And, by God Sir, you shall have it. Aubergines at dawn!"
It turned out that it was a turf war over the (apparently flourishing) prostitution rackets in the area. It seemed that a group of Russians thought that their long history of expertise in this endeavour in their home country and elsewhere entitled them to take over and demonstrate to the locals how it should be done. The Turks are a friendly, open and hospitable race, but they can do gangster with the best of them. Turks: 3, Russians: 0 at half time. I hope they've sorted it all out before we get back in October. I don't fancy having to crawl along the street on my belly commando style to get to the supermarket.