Saturday 17 October and we're in Tomb Bay close to Gocek, Turkey. Today we went ashore to the restaurant to dispose of our rubbish and have a look around. We sat and had a drink while the rooster and chickens clucked around our table. Francis asked the owner about the turtle population and whether they stay here or migrate. He told us that '
they are new arrivals having been relocated here from Dalyan which was overpopulated. 300 turtles were moved into this region a couple of months ago so nobody knows if they will stay'. This story has now been disputed by others who say that the turtles come and feed off the seagrass in the bays naturally. But, the turtles are here and for now they seem happy enough with plenty of sea grass to graze on.
We spot at least 10 turtles in the bay. Both Green
turtles (Chelonia mydas) or Loggerheads (
Caretta caretta), are nesting in Turkey. The beach at Dalyan (just around the corner on the way back to Marmaris) is one of the biggest Loggerhead nesting sites.
We've been struggling a bit with the field-identification of the turtles in Tomb Bay. According to
this turtle conservation web site, and given the choice of the two species, they can be differentiated based on:
• The number of lateral scutes ('fields' on the carapace = back shell): four for a Green, five for a Loggerhead
• The front lateral scute of the Loggerhead is in contact with the pre-frontal scute (not with the Green turtle)
• Number of claws on the front flipper: 1 for the Green and two for the Loggerhead.
As their carapaces are under a nice layer of silt, it is not that easy to identify them in the field. But looking at stills taken from the videos and enhanced in Photoshop, our 'educated' guess is that they are Green turtles. The number of claws is the easiest to assess while toddling after them.
Loitering above them when they are feeding on the seagrass bed we see them actually digging out the seagrass rhizomes (roots) by scraping the seabed with their front flippers. We also see that they have a strong preference for the more juicy, thin-leaved seagrass called eel grass (
Zostra marina, it looks a bit like your backyard turf) over the far more abundant broad-leafed Neptune grass (
Poseidonia oceanica). Following one swimming about 2 m under the water surface through the bay for about 15 minutes (Chris thought I was swimming back to Marmaris), you can see the turtle constantly changing course feeding on small morsels in the water column too, probably small jelly fish.
The mature turtles don't mind if you get close to them, the younger ones are much more skittish and move when they see you coming. Their underwater vision is much better than ours (be it the reverse out of the water), so they often are out of reach of the GoPro camera before it can be turned on. From Moreton Bay in Australia it is known that propeller strike is the most common turtle injury, so we're not surprised to find a mauled turtle here too (see top-left photo). We collect a lot of Turtle video over the next three days and will condense it into a little movie once we're back home in Oz.
Later in the afternoon Chris decided to check out the tombs (photos in the next blog) so Francis rowed her ashore and she set off on the goat track and climbed up to the two separate tombs. This was quite a feat as the path was very rocky and steep in places. For those who know of Chris's lack of rock climbing skills, and poor sense of direction, she was quite proud to successfully reach her goal and enjoy the lovely view from on high. And more importantly: she also managed to scramble back down in one piece.
Jumping to Tuesday 20 October and today we moved to Sarsala beach to pick up Güçlü and Yukari who joined us for the day. We collected them in the dinghy and bought them back to Clio. It is great to have their company and they come bearing lots of yummy treats, even chocolates! After a long and chatty morning tea we jumped into the coolish water for a swim. Now 25 degrees according to our trusty Celsius Standardised Surface Water Temperature Measuring device. After swims they offered to show us the large freshwater lake on the other side of the mountain range that encapsulates the bay we're in. So we dinghy back to shore and Güçlü drives us up and down the steep slopes, stopping a couple of times so we can take some photos of Sarsala Bay and our home away from home, while Yukari is keeping watch over Cloe (we're still very protective of her). The lake is fairly big and seems to connect to the wetlands that sit between Dalyan and the sea. Being high up the mountain gives us a great view of part of the region deservingly called the Turkish Riviera. When we got back Yukari had befriended the local taxi driver who happily shared pomegranate with us. We had pomegranate juice in Ephesus a couple of months ago, but eating the seeds of the fruit is quite different. The first apple with deep-red seeds was very sour. Chris unknowingly munched into the sour one first and produced some very interesting facial expressions. But the second one with pink seeds was beautiful and sweet. Even Francis enjoyed this one, notwithstanding the aggressive do-goody vitamins in the fruit. Time for Yukari and Güçlü to head home to Gocek again, and for us to motor back to Clio, we very much enjoyed their company.
We decided to stay the night attached to the buoy which spent some of the night knocking on the bow 15 cm from our pillow, skipper was not amused. After a couple of trips out onto the foredeck in the middle of the night he resolved the annoyance by lifting the whole bl... buoy out of the water. We had a bit of a storm and some lovely welcome rain to wash off Clio's salty decks that night.
The next morning, Wednesday 21 October the sky cleared and we headed off back to Tomb Bay to get ourselves safely tucked in before stormy weather arrives that is predicted for Thursday and Friday. Luckily for us there are very few boats out this week and we found the perfect spot to drop anchor, Chris swam two lines ashore and secured them to bollards. In a well-protected cove, and with 40m of anchor chain out and two secure landlines we're pretty safe from the predicted weather. Two days of no-sun is starting to be problematic for our electricity supply. Also, our sealed, maintenance-free batteries are starting to deteriorate pretty fast after two seasons of full-on use and hundreds of recharges. We now barely get through the night with the fridge struggling to suck enough energy in the early morning. So we need to run the engine for half an hour in the morning to keep up.
We still had some sunshine today, Thursday 22 October so we managed to have a swim and snorkel and Chris went ashore to explore a little. By evening we had Clio ready for the wind if it comes, bimini folded in and spray hood down, boom lashed, cushions inside and Cloe in the Davit with bung removed to allow rain water to drain. Chris made a yummy chicken pie (this will now be a part of our staple Francis hopes) and we now curl up warm and dry and wait for the weather to clear. Bring out the videos!