Cruising Gocek, Seven Islands
12 June 2014
Photo: Amigos
We spent two weeks on the hard at Yacht Marine while the damage to the hull was being repaired; it took about five days for the wood to dry out before they could put fifteen layers of fibre glass on, then prime, fill, fair and anti foul. Ayesha, the ‘supervisor’ was great, her English was very good and she had a good sense of humour. As usually happens, a kiwi lady stopped by one afternoon, introduced herself and invited us for drinks on their boat, Wave Runner from Christchurch, NZ. Two days later we had an enjoyable few hours having drinks and swapping stories with them, they are now on their way out of the Mediterranean and heading back to Kiwi land. They invited us to the final sing a long for the Geriatric Crooners, an impromptu music group at happy hour on the Sunday at the marina beer garden. It was a lot of fun. We also took the opportunity to take a walk up Heaven Island to see the large cave and views on Sunday 18th May. Yacht Marine is a large haul out yard with room for 1,000 boats which is full over the winter season and 600 wet berths. Whilst we were there, they worked long days putting boats back in the water in preparation for summer cruising, it was almost last person out turn out the lights.
Finally 21st May at 08:30 the travel lift arrived to put us back in the water. Marlin marine, who had done some work on the generator and bow thruster wanted to test them in the water before we left to anchor. The generator was great, unfortunately the bow thruster was not working, they spent the next four hours trying to isolate the problem before deciding at 16:00 a cable needed to be replaced, it was one they had decided not to replace when they replaced two others, oh well hindsight is a great thing. We went out on the anchor and Brian picked the guys up in the dinghy the following morning, the cable was replaced and the bow thruster roared into life. As it was after midday we decided to stay at the anchorage the night and leave the following morning for Gocek. In the evening, we are slowly getting used to the long, light evenings after the short ones of Asia, we could hear the nearby resort with its evening entertainment, it sounded like Hi De Hi. Not sure why you would come to Turkey on holiday for an English holiday camp style entertainment, still it sounded like they were having fun.
We left Marmaris at 06:30 Friday 23rd May, oops the Up anchor switch didn’t work, do the cruising gods want us to cruise Turkey! Luckily the switch on the pedestal worked, so it was anchor up and we headed south to the Gocek area. It was nice having deep water after the shallow water of Asia and northern Australia, sometimes it is over 150m deep, clear, azure blue with steep hills along the coast, very dramatic. We are using Open CPN and Navionics for iPad for the first time for navigation, did not purchase the charts for our Nobletec navigation system. They seemed to work well, so we will continue; it’s a lot more cost effective.
As we went through a gap in the islands near Gocek we managed to contact Lynn and Dick, Wind Pony who informed us they were in Wall Bay and there was space for us to stern line to a bollard. Going through the gap in the islands reminded us of the entrance to Port Fitzroy, Gt Barrier Island, it is narrow and once through opens out to multiple bays with trees down to the water line. We arrived in Wall Bay and Dick and Lynn took our stern line ashore to the bollard for us, hope all stern lining is this easy. In the afternoon we went for a long walk up and over the hills with some spectacular views across the bays.
The following day we went around to Twenty two fathom bay and stern lined into a jetty at Amigos restaurant. Again Wind Pony had gone ahead of us and with the owner, Recep, assisted us into a gap. Gail walked the lead lines to the bow and needed Brian’s help to put them on the fairlead and over the cleats, stern lines were attached and Brian dived in to make sure the rudder was not sitting on the bottom; we were only 2 feet from the shore. Next job was to try out our new Paserale, Mediterranean style boarding ladder, it worked a treat. Amigos is a unique place and what cruising foreign countries is all about. It is a family run restaurant, or more accurately a small boat, which is used to prepare the food, which is then cooked in several wood fires around the site. Goats, Turkeys, chickens, hens, roosters, dogs and cats freely roam around and everyone is very friendly. In the afternoon we again went for a long walk to the Antiques as Recep, the restaurant owner, called them. It was like being a mountain goat in places, but we found his friends house way up the ‘mountain’ and he pointed us in the right direction. Later in the evening as we were sitting down enjoying drinks before dinner, the friend from the hillside house turned up and played music. He left at about 10:00pm to walk back home, he must have known another way as even with a torch we could not imagine him walking the track we had walked. Dinner was great, casseroles are the specialty and no-one was disappointed, dinning two feet off the back of Dol, with an open camp fire was something special.
We left Amigos and went half a mile to Cave Corner and picked up a mooring ball for a couple of days, again enjoying long walks in the afternoons with Lynn and Dick. On one of the walks we came into a secluded bay and Brian and Dick were invited aboard a local gullet which had a party of 14 women on board, however they declined and we continued our walk. Along the way we passed a small house which had a couple of donkeys, one of which took a fancy to Dick and decided he wanted to join us on the walk, trailing behind us. We eventually managed to persuade him to stay and eat grass, however as we returned to the dinghy he followed us again. Not sure a donkey would enjoy a dinghy ride.
Our next anchorage was again a mooring ball at Yassica Adalari, with Wind Pony and Rick and Robin Endangered Species. We stayed a few days, going into Gocek by dinghy for the day, however on the way back the wind had picked up and it was a bit like a bucking bronco as we bounced over the moderate waves for the 15 minute trip back to the boat. The following day we moved to Boynuz Buku and stern lined to the bank. During the afternoon we watched as the crew of a large motor launch, send a diver down to retrieve an anchor that had somehow become detached from its chain and ended up on the bottom in 40+ metres. Later still, it became cold and we had thunder and lightning with some wind, however the Sunsail flotilla at the head of the bay all decided it was time to move, we watched the procession leave the bay. We have had a few heavy rain showers and now we wish for clean rain from the north and not the dirty, Sahara sand rain from the south.
As we wanted to see more of the area, we only stayed one night, the following morning, looking at snow capped mountains, we sailed across the bay for morning tea with Isabelle and Brian, Wasabi and then onto Sarsala Koyu with Lyn and Dick Wind Pony. This was a lovely bay with high hills and some great walking/hiking trails. We are enjoying the numerous walking/hiking trails in the area, especially with the cooler weather. We stayed a couple of days to allow a period of high winds to pass through before moving on.
The next night we had a wonderful anchorage with a bay within a bay with only ourselves and Wind Pony stern lined to the bollards on the bank. We went ashore to the restaurant for dinner, again lots of Mezzies, who needs the main course. Friday was a day in Gocek for provisions, another afternoon of games aboard Wind Pony (Backgammon and Rummikub) and an early start on Saturday 7th June as we headed further south. Our anchorage was Gemilier, what a stunning anchorage, we entered an almost enclosed bay and stern lined to the restaurant bollards. The owners of the restaurant have a heavy weight chain laid along the bottom of the bay and take mooring lines up to plastic bottles, these become bow lines for the boats. We took the dinghy to explore the area and then paid the 8TL for an exploration of St Nicholas Island, possibly once home of Santa Claus. The island has 3 churches, many tombs and a covered corridor, well worth the visit. Dinner was at the restaurant, just meters off the back of Dol.
A couple of nights back in the Gocek area, including Tomb Bay, where the tombs are visible from the dinghy or you can hike up to them, it was time to leave and head north.