Bozuk Buku
24 June
Bozuk Buku is one of our favourite places. It is a large bay, with crystal clear blue water and a couple of very rustic restaurants that tout for the business of passing yachts. It is halfway between Marmaris and Bozburun, so many yachts stop here. As soon as a yacht enters the bay, the restaurants go through a ritual of waving flags, trying to encourage the yacht to moor at their jetty and therefore eat at their restaurant.

There is no road access to the bay so all provisions for the three restaurants comes by boat or is locally grown. We had the most wonderful meal of a meze selection (see photo above) most of which was sourced from their vegetable garden. The meze consisted of pickled beetroot, chilli dip, okra, spiced couscous, potato salad, zucchini braised with tomato and slices of chicken pancake all served with fresh bread. The meze was followed by an excellent fresh sea bass.

Sogut
25 June
We decided to go into a place we have not been before call Sogut. Our pilot guide book suggested there is a small jetty and restaurant but not much else there. The book is somewhat out of date as there are several restaurants with jetties, a mini market and small village in a very pretty setting. We parked at the larger of the restaurants and later that day were joined by a large flotilla of yachts. There was a quite a mix of nationalities there including a large contingent of Russians. The Russians were a noisy lot, possibly due to the volume of vodka consumed. They went through a ritual of filling glasses, all members of the crew stood, someone would propose a toast and then they would skull the vodka. This was repeated a number of times.

The restaurant was very busy that night and served excellent food. As usual, the restaurant staff helped us tie up on arrival, we were able to stay the night with water and power available for the cost of the evening meal. Had to feel a bit sorry for one of the smaller restaurants, despite lots of flag waving at approaching yachts there was not a single boat there for the night to support them.

Bozburun Bay
26 – 27 June
The bay that surrounds Bozburun is very picturesque. We are spending a couple of days here anchored with a line ashore. There are many other boats doing the same thing, from very large and expensive motor cruisers to gulets and locals in tiny daytrip boats. There are also a range of boats trying to tout for business. These range from boats selling ice-creams, fishermen selling their catch, others selling clothing and towels and the old man who sells nuts, honey and vegetables. He arrived at the back of our boat this morning at about 7am, with fresh village bread (what we would call Turkish bread) which was still warm from the oven. A delicious addition to breakfast.

Wild herb season
While the landscape here often looks very barren, the land has a scattering of wild herbs including oregano and sage. At Bozuk Buku, a woman sat cutting sage leaves from the stems. By the end of the day she had a large pile, which was left out in the sun to dry. When we went for dinner, we were told the herbs were collected from the local area and would take a couple of days to dry. That evening when the breeze came up there was the wonderful aroma of fresh sage wafted through SCII.

Today at Bozburun bay a woman moored her small boat near us and went ashore. She returned an hour later carrying a large sack of freshly cut herbs. We were not sure what variety she collected but no doubt they will be dried and perhaps sold. In the markets you often see bags of local herbs for sale.

Note: for those interested in the technical aspects of navigation, Glenn has uploaded an image of the chart plotter with a description in the gallery.