Nerida Matthews | sunny 27-39 degrees, water temperature 24 degrees
After a short trip across from Pserimos Greece to the coast of Turkey (5 nautical miles), we checked in at Turgutreis. We had arranged an agent to complete the paperwork and entry formalities for us so it all went very smoothly. The marina at Turgutreis is quite large but they have plenty of staff to assist on arrival so again, no problems. We had planned a two day stop here, mainly to have time to get our laundry done. Unfortunately, the only laundry in the marina had a 4-day backlog so we had to do it all by hand. Our yacht looked like a large clothes line for a day....
We quite liked the town here; it is a bit of a mixture of older and new architecture. There are a lot of shops and restaurants near the marina and plenty of tourists -mostly appearing to be Turkish, rather than international.
The first night we ventured into the town and ate at one of the restaurants in the back streets. The restaurant specialised in fish. We were escorted to a fish shop a couple of doors away to select our fish, which was weighed and the restaurant owner quoted us a price of 250 Turkish lira (about $A22) for a fish that was big enough to feed us both. We were then escorted back to the restaurant to select our meze; we chose hummus and a walnut and yoghurt dip as well as a salad to go with the fish. It was delicious.
Our first morning in Turgutreis, we were woken at 5am by the call to prayer, the town mosque and minarets are only a short distance from the marina and in the quiet of the morning the speakers on the minaret carry the sound across the town. We have swapped Greek church bells for the Turkish call to prayer, we really know we are somewhere different.
On our second night we again decided to avoid the touristy restaurants near the marina to eat at a restaurant near the fishing harbour. We had spotted a waiter bringing out pide on a huge wooden plate and it looked delicious. So, we ordered pide and a tomato and walnut salad. Being a traditional Turkish restaurant, no alcohol was served, however, we were brought a complementary entre of spicy raw meatballs, which you wrapped in lettuce to eat. The meatballs were tasty but we were not sure, given a choice, whether we would order them again.
After spending two nights in the marina it was time to move. We have stopped at a couple of places along the coast and are enjoying the scenery, the water and just chilling out. We thought we had a really nice place in a bay called Kargic Buku (in the video) where we spent a night and had planned to stay longer. Half way through the second day the wind came up and was blowing straight down the bay which made it somewhat uncomfortable. So up anchor and off to look for somewhere else. We are now a little further into the large gulf we are in and have found a place that seems pretty good. One of the problems with this part of the world is that large Turkish gulets tend to take most of the space in all the prime anchorages. There are 13 just around the bay we are currently in. At least there aren't any "non sailing" pirate boats with their loud music here.
This morning we woke to large fish jumping around the boat. It turned out that a large school of very small fish had decided that our boat would provide them with good shelter. The school of fish stayed there all morning and periodically the big fish would come hunting. We tried to catch the big fish with a lure but had not luck, they were not interested in the lure at all. So, it does not look like we will have fish for dinner tonight!
It is very hot here, about 28 in the morning and 39 by mid-afternoon with a dry northerly wind blowing. Definitely beer drinking and swimming weather! The water is a very pleasant 24 degrees.
Having almost completed the charter yacht catalogue over the last 25 years, we are fulfilling our long term dream of living the endless summer. In April 2017 we purchased our yacht and plan to spend several months every year in the Med.