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We have spent the last two weeks in the gulf of Gorkova. We have mainly been anchored out in lovely bays, spending the days swimming, and just chilling out reading. We have been having lots of BBQs on board and have generally avoided towns, except going into Sogut for reprovisioning.

Just south of Sogut is a large bay of Degirmen Buku. At the head of the bay is the Turkish President's holiday home. When we visited in 2019 all boats were asked to leave the large bay as the President was going to be staying. This year the president stayed away and we had a lovely couple of days in the part of the bay referred to as English harbour. The inlet gets its name as the English Special Boat Squadron used this inlet as a base during the Second World War. The presidential holiday home meant there was police boats patrolling the area. Occasionally you would hear sirens and see flashing lights with a police boat in pursuits of a jet ski or boat that got too close the exclusion area surrounding the house. It also meant that Glenn could not fly his drone due to area being geo-blocked.

There were about 30 boats in and around the inlet, ranging from massive motor boats, gulets, small motor boats as well as sailing yachts. The proximity to Sogut meant that during the day small boats travelled the bay selling ice-creams. A Magnum ice-cream delivered to your boar cost 50 Turkish Lira or about $A5.

We have found that we are generally the only non-Turkish boat in the area, which on the few occasions we have eaten ashore there has been considerable surprise that we are from Australia and we have been treated like royalty.

Today we are anchored at Mersincik at the western end of the gulf. The water is crystal clear and there is a large turtle swimming around the boat. Sadly it has not got close enough yet that we could get video footage for inclusion in the blog.

Tomorrow we leave the Gokova Korfezi and sail to the ancient ruins of Knidos.

This week the weather has been great ranging from 25-32 degrees, with light winds.