The Güllük Korfezi


Anchorages mentioned in this blog:
1 = Iasos/Isene Bükü
2 = Harapli Koyu
3 = Fevzipaşa
4 = Didim Marina/Turnali Koyu


Harapli Koyu 37°16.505'N,27°29.955'E

The next day, we pulled up our anchor and left the ancient city of Iasos, heading over to another one of the "finger inlets," Cam Limani, to an anchorage called Harapli Koyu. Harapli Koyu is a beautiful spot, a wide open bay, with a crescent of sandy beach, backed by pine-covered hills.



There was no one else around, save for two off-road vehicles parked under a couple of trees at the campground about a mile away.



We spent two days at Harapli Koyu, enjoying the serenity and the scenery.



We went swimming, we took walks along the trails beneath the fragrant pines,




My happy place, among the trees

and we hung out on Awildian.



Our 36th wedding anniversary happened while we were here. We marked the occasion by looking at photos from our honeymoon and early married years, reminiscing. It was fun, to see those really young people, who are now us!



Eric posed this question: "If we hadn't chartered a boat for our honeymoon, would we be living like this now?" (We'd explored the San Juan and Gulf Islands of the Pacific Northwest aboard a 27-foot C&C sailboat for a couple of weeks. It was my second time sailing, ever.)

It's a good question. Of course, we can't know the answer, but we both suspect that some seed of this lifestyle was planted way back then.



Incidentally, according to Google Translate, Harapli Koyu means "ruined bay" in Turkish. I never did figure out what was "ruined" about it.

Unless it was the ambiance, which was definitely ruined by the hordes of biting flies that descended upon us during daylight hours. These flies were stealthy, too: they looked just like house flies, but they packed a nasty chomp.

They originally had us fooled. We thought they were just annoying; we didn't know they were out for blood, until they landed on us and began biting. Samurai Eric did all he could with his fly swatter, but he's only mortal, after all, and was eventually overwhelmed.
Fortunately, way back when we were still in Italy, we'd planned for just such an occasion: buying a doorway screen, extra screen material, and velcro strips. Once we'd deployed these, we were able to keep most of the vicious, bloodthirsty bastards on the outside of Awildian. Eric could easily deal with any intruders.


Fevzipaşa 37°21.75'N,27°19.33'E

We left Harapli Koyu bound for an anchorage near Didim Marina, where Awildian would have his biweekly tank pumping appointment the following day. We chose the spacious, well-sheltered, but not-particularly-scenic bay near Fevzipaşa.



We spent the afternoon doing glamorous boat jobs, including sucking out the contents of the "sumps" of each diesel tank, to check for water and sludge. Some other Leopard owners had reported that their fuel tanks had rusted out, due to water collecting in the sump. Since this would be a disaster, but one that was easily averted by preventive maintenance, we thought it would be a good idea to check the sumps. This job necessitated first removing the mattress, sheets, and pillows, from each aft cabin bed, so we could access the top of the fuel tank (located under the bed platforms), specifically in this case the valve on the sump pump hose. Awildian is outfitted with a pumping bulb in each engine room, that allows the sump area of each tank to be pumped out. When Eric pumped the sumps, the diesel was clean. Yay.

Because every job on a boat actually requires at least three jobs (The Fixing Trifecta), Job #2 was tightening the scads of hose clamps on all the fuel lines, because whoever had "tightened" them last hadn't done a good job and I - the Hose Clamp Queen - can't abide loose hose clamps, especially on our fuel lines. Job #3 was reassembling the beds.

Didim Marina & Turnali Koyu (AKA The Didim Marina Anchorage) 37°20.543'N,27°15.998'E

The next morning, after enjoying another beautiful Mediterranean sunrise, and before the sea breeze came up, we took Awildian into the Didim Marina. Didim Marina is huge, and new, with wide fairways, nice pontoons, and a posh fuel dock. Posh because it has plenty of space to dock; competent, helpful attendants; permanent docklines; and lots of cushy fenders. We cozied Awildian up to the fuel dock, where we had his black water tanks emptied, and his diesel tanks topped up.


The posh fuel dock

Because the marina office - where Eric had to do all the paperwork for the pump out - was far away, on the other side of the marina, the fuel dock attendant called a shuttle. A few minutes later, a large golf cart arrived, and whisked Eric away. On his way to the marina office, Eric got to see much of the marina grounds, which included a pigeon loft in the center of a field. A pigeon loft! I'd seen tight flocks of pigeons flying fast and purposefully above some of the anchorages; maybe they'd been racing pigeons.

Another thing that Eric mentioned, was that, based on the number of Turkish boats in the marina that were registered in Delaware (and out and about), you'd think that Delaware was a city in Turkey. Delaware-registered boats are very prevalent in Turkey. It's not uncommon to encounter a boat flying an American flag, with a home port of Delaware, a Turkish name, with a crew who speak only Turkish and couldn't point out Delaware on a map. The Turks are registering their boats in Delaware for the same reason that other non-Delawarans do: to keep from paying tax on the boat in their home country, and because registration in Delaware *was* cheap and easy. Recently, the rules have changed: now, in order to register your boat in Delaware, you have to prove that you will use it mainly in Delaware. I'm not sure what the owners of American-flagged Turkish boats will do from now on. They'll have to come up with a different scheme.

With Awildian's tanks appropriately empty and full, we headed to the anchorage near the marina entrance, from where we planned to do some provisioning. Reviewers on Navily gave conflicting reports on whether boats were allowed to anchor at some of the places closer to the town, so we opted to drop Awildian's anchor here, and take our dinghy around the corner to the main town.


A view from the anchorage

We stopped for lunch at a little kebap (yes, that's the correct spelling) restaurant, before walking down the street to the grocery store.


A bit of Turkish lunch



Not far away from where we had lunch was an interesting statue of Medusa. Interesting because it wasn't the image of Medusa that we usually think of - the snake-headed monster who would turn you to stone if you gazed upon her - but rather a likeness of her before Athena gave her the new hairstyle. Apparently she was quite a babe back then.

The Medusa "before" statue:




The explanation:


I'm going to spare you the social commentary I considered writing here, but I will say that it was damned shitty of Athena, to punish Medusa for being raped by Poseidon.



At the store, we loaded Rolly with groceries and walked back to Awildian, where hordes of flies greeted us! Welcome home, humans! What is it with all the flies in Turkey?! Lately it felt like the entire country was made of dust and flies.

We deployed our door screens again, but by now many of the flies were trapped inside, so I opened the screens to shoo them out. The majority of them took the opportunity to bugger off, so they didn't have to experience the wrath of Eric's fly swatter. Fortunately, most of these flies weren't the biting variety, but we still didn't want to be sharing our space with them.

Since the meltemi showed no sign of letting up during the next week, there was no reason for us to hang out in the Güllük Korfezi any longer, waiting for a chance to jump across to Greece. Having seen all the anchorages we wanted to see there, we decided to venture a bit farther south, to see some of the anchorages in the more "touristy" parts of Turkey, that most of our friends had visited.