Our visitors did make it. Anne and Jackie arrived well after dark. We changed their destination & surprised them with a taxi ride to the head of a small cove where we were anchored instead of going to "the city". The owner of the only small restaurant in the cove had his brother retrive them from the airport. We waited in the dark silence with our dinghy until we finally spotted their headlights snaking down the switchbacks on the hill above. A few minutes later we were all 4 in the dinghy with mounds of luggage. A ten minute dinghy ride and we were aboard Freebird. We were in heaven! Our family and mounds of booty from America! Bla Bla Bla all night... we woke in the morning to a warm Mediterranean day. The girls immediately jumped in the warm water for some wake up exercise.
The day was spent lazing around and caped off with a nice sunset dinner at the restaurant.
The next morning we had a nice sail back to Fethiye for a of day shopping and tramping through the streets. It was pretty fun getting Annie into a Haman (Turkish Bath) hehehehehehehehehehe.
In the morning we headed out for 4 days of sailing/hopping toward Marmaris.
We anchored one night in a cove and the next day took a water taxi for a day trip to the ancient city of Kaunos. The ride meandered through a maze of channels in mangroves and swamp. This is the location where the movie "African Queen" with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn was made. We stopped & fed the local turtles & bought crab later for dinner
We wandered around the ruins and gazed with wonder at the ancient city.
After lunch in the small waterside village the girls went shopping and Dave found a quiet place to meditate.
In the late afternoon our water taxi returned us to Freebird for our crab feed. The next day we finally arrived at Marmaris. We shopped and explored the old city and enjoyed strolling along the waterfront with it's quaint restaurants and tourist boats.
The next day we were off to Rhodes Island on a ferry. Our one Rhodes day was spent in the old city. We played tourist and visited many of the museums and historical sites.
We had a tasty lunch and were back on the ferry to Marmaris by 4:30. We liked the Greek Island so much we decided to go on our own.
Two day sails took us to the little Greek island of Simi. We anchored in a small bay not too far from town. We decided to take the bus to the village. The ride was worth the whole trip. We wound through the narrow streets, up and down hills with fabulous views.
The weather was crystal clear and warm. Finally arriving in the classic little Greek fishing village that has given up fish for tourists. We bumbled around the narrow streets bordered by whitewashed stone buildings.
Of course we stopped for coffee on the waterfront, duh! Later we had a great Italian meal for dinner. We spent 3 days here and celebrated Judy's 29+++ birthday.
Our final stop with our visitors was to Bosburn. As we sailed up to the dock at the Aphrodite Restaurant and Pension the owner took our lines. After securing Freebird he invited us for a cup of tea. He welcomed us to stay on his dock as long we wanted. Of course he hoped we would have dinner in his restaurant. He offered to arrange transportation to the airport for Anne and Jackie so we didn't have to go back to civilization :>}} We spent a couple of days here.
Not enough time was spent in the beach chairs catching up on reading and meditating.
He took us into town on his boat. We went to the local market.
The Aphrodite Restaurant produced some of the best food we've had in Turkey.
Sadly it was time for the girls to head back to the real world. They left at midnight in the dark, just the way they came....