More Turkey please!

by Trevor Joyce on 29 Jul 2007 Trevor and Maggie Joyce, from Mariner Boating, recently returned from a 'three generations plus friends' family holiday in Turkey. Below is the story of their trip. If you would like to experience a wonderful sailing adventure, contact Mariner Boating, the boating holiday specialists - www.marinerboating.com.au

You take two Y generation female offspring out of their comfort zone in Melbourne, pack them with us like sardines into a fully loaded Boeing 747, fly them for 31 hours to Istanbul and then on to Antalya and you already have two seriously scrambled kids.

The temperature is hovering in the 40’s in Antalya, the wind is howling out of some distant furnace at about 35 knots and its time to board a yacht to go sailing. 'Are you from Syria?' says Luana using one of her home grown sayings when questioning authority. 'Syria is just over there' says mother Sarah, pointing to the east and bringing home one small reality – Syria is an actual place and not just a word that rhymes with serious.

We check out the yacht and guess what; it is air-conditioned, the coolest place in the marina is on our boat. The wind rattles the rigging through the night and no one sleeps really well – or necessarily in their assigned place. Luana and Rani are on the settees in the saloon so Grant, one of our traveling companions who missed a cabin, sleeps on the floor. Grant’s daughter Haley scores the twin cabin to herself, Heather's in her assigned spot up forward and we, the seniors on the crew, take the aft double cabin – the one nearest to the main air-conditioning outlet!

Dawn arrives with a deep ruby blush and we decide to capitalize on the relative cool so we set off at 6 AM. Our yacht is a Gibsea 51 with five cabins and five heads, air-conditioning as reported earlier, two fridges, ice- maker, gen-set, hydraulic winches, all the latest navigation toys including Tack ticks wireless wind instruments and a 100 HP engine; lots of power is necessary in this usually windless part of the world.

We motor to Tekirova – called Phaselis for about 3,000 years by its original Athenian settlers - and anchor in a pine fringed bay with huge naked mountains in the background. Ashore there is a Roman aqueduct, a street with ancient shops and a small Greek theatre, which would have been 'cool' for a concert say the kids. After a morning swim we have some breakfast and then off we go toward our destination for the day called Cinivez Limani, pronounced Chinivez because of the squiggle under the C.

In the end we did not stay in Cinivez but the anchorage we used, Kavas, had plenty of protection and the afternoon sail into a 15-knot south easterly on a flat sea was a treat. After a long run on the engine across Finike Bay, where a pod of dolphins appeared on command, we anchor in sapphire blue water in a key-hole called Karaloz on the island of Kekova and if it had not been for the five or six other yachts and gullets (large wooden Turkish pleasure craft) there it would have ranked 12 on a scale of 10.

The kids were in the water faster than a couple of sea otters in an oyster lease.

Enter stage right the maternal grandmother, Maggie, who cooks up a pasta dish with the world’s best tasting tomatoes. Then the maternal grandfather decides its time to go sailing so we run around the end of Kekova and up the channel to the final destination for the day, Kale Koy.

Luana doesn’t like this on the wind sailing business with the boat tipping and mother Sarah works to overcome her fear.

Well words cannot really describe Kale Koy. The hamlet by the water is a gaggle of cottages, which double as shops during the summer. Yachts are moored to finger wharfs propagated from the restaurants at the water’s edge, a few gullets rest at anchor in the bay and from the Byzantine castle above that overlooks the whole scene you can clearly see the submerged ruins of what the book says is the ancient city of Simena.

It’s all a bit surrealistic but there it is, you have to believe it. Surrealism is amplified next morning as we drift along the opposite shore of Kekova Roads, the enclosed waterway created by the island of Kekova. There was once a city here and the remains are visible above and below the waterline, through the emerald green 26 degree briny.

We drift along with the kids in tow on a trailing rope before once again dropping the pick while we swim ashore to a beach with yet another imposing ruin on the shore - this must have the top end of town 2,500 years ago.

Still within Kekova Roads is Ucagiz with just a little more sophistication, which we hope will include an ATM. The boat 'kitty' is fast becoming a World Bank exercise with transactions in Turkish Lira, Aussie dollars and Euros complicated by loans from the float and credit card transactions. Luana is the designated treasurer and she has her XL spreadsheet to sort things out – no worries, and who cares any way.

The wind comes in hot again so we retreat to our air conditioned capsule after an excellent seafood dinner ashore, (which cost $25 a head including wine). Ucagiz is a neat place and ranks well on our scale.

The ten mile leg to Kas (pronounced Kash) starts off on a glassy sea but a breeze line appears and we set up to a sail. Pretty soon its 20 knots and our less than fleet footed cruiser with sails is romping along at 7 plus close hauled and its champagne stuff…unless you happen to be Luana who loves rough water but not on a boat that isn’t standing upright.

The sailing gets the thumbs down and we head for shelter in a beautiful bay called Ice Ada. Our abstinence from conventional daily showering seems to work on the two yachts already there and they take off at great speed! Maybe they knew something we didn’t because an hour later the wind really starts to flex its muscle. We turn the nearby cape for Kas and the breeze builds steadily to a 40 knot Westerly. Thank goodness for 100 HP engines.

We pass the Greek Island of Kastellorizo to port and we are in Kas.

Luana under the expert guidance of Maggie and Kath, two seasoned shoppers, tackles the night time shopping scene. Pretty soon she’s onto something she wants to buy but she doesn’t have the cash and its closing time. 'Take for you and to pay tomorrow. I see to your eye you will come back', the shopkeeper says and she does and Luana has had her first encounter with Turkish generosity.

Of course this expedition is also Luana’s introduction to 'retail therapy' and she catches on faster than a 5 year old in a toy shop.

Let’s go to Greece for lunch we decide next day as Kastellorizo beckons across the 3 miles of water that separates this lone Greek outpost from the Turkish mainland. On our way we search in vain for the famed Blue Grotto but take the consolation prize with a swim in a totally deserted bay with towering rust coloured cliffs on either side.

Then it’s to the harbour and the same Vangelis who tied us up 10 years ago with his 'welcome to Europe' opener. For you I have special lobster, (as he did 10 years ago) – just three is fresh today.

Mother Sarah, once a child in Greece, bursts into tears of joy as the plunk, plunk, plunk of the bouzouki from Vangeli’s taverna drifts across to the boat as we secure our lines. Kastellorizo of course has well known connections with Australia, with most of the population having moved there after the Second World War, but now the third and fourth generation are revisiting their roots and we witness the tragic consequences of an arm wrestle between the old and the new and between two cultures.

From the next table in the taverna comes the Australian accented voice of a young female, 'I’m eighteen and I’m old enough to decide what I want to do. My friends are all in Mykonos and I want to go to Mykonos. I’m not Greek, I was born in Australia and I am Australia