After just over three weeks in Turkey, it was time to start our journey back to Bozburun, where we planned to check out of Turkey, and back into Greece at Symi.
It’s been a fascinating time. We’d had a few nights in Turkey already when we arrived in the Bay of Fethiye, and had been blown away with the scenery, the friendly people, and the food. We were due into the D-Marin marina in Gocek on the Friday, so we had a couple of nights at anchor in the steep, wooded bays before heading in. The scenery was stunning. The western part of Fethiye Bay is an archipelago of twelve islands, with many coves, stunningly clear water and environmental protection. The surrounding mountains are clad with pine forests.
But what we couldn’t get over was the number of boats! The Solent is busy with container ships, ferries, big yachts, little yachts and dinghies. But this was nautical mile on nautical mile of 'big yachts', 'bigger yachts' and 'even bigger yachts'. Our sailing friends, Tony and Rachelle, said it made the summer on the coast of the south of France look empty in comparison. The scenery was love at first sight, but we were shell-shocked by how busy it was.
We were initially berthed on the outer quay with the ‘even bigger yachts’, and had some slop from the constant plying back and for of tenders with their charges. But after a few days, we were moved to ‘B’ pontoon: a narrow, shallow waterway with lazy-lines like a cat’s cradle either side. Our view was of the mountains, and we loved it.
And slowly, Gocek began to work its charm. People told us it would, but at first we hadn’t been convinced. We told each other how pleased we were that we’d booked Leros for a year’s contract (and we are). Then we started to say things like: “lovely restaurants”; “great food shops”; lovely calm bay for good day sailing”. And we realised that, actually, we quite liked it.
If you walk to the end of D-Marin marina, you will cross a little, arched canal bridge, with villas on the land side, which I think are the D-Marin resort condominiums. Golf carts from the marina whizz past, taking guests into the town. You walk through an open-air theatre (scene of the cruellest cut of all party) and you start to emerge into Gocek itself. The initial section is a wide quay with local shops set off to a large square and the mosque. Keep walking around and the quay starts to house restaurants with lots of outside tables on one side, and gulets, and local boats in the water.
Parallel to the quay is a wide shopping street, filled with all manner of shops: boat chandlers galore; clothes shops; seaside paraphernalia; soft furnishings; local food shops; and barbers. It’s a really buzzing place. Towards the end you come to the supermarkets: the Swiss chain Migros; the French chain Carrefour; the Migros upmarket store called ‘The MacroCentre’ (I know, they should have chosen a better marketing agency); and also, the delectable ‘Gourmet Garage’.
I have to confess that we did most of our shopping in these two latter shops, plus a great fruit-and-veg shop at the start of the town, which sold a huge variety of fresh salads and herbs, as well as everything else you’d expect. [Ed – probably grown in the many square miles of polytunnels in the valleys south of Fethiye.]
But it was from Gourmet Garage that we bought the first pack of bacon we’d had since arriving back in September. Maybe they sell it in Greece and we’d just not looked. So, we had a fresh-bread bacon buttie for breakfast. I won’t tell you the price! We have not yearned for British food and we don’t have the jars of Marmite or Branston pickle in the cupboard, nor brown sauce for bacon buttie. Having said that, we have bought jars of 'chutney' – the sort you’d see in delis and farm shops in the UK – from small, specialist shops in Greece (and manufactured in Greece I hasten to add). There is no denying that Gocek is expensive. But there are hundreds of shoppers bobbing out in the bay with money to burn, I suppose.
The base ingredients for Greek and Turkish cuisine are largely similar. After all, they share a similar Mediterranean climate with a great selection of fresh vegetables, fish, yoghurt, cheese, lamb or goat etc. But the cuisine is different. And shoot me down for saying this, but Turkish food, we found, tended to be tastier with more herbs and spices, including the use of chillies. Greek cooking included mint, whereas Turkish dishes had lots of parsley. We had fabulous mezes in Turkey, including yoghurt with walnuts, yoghurt with parsley, fabulous fish, delectable lamb, and now, quite a lot of beef. But of course, no pork on the menu, despite Turkey officially being a secular country, and has been since 1928.
Many shops do sell alcohol, though it is much more expensive than in Greece. Restaurants don’t seem to sell a carafe of house wine (from a box out the back), it is all by the bottle. However, the wine has been excellent. Many Turks, with access to a boat, head across to the nearby Greek islands, and on their return, fill the boat with duty-free alcohol. They check out, get their paperwork, head along to the duty-free shop, shop ‘til they drop, and then it gets delivered to their boat ready for departure. We’ve seen the Greek delivery bit of it, and also the unloading bit in Bozburun in Turkey.
As we needed some warranty work done on the boat, we stayed in the marina for a couple of weeks. We hired a car and drove into the countryside. It was extremely interesting, especially the Lycian history. Richard will cover some of the more recent history when he has finished reading the excellent book “Birds Without Wings”, by Louis de Bernieres.
In addition to expensive mega-yachts, D-Marin is also home to quite a number of charter boats. We even spotted a few other Oceanis 40.1s. One was called Orion, and had a star logo in the second “o”, continuing our trend of Missy Bear looking up at the North Star. But we also met a lovely Turkish couple, just along the pontoon from us with a 40.1 of their own, called 'Berlin' (where she had been born). We visited each-others’ boats and compared and contrasted with interest. I did eye up their rather nice espresso machine, but we would only be able to use it on shore power. We’ll stick to our cafetiere, and our filters for when we are in an anchorage.
Richard’s sister Rachael came to stay nearby with her husband, Godfrey, and two children, Emily and Lewis. They came to visit Missy Bear twice, once for a day-sail and sleepover, and then again for a second day sail. The bay was less busy than when we arrived, but with good sea breezes and flat seas. We had a lot of fun on our day sails, and we think the children enjoyed it. [Ed - They swam off the back of the boat in nearly 100m of water. We passed close by Roman Abramovic’s boat, ‘Eclipse’. We visited ancient tombs. We played water polo. We played card games. And we had burgers for lunch! Emily and Lewis steered, helped with fenders, lines, and learned the phonetic alphabet as well, so maybe there are two budding sailors there...]
All too soon, it was our final day in Gocek. We shopped for our return trip, stowed our stuff and prepared to leave. That evening we attended the end-of-season BBQ run by the marina. We chatted with our new friends from ‘Berlin’ and also with Nigel and Alex who had sorted out most of our warranty items (on behalf of our agent, Sunbird.) We didn’t stay late and party hard, so at 07:45 we motored over to the pump-out station (although we hoped to check in to Greece on the Tuesday, and our blue card stamp was valid until Wednesday, we didn’t want to risk it.)
We retraced our steps to Ekincek, Bozukkale and finally Bozburun, where we checked out of Turkey. The next day, twenty-five days after entering Bozburun, we gently slipped our mooring, pulled up the anchor, and motored out of the harbour, down the bay, and across to the Greek island of Symi, where we would once more check in.
Once over the watery border, we lowered our Turkish courtesy flag, and raised our Greek one, plus our yellow quarantine flag, which we would fly until we were checked in. The voyage was calm, and the most exciting thing was picking up 5G on Cosmote Greece. We were back in the land of EU data roaming once more.
And there to meet us were Money Penny and our new-to-be friends on Infinite Blue...