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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 h

As in the British Empire, if you lived within the Ottoman empire, you were first and foremost an Ottoman subject, and then secondly a Turk, or Greek, or Serb, or Albanian, or Arab, or Armenian, or Kurd etc. As I wrote in ‘ Meet the Ottomans ’, subjects living inside the empire - the ‘Abode of Peace’ - could have enjoyed a generally peaceful and tolerant existence. At the frontier and beyond – the ‘Abode of War’ – well, that was a different matter. Admittedly, peace and toler

We anchored Missy Bear in Round Bay, launched Ursa Minor, and we four glided silently around he headland and into Tomb Bay. We were on an adventure to search for ancient treasure. We beached the dinghy on a shingle shore, beneath steep, rocky cliffs clothed in pine. Godfrey and Emily stayed to guard our means of escape, while Skipper and Lewis (Tomb-Raider, aged 12) set off up the wooded hillside, in wet flip-flops, alert and beady-eyed. We had already spied some basic, ‘pige

I didn’t sleep well last night. Various boat noises kept me awake, and then live music at a marina bar played until well past 02:00. I found myself singing along to “ Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight ”, although by that time I was praying for headphones. I finally drifted off to sleep only to be woken at 03:00 by Richard, who had slept through all of the above, but was now complaining of voices chatting on a nearby boat. So, I wasn’t at my most alert, when Richard jumpe

Missy Bear anchored with two long lines ashore And so it was that Richard retrieved the two long shorelines, and hauled in the anchor at Boynuz Buku, in the bay of Gocek, enabling us to head up to the top of the bay to D-Marin, the marina that will be our home for a couple of weeks. Skipper mooched Missy Bear over to look at the fuel and waste pump-out dock, but the queue was enormous. All the charter boats were milling around in the stiff breeze, jostling for position to ref