Soggy Marmaris

By Wednesday (30 April), we were on Mehmet’s restaurant pontoon in Ciftlik, just south-west of the bay of Marmaris. Our weather app, Windy, said today was the start of the great rains round 14:00. Apparently, it had been exceedingly wet there the previous week as well. With only two hours required to get to our marina, we had a lazy start, casting off just before 10:00. 

Marmaris Bay felt a bit like entering Chichester harbour. You feel like you’ve entered, but actually you have miles to go before you reach anywhere. Except Marmaris is sunnier. And it doesn’t have a sand-bar to cross!

The ubiquitous Coastguard boat arrived at the marina entrance at the same time as Missy Bear, with its ‘blues and reds’ flashing away. It headed straight for the fuel dock. Phew!

Siuper marineros came to help us in, and after we had tied up, we trotted down to the marina office. We passed a bottles store, but no Migros mini-market, as shown on the marina guide. There was a mini-shopping arcade though, selling all the latest gear, that the well-dressed yachtie should be sporting.

And at 14:00 on the dot, a thunderclap sent by Zeus heralded the start of the rain. Zeus is also the Greek god of rain. But a shower wasn’t going to deter your brave blog-writers, and we pulled on our light-weight, wet-weather gear, and set off to explore Marmaris.

We rather liked the town. It was fairly modern [Ed, an earthquake had raised it in 1954, sparing only the very oldest, smallish quarter around the castle hill.]. There is a long promenade hosting bars and restaurants all along its length. Back a street - and unfortunately nout out of ear-shot of to the marina - was a street crammed with nightclubs. There is also an amazing number of ships’ chandlers and yacht-servicing companies.

The main shopping streets sported a couple of small supermarkets (the big Migros was out of town), and also some specialist shops selling herbs, spices, nuts etc. Although there was a “bazaar”, it was completely unlike the hustle of the Istanbul market, and sported some pretty ordinary shops and a few Turkish delight vendors. Richard described it as the Arndale Centre with spice.

We spotted a family coming out of a cheap-clothing shop, chatting away in Mancunian accents, weighted down with the shop’s logo bags [Ed, And, probably wondering why they had brought the Lancastrian weather with them.]

Skipper was keen to view a couple of the sights in the old town (still raining), and eventually we called in to a restaurant for a glass of the Turkish chai. I think they took pity on our bedraggled state, and refused to charge us the 50p cost for them.

It was still raining extremely hard when we got back to the marina a few hours later. By now, the wide pathways had turned to canals [Ed, the Turks don’t do drainage falls and channels], and we picked our way through standing water, shielding from the spray of the odd, passing car.

Back in the cockpit, we managed to strip-off the worst of our soggy clothes, and hang them outside. We were completely soaked through, even our shower proof gear. We should have been wearing full oilskins, but they are in the loft in Cirencester! Fortunately, after a warm shower, and with the heating turned on, we cheered up. It was aen evening in with some hot food, and some TV.

The next day, the rain continued. It did easy slightly for us to get to a marina coffee-shop, where we were meeting the Turkish agent, who had done the crew paperwork for our friends Tony and Lynn, who were joining us later that day. The coffee shop was full of two main groups: yachties who looked like racing crew, all sporting matching team colours; or bewildered-looking American tourists from the large cruise ship docked up in the port. I don’t think this was the weather they had signed-up for.

Windy was showing rain for the next day, although, optimistically, a little lighter. We decided to book an extra night at the marina, so that Tony and Lynn could recover from their journey, and we could do some victualling. Their flight wasn’t due in until after 20:00, and they wouldn’t get to us until after 22:00. I rang the marina office and booked us in.

By early evening, Richard had cabin-fever, and one of the many marina bars was beckoning. We played Cribbage, and shared a toasted, chicken wrap. I think Richard was happy to stay there all night, but I was quite keen to get back on-board between the heavy showers. It would have been a pain to dry-out our stuff, whilst having guests arriving. Fortunately, the guests managed to dodge the showers, and we enjoyed some cheese and biscuits, and a glass of wine.

Awaiting the late arrival of friends...

Lynn, who lived in Turkiye for a couple of years some time ago [Ed, and had had a Turkish husband], has better Turkish than the rest of us put together. We wandered along the promenade on a dinner hunt that evening, and she found us a restaurant where all the diners were speaking Turkish. We were lucky enough to get a table under the roof, rather than the awning (it was still raining), and enjoyed an excellent meal of mezzes, salads, and kebabs.

Luckily, the next day, Zeus had got bored, and had thundered off elsewhere.  We were at the fuel dock at 08:30, ready to top-up with diesel, pump out our black-water, and set off for eastwards for our next adventure.