We had a lovely sail over to Gocek area, only to find it crammed full of charter boats which was a huge surprise this late in the season. We headed back to Fethiye for another night to re-evaluate our plans. It seems Gocek race week starts on 4th Nov and there may have been some practicing going on. Going ashore we headed to the fish market, the fish stalls are arranged in a square in the middle of a courtyard with restaurants around the outside. You buy your fish from one of the vendors and then take it to the restaurant of your choice to be cooked for £1.50. The restaurant supplies starters, salads, wine etc at extra cost. We had a lovely time, only upset by the noise of two Turkish bands trying to outdo one another in rival next door restaurants! Oh and the salted red carrot juice generously gifted by the next door table when we asked what it was isnt to be recommended.
Other than that day, unfortunately the light winds have continued to be persistant and we had to motor off to our next destination called Gemiler Adisi or St Nicholas Island. So named because it's believed that Santa Claus lived there for some time. We anchored in a stretch of water with lines ashore between the island and the mainland. It was certainly a busy place and just as we thought it was fairly full a flotilla of 27 boats arrived! They all squeezed in but it made for an entertaining evening. We enjoyed bread, pancakes and fruit from the local boats that visited selling their wares.
The island is a popular place, both for party boats and day trippers coming to see the Byzantine village ruins, quite impressively covering most of the island and in generally good condition. We enjoyed a walk around trying to guess what each structure was used for, 3 churches were identified on a basic map, we also found a strange stone tunnel structure with steps inside heading down to the shoreline. There was also a huge building with a small door at one end and no other openings, dark storage room?
The next day we had a Kayak expedition around the bays of the mainland and around the island. Sadly we found a large dead turtle floating in one indentation of the cliff. We also found a blowhole spitting out seawater after every wave. A swim off a nearby beach refreshed us before the paddle back to the boat to face the party boats again but we were relived to find far fewer due to it being a Saturday.
Another nights sleep and we headed West again under clouds for the first time this summer, they didn't last long and by late lunchtime we were anchored in Kargi Koyu in full sun where we are now.
We have to plan our next stops but there is no wind forecast for the next 10 days, very strange for mid autumn but the temperatures are holding up which is a bonus.
