Turkey 2003

Our annual sailing holiday this year was to the Bodrum area of Turkey. Doug, Laura, Gilly and myself chartered a Benetau 393 for two weeks and revisited some of the places we had enjoyed in the past.

This shows our track from Bodrum on day 1 to the East and our return from the South on our last day. You can see where we had a problem with the roller reefing on the main and had to head back into wind for 20 mins while we sorted this out

We spent a few days here as this was our first visit. Rather off the beaten track but really beautiful.Once more you can see where we re-traced our track and headed back to Amazon Creek after 1hr of battling into increasing winds and waves.

This was our first stop after an afternoons sail from Bodrum. Very quiet but with water and electricity free on the jetty, and dinner in the restaurant It cost £52 for dinner and two bottles of wine for four of us.

She is supposed to have imported galley loads of sand from Africa so that she and Marc Anthony could sunbathe here. We just swam!

We left Cleopatras Island through rather a narrow and windy channel and were quickly followed by two other yachts. We were all making for Sogut for the night but we got there first and found a spot on the jetty. A lovely sheltered bay with a great marina and restaurant.

Day 3 found us in English Harbour - so called because it was a base for the Special Boat Squadron during the last war. The wind was getting up and Force 8 was forecast so we were glad to be here.

The wind had moderated a little so we set sail from Sogut to Amazon Creek. It was a little scary heading in towards a lee shore with the waves getting larger and the wind speed increasing, but once we were through the entrance it all calmed down and we anchored in 6m with a rope to a tree on the shore. We had two nights here as we had to turn back on our first atttempt to get away due to the wind getting up to 32+kts.

We had set off from Amazon Creek at 06:30am to take advantage of the lighter winds in the morning but even so they got up to NE/25kts. It was a long haul of 60miles but once around Ince Burun we turned South and creamed along under a reefed main. We had to battle to get into Datca with 35kts on the nose! Here we are tied up to the jetty with the help of a very nice harbourmaster.

It was a long haul of 60miles from the North before we arrived in this beautiful gulf. We had been here before but found some lovely new places.

From Datca we headed east and stopped for lunch at Sunsail's Perili Club where we had stayed 10 years previously. It has been extended considerably and looks to be a very nice place to stay.

One of the new buildings - luxury rooms, all with air conditioning.

This is view of the SunSail day yachts at the club. The restaurant and watersports are in the distance.

Bencik Creek is quite a popular spot for a nightstop. There were quite a few boats at anchor, including this beautiful schooner. No problems in finding a place however. Amazingly when we looked at the chartplotter, we found we were only a couple of miles from where we were two nights ago - in Amazon Creek. You can see this clearly on the chart.

Today was a flat calm and we leisurely chugged around under engine finding a great spot for anchoring for lunch. When the afternoon wind blew we had a great sail to Port Losta and moored up at Osmans Place. Osman has a mouth full of golden teeth and was very welcoming. Nice to revisit the place.

We had met up with a sunsail flotilla in Port Losta. The skipper was called Lavinia and the hostie was Anya. They told us about this new place which had just opened here so we called in for lunch.

SunSail were right. They were incredibly welcoming and showed us the kitchen. Although we hadn't intended to eat here it looked so good and we were the only boat, so we did. It was super with really fresh fish. This is a bonito and a brill, straight out of the sea a couple of hours ago.

Dirsek was only a short sail so we arrived there fairly early. The original owner Youssef was there visiting and it was nice to meet up once more. He is a lawyer who lives part of the year in the USA and a very pleasant guy.

From Dirsek we sailed around the headland, looking out for the infamous Ataboli Rock which ten years before Sunsail had warned us about. Fortunately they now have a light on it. Bozburin is a quiet little town with some nice restaurants and very good supermarkets.

We were just a bit concerned that we had so far to go to get back to Bodrum, particularly with the strong NE winds, so we sailed North to a sheltered bay at Kurucu Buku where we anchored and spent a night on board. Laura and Doug did the cooking - very good Spaghetti Bolognese, flavoured with some local Oregano.

This was to be our last night before heading back to Bodrum so we chose Ogun's Place. We had an exciting moment coming ito this bay as I dropped a fender over and there was some frantic manoeuvering in the strong wind to try to retrieve it, before we all went on the rocks!

There was only one other yacht here and it was very quiet but Ogun was a most genial and intelligent host.

Gilly at the helm, being overtaken by a Turkish Gulet

We arrived back in Bodrum, spent the night on the boat and most of the next day around the pool. Our flight was very late and didn't arrive in Gatwick until the early hours. On the way home from the airport we discovered we had left the house keys behind. We didn't think that our neighbour Jean, who has a key, would appreciate being woken up at 05:00am, so we kipped down in our garden shed for a few hours. We slept like logs and woke up at 09:00. What an end to a great holiday.

Turkey 2003

Our annual sailing holiday this year was to the Bodrum area of Turkey. Doug, Laura, Gilly and myself chartered a Benetau 393 for two weeks and revisited some of the places we had enjoyed in the past.