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SeaScape Trip Report - Installment 2 Mike Lee and Mary-Louise Johnson May/June 2002 Day 5/Keci Buku
to Dirsek, Turkey – Mike rose early to take a run and I use this last
opportunity to shave my legs before boarding our SeaScape boat.
After breakfast, I decide to walk around town a bit and search for an
ATM. Marmaris is way too touristy
and garish for my taste and I’m really feeling ready to move on. A van is at the hotel by 10:45 to pick us all up and take us
to Orhaniye to meet our boats. It
takes a long time to get going as we’re still searching for an ATM that
actually works and we have to stop at the ferry marina to meet our last
passenger, Richard, who is coming in from Rhodes.
It’s about a 30 minute drive to Orhaniye, a lovely little village on
Keci Buku bay. The bay is unusual
in that it has a long sand bar across it where people can walk – looks like
they’re walking on water. Our
boats, the Vassilis and Angelina, are docked at a small taverna and we meet our
captains, Diane and Ray, for a brief orientation.
We have 5 passengers per boat for the first week, but will pick up more
and be full for week 2. Mike and I
are assigned a cabin on Vassilis, along with 2 Sharons and Richard.
Diane also has a mate, Charlie from Northern Ireland, helping out on this
trip. Our cabins are very small but
biggest issue is storage space. I
could find a place to store my duffel if I had somewhere to put it contents, but
since I don’t…I end up sleeping with my bag at the foot of my bunk for 2
weeks (and so does Mike). I get
real good at sleeping “scrunched up.” We
get an intro on how to use the “heads” and a brief tour of the boat, and
then we’re off and running. Diane
motors us out of the bay, gives us a quick lesson on putting up sails – it’s
not as easy as I had hoped and most of us on our boat are “green beans” so
I’m sure we’ll need more instruction later on.
We have good wind and make a short sail to Dirsek where we dock at
Hassan’s Place, a small, single taverna in the bay.
It was a rockin’ and rollin’ sail with cold winds and even colder
water coming over the sides. We’re
all freezing cold and Mike has turned green (didn’t get that meclyzine in him
soon enough!). There are a couple
of other boats docked here, plus toilet and shower facilities – yeah! A few of us take a quick swim in the bay – and I mean QUICK
as the water temperature is definitely frigid.
This ain’t no foo foo and certainly not the Caribbean!
Our boat hosts happy hour and the guys concoct a very strong rum mixture
similar to rum swizzles. I have a
Greek beer (Mythos) also. Refrigeration
is at a premium on these boats and freezers do not exist which means NO ICE.
As the trip progresses, I start to find that warm beer and even warmer
mixed drinks results in a huge cutback in my drinking habits!
We all head up to Hassan’s for dinner.
SeaScape policy is to fix breakfasts and lunches on the boat and eat
ashore at our own expense for dinner. We
all agree to share “mezes” (appetizers), wine and water at each dinner but
order individual entrees. The total
price is then divided equally among all passengers to avoid any hassles dividing
up the bill. Surprisingly, fish and
seafood are the most expensive items on any menu.
The area we are sailing in the Aegean Sea is nearly fished out so fish
are considered a rare commodity. Lamb
and chicken dishes are most common and least expensive.
I opt for a lamb kebab. The
price for wine, appetizers and dinner comes to 20 million lira (about $9 US).
Turkey continues to be a bargain everywhere we go.
My first night in the bunk goes OK, but I need to figure out where to
turn on the lights so I don’t have to do so much stumbling around in the dark.
Some folks opt to sleep on deck, but space there is limited due to
Vassilis’ deck layout. Day 6/Bozburun,
Turkey – It’s a lazy morning, the sun is shining and everyone is
moving slowly. There is no hurry to
get going as it will be a short sail today.
We have decided to give our three Sharons “special” names so we can
tell them apart. We now have Kiwi
Sharon (from New Zealand), Yoga Sharon (from Portland and into yoga) and Psycho
Sharon (also from Portland and a psychologist).
Yoga Sharon and Brad are doing yoga on the veranda of the taverna
overlooking the water, others are just sitting around having coffee.
We take off about 11 a.m. but there is no wind today so we end up
motoring most of the way to our next stop.
Our destination is Bozburun, a small tourist village that also has a boat
building industry. They make the
popular Turkish wooden gulets that are common in this area.
Bozburun is located in a large bay and we pull up to the dock at
Aphrodite Mooring, Hotel & Restaurant, a beautiful spot with interesting
rooms, a bar, restaurant and swimming area.
There are a number of Dutch tourists staying here.
This area is very hilly, rocky and dry.
Reminds me of the starkness of Mochimo National Park in Venezuela.
Angelina ties up next to us and we all share lunch.
Yoga Sharon and Mike have made a great egg salad and fruit salad, and the
other boat brings a sort of shepherd’s pie casserole.
Everyone is starved and polishes off all the food in no time.
Much of the afternoon is spent lazing around, sunbathing, etc.
The 3 Sharons, Charlie, Linda and I walk into the village around 3 p.m.
The road is a sort of goat path – rocky, dry and winding. It only takes us 20-30 minutes to reach town.
The boat building is spectacular to see and there are a number of small
gift shops and restaurants. Yoga
Sharon decides she’d like to get her hair cut so she stops in at the local
barber and we all watch and drink apple tea as the barber snips away at her
hair. It looks great.
A number of the guys end up getting haircuts and shaves in Bozburun as
well – it was an interesting process including burning the hair out of their
ears with a flaming Q-tip! We do a
little shopping and then sit in town and drink beer (Efes, what else?) before
catching Aphrodite’s launch back to our boat (the putt-putt kind of reminded
me of a Windjammer launch). I head
for the local showers and spend some time lying in a hammock before returning to
the boat for happy hour. Kiwi
Sharon has prepared a great rum/banana/orange concoction and we eat snacks along
with our drinks on the Angelina. Dinner
is at Aphrodites. We first get a
huge spread of mezes, then soup and our choice of a couple of entrees.
I opt for döner (spicy) kebab and it truly is hot to the taste.
There is also a great dessert spread with fresh cherries, strawberries,
puddings and baklava. The bar has a new disco ball and the music is cranked up so
we dance away the evening to Turkish tunes, old disco hits and some of
Walter’s “boating CD.” Walter
is a dancing machine tonight! Day 7/Datca,
Turkey – We head out around 10 this morning as we have a bit
longer sail today. Unfortunately,
there is very little wind again so we end up doing a lot of motoring.
Sails go up for about an hour, but we’re not making progress.
Again, the landscape is very stark – large rocky hills and cliffs with
bits of dried green here and there. At
one point, we pass through a very narrow strait which is quite shallow where the
water color turns a beautiful turquoise. Otherwise,
most of the water is a deep navy blue. We
pull into Datca about 2 p.m. Datca
is a lovely little seaport city that caters mainly to tourists.
There are lots of boats in the harbor including gulets and Sunsail
charters. We dock easily, but
Angelina gets hung up on a line and spends a lot of time, energy and muscle
trying to free herself. Their crew
comes out of it all muddy, bruised and exhausted, but it is a good team building
experience. We’re docked next to
the Maradonna restaurant whose owner is extremely friendly and helpful – and,
most importantly, he lets us use his restrooms.
Also, Mehmet, a local carpet merchant, is helpful and offers his internet
connection for “free.” We
wander around town a bit and check out the shops. Shopkeepers here are the most gregarious I’ve seen since
Istanbul, but, thankfully, there are a lot fewer. About 9 of us have arranged to visit the local hamam (Turkish
bath) so a cab picks us up late in the afternoon and off we go for a good clean
up. This proves to be a most
interesting experience. First, we
check in our valuables, are given a cotton wrap and go to a changing room to
remove our clothes. Next, we are
led to the bath area which is a big round room with a domed ceiling.
There is a large round heated marble platform in the middle of the room
with seating and water basins around the perimeter.
The procedure is to sit in the room for awhile (steamy!) to get your skin
loosened up. Then you lie on the
hot stone and first get scrubbed down by a large, hairy Turkish man wearing just
a towel and a loofah mitt. It’s a
rough scrub all over with the mitt to loosen the skin, then you get passed to
his partner – another big hairy man – to be lathered up and massaged with
soap. Next you rinse off and get wrapped in towels and sit back in
the lobby waiting to get a quick massage with lotion. It all sounds good, but the place is pretty dumpy, the
Turkish men are trying to service too many people at once, they keep taking
“smoke breaks” out on the front steps, there’s a TV blaring in the lobby
and the owner’s children are sitting there observing all these crazy
Americans! Kind of a three ring
circus but will make for great stories when we get home!!!
Dinner is at Maradonna tonight which is a good thing since it gets colder
and windier as it gets later and we can easily run back to our boat to add
layers of clothing. All of our
dinners are eaten open air, which is a special treat for someone like me who
spends her winters cooped up in Minnesota.
Several members of our group visit late into the evening drinking raki
(the Turkish version of ouzo) with Maradonna’s owner and Mehmet (carpet guy). Day 8/Ova Buku,
Turkey – We had hoped to sail early today to get a head start on a
flotilla of Germans chartering Sunsails in order to beat them to our next port.
Unfortunately, we had committed to watching a carpet demonstration at
Mehmet’s place in exchange for the “free” internet use.
Several of us stop by his shop but have no intention of purchasing.
He and his partner are very good at explaining the origin, history,
workmanship, etc. of the carpets. In
fact, they are so good that every single one of us walks out with a carpet under
our arm! A very good day for Mehmet!!!
We finally get underway, but there is little wind so we end up motoring
again to Ova Buku and arrive about lunchtime.
We share lunch with the Angelina folks and then it turns into a very lazy
day. Ova Buku is a small,
traditional Turkish village with docking space and a stretch of dark sand beach
with hammocks and chaise lounges. The best establishment here is Ogun’s Place.
There are a couple of other small restaurants (which no one goes to
because they don’t have public showers) and a “supermarket.”
Ogun is a friendly, young, handsome and very entrepreneurial Turk who has
all of his competition beat out by a mile.
Not only does he have dock services, showers, toilets, comfortable chairs
and personalized tee-shirts, but he also employs a “five star” chef and
serves the best food we’ve eaten all week!
To order dinner at Ogun’s, you are escorted into the kitchen to look
under cooking lids and watch what the chef has prepared, then choose what you
think looks best. In addition to
the usual lamb and chicken dishes, tonight’s menu features wild boar stew –
and it proves to be a big hit with members of our group.
Apparently, one of the local farmers had just killed the boar today
because it had been tearing up his garden for the past week.
The mezes (appetizers) here are outstanding as well and most of us eat
and drink to excess before turning in after midnight. Photos on Webshots: Istanbul before boarding: http://community.webshots.com/album/40676351JlBcqZ Week One from Turkey - Part 1: http://community.webshots.com/album/40678737PuYeqv Week One from Turkey - Part 2: http://community.webshots.com/album/42007934xyvvvC Week Two from Greece - Part 1: http://community.webshots.com/album/41924549DeSznv Week Two from Greece - Part 2: http://community.webshots.com/album/42007991CCbeww Athens After the Cruise: http://community.webshots.com/album/42009364CKxFbV |
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