Share an extract from a family cruising experience on the Lycean coast in Turkey at the end of the 2005 season.

Hi everyone!
Last night the wind blew and blew and we were very happy and warm in our wee berth in the Fethiye marina. It is the first time for two weeks we have been in a marina berth. It is nights like that that the central heating on the boat is just fantastic. We stayed up late doing emails so it was a slow start this morning. We went for a long walk around the shops today. Many of them are about to close for the winter. The girls split off from the boys. Mike went off to barter till his little heart’s content (and the Turks will be pleased to see the back of him), while Jamie and I went off to find shop keepers we liked! If anyone else asks me if I’m Dutch or German I think I’ll scream!! We do however get the occasional Kia Ora from the locals and most seem to know where NZ is – or at least Aussie. We came back to the boat, cleaned up, tanked up on water and came out of the Marina (75 Turkish Lira a night – the lira is about equal to one kiwi).

This morning we wrote down some general notes from our experience in Turkey– things we keep forgetting to talk about.

Fragrances
The different sights often have different smells.
The first Lycean tombs we found at Tomb Bay had the most DISGUSTING smelling trees with bees everywhere – we have since discovered these trees are everywhere and have found out they are Carob trees (the stuff like chocolate). I guess the place smelled like that when they built the tombs in 400BC.
Many of the ruins we visited have wild herbs growing. Like at the pirate’s castle in Kale Koy in the Kerkova Roads cruising area ... This had Oregano and Sage – and the locals had dried it and were selling it.
There was a blind lady selling Oregano and some chains of beads. She pointed to her eyes and her knees and said “Kaput”. We bought some more beads just to support her. Many of the old people seem to be blind, and a surprising number of older people have lost limbs of some description. Much more than you would normally find at home.
Another ancient site with herbs was at the mountain top stronghold of Tlos where Bellerphon fell to the ground from the back of the winged horse Pegasuus. There was Thyme everywhere amongst the jumbled ruins of Lycean tombs, Roman stadia, and the Helenistic period caslte. Thyme seems so appropriate for such an ancient place. I’m off home to grow a herb garden!

The Turks
We really have liked all the Turks we have met. They are quite laid back, much as we found them 20 years ago. Although they do drive their cars fast, they aren’t particularly aggressive or threatening once you get use to sitting at the red lights and having about 5 people line up around you like a starting block!! (We are always surrounded by a couple of motor bikes).
Generally I think their behavior is less aggressive than your average experience on the southern motorway in Auckland.
We have had so many positive experiences with the individuals we have met – the lady selling scarves at Kale Koy who showed us around the whole place before asking us if we would like to buy one – which of course we did.
We got lost on our way to Tlos and met some farmers on their tractor who were only too pleased to assist.
Jan, the car rental guy in Fetiye, and Mohammed the guy from Finike car rental were so pleasant and helpful, even after we had got the price down by the obligatory 25%.
We fell in love with Jacob who sold us the stone sculpture at Tlos, who adopted us, showed us around the ruins and then joined us for a meal at his friend’s restaurant.
Wherever we go we find that once we have established that we are Kiwis, the locals could not be more friendly and welcoming.
Little Chris, in particular, gets a lot of attention – kissing and cuddling from men and women that we meet. One young couple in the gardens at Finike wanted to adopt him, and they took many photos.
Jamie has worn a scarf over her head a bit and looks very much the part – to the extent that one of the locals thought she was Turkish.
We are here during the Ramadan – so the restaurants are fairly empty due to the locals fasting. We hear the calling to prayer from the minarets – a sound that we have grown to appreciate. Tonight we can hear singing that sounds like the local church choir – quite a Christian sounding hymn although we are sure it is not. We caught glimpses into the mosques on our drive through the countryside returning from Tlos. This is not at all part of Mr Bush’s axis of evil. They are small devout congregations going about their faith.
There is a strong contrast between the young modern chicks with the hair and makeup, jeans, flashing bellybutton and funny boots crossing the street to talk to girls in full head scarf and bloomers of the traditional dress.

Food memories
Daddy’s omelets with today’s surprising contents - pasta, salami, unidentified green stuff;
lots of Raki / Ouzo at $14 a bottle – keeps us for a week;
Feta cheese by the kilo;
Fabulous yoghurt, garlic yoghurt, chilli yoghurt, fridges full of nothing but yoghurt;
melons;
More Raki, Efes beer;
Calamari in 5 different ways served with tomato, cucumber and feta salads.
Greek coffee vs. Turkish coffee,
The still warm village bread for 250,000 lira ( = 25c)

The Sea
The sea is unbearably blue at times – mainly above 27 deg and at times over 30deg. When the sun is out which is most of the time it is glorious.
At Porto San Stefano near Kerkova we swam in crystal clear water and found a large school of sardines that circled around us in a dazzling display of synchronized swimming – quite hypnotic. Out of Fetiye we anchored in 18m of water – and I could clearly see the anchor lying on the bottom.
The harbour at Kasterlorizo (3 miles off shore from Kas) has been in use for thousands of years – but the water is like Gin – I seriously thought we were going to run aground as we came into the quay. The kids went along the quay looking at all the things that had been dropped into the water over time.
We met a loggerhead turtle at Fetiye – about 1m long who observed us carefully as he lazily circled the boat for ½ an hour where we were anchored just out of the marina.
We saw hundreds of flying fish darting out from either side of the boat as we came into Fetiye from our long voyage – small silver darts shooting up to 30m along the surface.

Got to go to bed
Love from Aurelia