As we got A B Sea ready to sail on Monday 26th April 2019, the wind was brisk making it a bit chilly and it was cloudy. That reflected how I felt as we motored away into the 15 knot head wind. Because we were not only leaving Kaş for another anchorage. We were leaving Kaş for good. Our five months in this charming seaside town on the ancient Lycian way had been nurturing. We’d had good shelter for A B Sea in the harbour, and made long lasting friendships with locals, other yachties and overlanders. But you can’t stay in one place for ever, especially when you live on a 46ft yacht that practically begs you to go out sailing.
So here we were, Baz and I, standing in the cockpit and waving goodbye to Kaş marina bay for what may be the last time. We weren’t totally alone though. Our good friend and Patron, Jim Furness and his crew mate Alex were coming along with us all the way to Samos in Greece. So while we were leaving what I consider our Turkish home behind, we weren’t totally ripping that umbilical cord out in one swift swipe. No, we had more weeks of laughter and great conversation with Jim and Alex ahead of us.
Kaş to Yeşilköy Kalkan
Although we attempted to motor sail, the wind just wasn’t on our side, it was on the nose, so we motored at a steady 5.5 knots until we reached Yeşilköy bay to the west of Kalkan which took us just less than 4 hours to reach. So by 3.30pm we were anchored in 12 metres of water with 50 metres of chain out in what the Turkish pilot book told us was sand and weeds. We’d heard that katabatic winds increase at night in that bay, so not taking any chances, we set the anchor alarm app.
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Yeşilköy to Karacaören
The following morning we were glad to discover we were in the same position, and at 9.45am we set off for our next anchorage which Jim had raved about – Karacaören. Of course, the wind gods are known to be fickle in the Mediterranean, and today they were playing hard to get, so while we had sunshine, we had no wind. We motored. It was nevertheless a pleasant trip and after motoring around a little island rather than dice with rocks in a narrow passage, we arrived at Karacaören.
The owner of the restaurant tucked away in the corner of this absolutely stunningly beautiful bay was Can, and he assisted us in tying on to one of his mooring balls. Now you may remember that waaay back when we were still in Javea, Spain that we were on a mooring ball that failed and we ended up hitting the rocks of the harbour wall. Ever since then we’ve shied away from them in favour of our over-specced Mantus anchor. But Jim had told us we could trust these mooring balls and so we happily tied up and by 1.30pm we were toasting our arrival with a beer.
Turkey has countless drop dead beautiful bays and you could literally spend a couple of seasons discovering many of them. I have to say, after seeing a few already, Karacaören has to be top of my list of picturesque bays. Clear azure water lined by blue grey rocks with little islands and the sea beyond, and a rustic restaurant and jetty (only approachable by water) nestled in one corner make up this idyllic spot.
We stayed there for two nights and dined with Jim and Alex. After a large salad and the fluffiest homemade bread, Alex and I had the lamb casserole and Baz and Jim, the lamb meatballs. We had a little fruit platter to finish and enjoyed a good bottle of Turkish red wine with the main course. Before we left, we had a conversation with a couple of our followers (they called themselves stalkers lol) who’d also anchored next to us in Kas marina bay. It’s so lovely to meet new friends along the way.
Before we left Baz and I explored the ruins of a Byzantine church on the little nearby island. There was no dinghy dock there so I scrambled up onto the rocks and tied the dinghy line around a rock!
We could quite easily have stayed at Karacaören for a couple more nights, but we had a date in Samos, Greece on the 18th of May and so had to leave this peaceful and restorative bay and keep moving onwards.
Karacaören to Küçük Kargı Koyu
At 1.30pm on the 29th of April we released the mooring ball and headed back out to sea. Guess what? Yup the wind gods were out to lunch, so we motored! We arrived in the protected bay of Küçük Kargı Koyu two and a half hours later and anchored for the night. The holding was good – it was a muddy bottom. There was some music from the little bar at the end of the bay, but there was a nice view of the surrounding hills and we had a good night’s sleep.
The following day, we set sail (I use that term liberally) for another delightful bay in the Gocek area called Büyük Ağa Koyu. That was another place I’d happily stay for a couple more nights, and I even got to swim ashore with a line as Baz did his first ‘line ashore stern-to’ mooring.
How did that go? I’ll let you know next week.
