If you've never been the owner of a boat then you cannot fully grasp the anticipatory excitement that is felt just before entering the hallowed grounds of a previously unexplored boat porn shop.
This was our main reason for heading into the big bay at Bodrum on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. I was excited to be going on a mission, Aannsha was disappointed because she was staying on board to finish the latest video. She likes boat porn more than I do! Once again I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's begin by bringing up the anchor in the little bay of Aspat Koyu.
We'd stayed just one night at Aspat Koyu, departed at 09:00 hrs and thanks to a little bit of wind from a helpful direction we made good time and 90 minutes later we dropped our anchor into sand in Bodrum Bay. It's an interesting looking place and next time we're in that area we'll stop and have a proper look around, especially Bodrum castle which was built from 1402 onwards, by the Knights of St John as the Castle of St. Peter.
Alize Marin (boat porn) shop
Leaving Aannsha sulking at the keyboard I took the dinghy ashore and found a taxi. To save any confusion I had a photo of the store front on my phone and showing that to the taxi driver I was met with a thumbs up and a "Yes. Yes OK, I take you."
The store is quite a way out of town and the trip took about 20 minutes. The taxi driver, being a canny chap, indicated that he was happy to wait as long as I needed and then he'd take me back to the bay. That was a win/win for both of us.
Empty backpack ready to be filled and a big list ready to emptied, I climbed up the entrance steps, the automatic doors opened and I was enveloped in air conditioned comfort.
To be honest I was a bit overwhelmed by the huge variety of boat stuff and the slightly haphazard layout of the store. I wandered around hoping that something that was on my list would catch my eye. After getting a couple of items ticked off the list I thought the whole process would go a lot smoother if I enlisted the help of one of the shop guys.
I spotted a tall Turkish guy in what appeared to be a t-shirt with the store logo on it and said "Hi, do you work here?" He replied in perfect English, "No, but I almost live here. What are you looking for?" I'm not sure he was prepared for what he was getting involved with as I showed him my long list. "That's a lot, but I can show you where these things are." he replied.
30 minutes later with most things ticked off the list and a lot lighter in the wallet area, I went out to the waiting taxi and was back at the bay and back on board A B Sea by 13:00 hrs. We'd planned not to overnight in Bodrum bay as the weather forecast was for strong northerly winds which may have made the big bay a bit too lumpy. Our chosen overnight anchorage was at Kissibuke Koyu just 2 hours further to the east.
We stayed there for 2 nights and I used the time to install a few of the items we'd bought in Bodrum. It's a large bay with plenty of room for yachts to swing at anchor, although many boats do take a line ashore as it's the most common way of anchoring in Turkey due to the generally steep drop offs from the shore.
There are no facilities on shore at Kissibuke Koyu, but it is a popular beach for summer camping and one enterprising Turk had set up a camper van with quite a few shade awnings around it. From there he sold cold drinks and food cooked over an open fire. It was all quite rustic and I think that atmosphere aided me in finally relaxing and letting go of some of the stress that I'd been carrying for the last 18 days since we left Limni harbour on Evia island in Greece.
Birthday Girl
We could've stayed longer at Kissibuke Koyu and maybe gone ashore to sample some of the fine smelling cooking of the guy in the camper van, but the morning of the 29th of July came around and that meant we needed to move on to the bright lights of the 'big city' to find a restaurant to celebrate Aannsha's birthday. Leaving Kissebuke the plan was to meet up with our buddy boat Acheron at the ancient harbour of Knidos so that Jim and Matt could celebrate with us. We arrived at Knidos first and it was a very different sight than when we'd last visited in May 2019. It was now August 2020 and half of Turkey's boating population was spending time at Knidos.
We stuck our nose in and checked the positioning of all of the boats trying to figure out where their anchors were laying. We also had a quick look to see if we could go alongside at the restaurant jetty. Everywhere was going to be a tight squeeze. The final decision that we should leave was when a day tripper boat just off our port side brought up its anchor along with another yacht's anchor chain. That game is no fun and I refuse to play it.
I reversed A B Sea out of the marked entrance to the harbour avoiding the submerged ancient harbour walls and moved slightly east to drop anchor and take a look at our options. Right away it was plainly obvious that we couldn't stay there overnight as the wind put us side on to the incoming swell and made A B Sea roll madly.
Datça was the next best option just 3 hours further east. We contacted Jim and told him about the situation at Knidos and he agreed to meet us at Datça.
Arriving at Datça we were once again surprised at how busy the bays get during summer, but we were able to find a nice spot to anchor in sand at 6 metres (19.6 feet) depth.
As we dropped the anchor, there was a tootle tootle of a small air horn off our starboard side and at first I expected it to be another boatie expressing his opinion that we were anchoring too close to him. However it turned out to be our friend Ismail on his boat Wanda who we'd first met in Kaş marina during the winter of 2018/19. He invited us over for a beer and to catch up on stories of where we'd both been.
A while later Jim arrived on Acheron and told us that he was going to anchor in the north bay of Datça where there'd be more room. We arranged to meet for a birthday dinner at 19:00 hrs.
Side note: If you enjoy reading stories of how people came to be full time liveaboards then you may like to check out the book 'Dream On' authored by our friend Jens Brambusch. The book is not about sailing, it is about the background of how 10 sailors, from 5 continents, met in a Turkish harbour one cold winter and shared their stories of how they escaped the rat race. Our story is included along with Ismail's and Jim's.
You can find it on your local Amazon site by searching the author name Brambusch. Here's a link to Amazon America so that you know what the cover looks like. https://amzn.to/2GeQSq0
Datça is not huge and most of the better restaurants can be found along the seafront. The one that Ismail had recommended was fully booked, but it wasn't too difficult to find another with room for a table for four.
The food was delicious, the wine complimented everything, but their desserts were a little uninspiring so we moved on to a specialist cake place further along the seafront and were rewarded with a huge range of cakes, pastries and cheesecakes. They even put candles on Aannsha's cake and played the happy birthday song over their sound system.
All in all it was a fabulous evening out and we made it back to A B Sea without incident.
Next week we visit two more spectacular Turkish bays as we move closer and closer to our destination of Kaş marina. Stay safe out there.
To watch the video that accompanies this blog click here.