In this week's video we spend time at Kekova, Turkey with our friends Michel and Canan (pronounced Jan-ann) and Michel's son Louis.
What has never been shown in a video or written about in a blog is how we became friends in the first place. To explain that we'll have to go back to the winter of 2018/2019 when A B Sea was safely moored in Kaş harbour.
That winter Michel and Canan had flown from their home in Germany to Turkey and specifically to Kaş to look for an apartment to buy. Michel, who sails his boat on a lake in Germany whenever he can, has a retirement dream of living in Turkey and keeping a yacht in Kaş marina. As a sailor he watches YouTube sailing channels and found our channel particularly interesting because we were sailing the Turkish coast.
One day during their holiday while walking around Kaş they came to the harbour and saw
A B Sea, she's easy to spot with the YouTube logo and name along the boom. Wanting to meet us in person he began walking over but Canan pulled him back saying "You can't just go there and knock on the door, that's their house."
Michel who is a little bit bolder said "No, it will be fine, we're just saying hello."
We are always happy to meet new people, especially if they enjoy our videos, so when Michel came by to say hello we gave him a warm welcome. Michel invited us to Smiley's restaurant for lunch and over that meal we instantly became firm friends. Now whenever Michel and Canan are in Turkey we make every effort to meet up with them and share good times.
The moral of the story is don't be worried about saying hello to someone you want to meet, you could end up finding a lifelong friend.
Turtle in trouble
Our first night anchored at Gökkaya next to Michel's charter boat was great fun, we always have wide ranging conversations and the hours just zip by. Our plan for the second night was to relocate to anchor within dinghy distance to the town of Üçağız.
Michel, Canan and Louis planned to spend some time exploring the area of Gökkaya before relocating but we needed to move early so that we could make the most of the time to finish editing our next video.
The hop from Gökkaya to Üçağız takes about an hour. With no wind we were once again motoring through the dead flat water. About half way into the hop I spotted a huge turtle off our starboard side. We've found that it's pointless trying to film turtles because they quickly dive below the surface as soon as they see any vessel. However this turtle was obviously having trouble doing that. We could see it was trying to dive yet it remained on the surface.
Half an hour later we were anchored at Üçağız and I immediately zoomed over to Hassan's restaurant in our dinghy. I was hoping that he could put me in touch with a marine life rescue person. Sadly he informed me that there was nothing like that in the local area.
Back on board A B Sea I considered taking the dinghy to the turtle's location to see if I could help in any way, but a second thought that I could get into trouble from the coast guard for touching the wild life stopped me. I hoped that a passing gulet captain stopped to assist.
Hassan's restaurant
Later that day Michel motored up to the anchorage and settled in next to us. We got all of our work done just in time for sundowners on his boat before we all climbed into our dinghy and made our way to Hassan's restaurant for dinner.
Hassan's speciality is fish so Aannsha and I ordered a fish dish to share. Michel, Canan and Louis all decided to have the calamari which is very good too.
Aannsha declared great food, great wine and fabulous friends and another wonderful night was had by all.
Top tip: If you know that you'll be coming back to your boat in the dark leave a distinguishing light hanging somewhere so you can spot your boat amongst all of the anchor lights in the pitch black anchorage.
Back to Gökkaya
The following day it was time for Michel to start heading back in the general direction of Fethiye where he'd chartered the boat from and we decided to go back to the anchorage at Gökkaya which meant that it was only a little over 2 hours for our next hop to Finike where our winter marina contract was starting the next day.
Once we arrived at Gökkaya with no work to do we took some time to check out the cave which can be clearly seen as you enter the bay. It was surprisingly big inside and we could hear the distinct high pitch squeaking of many bats.
Our next bit of exploring would be to visit the actual Smugglers Inn to have a beer. We've anchored at Gökkaya many times and strangely never visited the inn. We were about to put that right but first is was back to A B Sea to get some cash.
I'll tell you all about that next week, until then have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year.
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