Week 11: Gocek, TY to Rhodes, GR (109nm)

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We’re back! After 2 ½ weeks visiting friends and family in the states, we returned to Serenity First in Turkey, and were delighted to find that she had been kept safe and sound by the marina where we’d left her. On our way through London we were joined by Alec’s cousin Joe and his partner Amy, who spent this past week with us on the boat. We spent the first half of the week in the Gocek / Fethiye gulf before heading back north to Marmaris (on our way rescuing a fellow boat in distress!), and then waved goodbye to Turkey and made for the Greek island of Rhodes.

We arrived in Gocek in the evening and briefly introduced Joe and Amy to Serenity before heading out for a celebratory meal at the uniquely named “Kebab Hospital,” who did a mean ‘pide’ (Turkish pizza). We were impressed with how quickly Joe and Amy acclimatised to life on board, and after the short mandatory boat briefing the next morning, we were ready to sail! We found a small bay a small hop south from Gocek, where we snorkelled with the locals and enjoyed a quiet night at anchor. The following morning, we hiked up the hill on the east side of the bay and were treated to some fab views of the area.

Following on from this success, we moved to a tiny bay with quite a long name, Küçük Kuyruk. Our pilot book raved about this spot, and it also had a little stone beach, which was ideal as Joe had been making noise about a beach barbeque. We found a great position to anchor by the beach and used long lines to tie the boat to the shore. It was wonderfully secluded, with only two other boats moored in the bay that night. Plus, it was home to a beautiful pair of sea turtles, who we were lucky enough to see repeatedly while we were there! But, more importantly, this bay also supported a population of flounder, who it turns out are the perfect spearfishing targets. When they sense danger, they simply lie completely still on the sand – which gave Alec the perfect shot and he finally landed his first fish! I’ll be honest, it wasn’t the biggest fish, but it tasted delicious barbequed and we had great fun in catching it 😊.

One of the boats sharing the bay with us was a local boat, who mostly kept to themselves, but the other was home to a friendly Aussie couple. We got to chatting and they accepted an invite to join us for our beach barbeque. Alec and Joe set up the grill on the beach while Amy and I sorted out sides. There were a fair few bees around (looking for fresh water, we learned), so in addition to the barbeque, Alec and Joe set up a secondary, smoky “anti-bee” fire. This worked a treat! Once we’d got things going, our Aussie neighbours Mick and Marita dinghied over to join us from their catamaran Let’s Dance. They had been sailing around the Med for three years and had lots of fun stories to share about their travels and the people they’d met (you can check them out on their YouTube channel: Let’s Dance Sailing). They also told many stories about the deadly creatures of Australia, which made us all feel quite happy to only have bees in the bay!

The next day, we headed out fairly early and made for Fethiye on the other side of the little gulf. Joe had discovered a water park just outside the town, which we were all quite keen for. Plus, we’d heard there was a great hotel offering very reasonable prices for mooring on their jetty. On the way over, we sailed through a huge pod of dolphins, who came to visit the boat for a few minutes. It was exhilirating watching them play in the bow wave of the boat and leap out of the water around us! We also saw a random pool noodle bobbing around in the sea, which we rescued (the first of two that we picked up this week, followed by a beach ball!). By the time we moored up at the Yacht Classic hotel in Fethiye, we’d already had a great day – and the park was still to come!

We walked to the front of the hotel to find a taxi to take us to the water park, where we discovered the ingenious system they’ve set up in the town. There was a button attached to a post just outside the hotel, with a sign to press it to call a taxi, which was promised to arrive within 2 minutes. I was a bit dubious, but less than two minutes later a taxi arrived for us! And we were able to do the same on the way back – such a great idea.

We had a wonderful afternoon reliving our childhoods on the massive slides and eating ice creams by the pool. Highlights included slide races (Amy and Alec were the winners) and braving the biggest slide with what felt like a vertical drop in the middle!

Back at the hotel, we perused their multiple pools and had a few cheeky cocktails at the thatched-roof bar while watching the World Cup final before taking long, luxurious showers in their swanky facilities. Part of the deal with the hotel is that you have to eat at their restaurant to get the good mooring price, so we had a delicious meal just by the dock to finish off an amazing day. Alec and I destroyed an exceptional seafood platter – nothing on Alec’s flounder mind you, but a very close second 😉.

It was such a nice spot that we decided to spend the next morning there and get a bit more time in the pool. We also took the opportunity for a trip up the mast to install our new anemometer, which is our latest purchase in the long saga of our wind instrumentation. Early signs look good – I don’t want to jinx anything, but so far it looks like we’ve finally got it working! Plus, I got some good photos while I was up there 😊.

After lunch, we finally cast off and headed for another bay right on the south west side of the gulf, called Kizilkuyruk Köyü (your guess is as good as mine for how to pronounce this). On arrival, it looked like we might have found another real gem. A baby turtle surfaced right behind the boat as we anchored and there was a lot to explore snorkelling. BUT… this bay also had a lot of bees. Far more than the previous bay, and they really went for anything that was wet, again clearly looking for fresh water. When I came out of the water after my long snorkelling session, I rinsed the salt water off on the back of the boat as usual, after which a whole pack of them came for me. We quickly realised my mistake, and I made for the protection of the mosquito nets downstairs… but didn’t make it before one of the little monsters stung me. I haven’t been stung in a long, long time and it HURT! Alec, Joe and Amy mounted a bit of a war in revenge, wielding flippers as bee-whacking devices and scattering a slew of them into the sea. This proved quite effective, and they mostly left us alone for the rest of the evening.

In the morning, we felt it would be best to cut and run, given the likely return of our insect nemeses. So, Alec and I went on deck to make a quick getaway. Someone still had to get in the water to release our shore lines, but we thought that if we didn’t rinse off with fresh water, they wouldn’t swarm. I jumped in, quickly undid the lines and then jumped aboard while Alec started pulling up the anchor. Turns out these bees couldn’t work out what was fresh vs. salt water without tasting it… so I very quickly had a literal cloud of them around me. I lasted maybe two minutes before I got stung again, freaked out, and sprinted back downstairs, leaving poor Alec alone on deck to get the anchor up and get us the heck out of there. He handed driving over to the autopilot while he wielded the flippers again, leaving a trail of our attackers in the sea behind us. Thankfully, we didn’t have to get too far away from shore before the rest gave up and headed home!

Our next destination was Ekincik, which is a nice anchorage not too far from a sea turtle sanctuary. We dropped the hook and popped the dinghy in the water, ready to make our way over to the beach to hopefully see some turtles and check out the rescue centre. But as we rounded the first headland, we realised it was a little further than it looked on the map – a bit far for a dinghy ride. Still, having got ¼ of the way, we felt committed and decided to soldier on. Not 200m later, the dinghy engine decided it had had enough and promptly died. Try as he might, Alec couldn’t coax it back to life. We had just resigned ourselves to a very long row back to our boat when a local tour vessel happened by. We waved them down, and they kindly came over and rescued us (filming the whole ordeal, which they thought, perhaps unsurprisingly, was hilarious). Back in safe water, Alec finally convinced the engine to start (turns out we hadn’t done a great job of mixing the fuel/oil combo that it runs on), but we decided we didn’t want to chance another breakdown on the way to the turtle beach and headed for the nearest bar instead. This turned out to be a great decision, because it was the cheapest place we’ve ever encountered to buy Efes (the staple Turkish lager) – plus they had ice cream! All the things you really need 😊.

The next day, we left early again to get the best weather for passage to Marmaris. The sea swell was a bit bumpy, left over from heavy winds the day before, but we settled in fine for the c.4hr journey. We’d been going maybe an hour when we noticed a boat ahead of us acting strange. They seemed to be trying to sail (though there was no wind at the time), but were being washed dangerously close to a rocky shore – why not turn on their engine and motor? As we drew closer, they spotted us and frantically waved us over. I hailed them on the VHF, and their skipper quickly explained that their engine had died and he was running out of ideas for getting it started again. Eager to repay the karma gods after we’d been rescued the day before, we offered them a tow. They were hoping to go to Marmaris as well, so we thought – heck, why not, we’ll just take them the rest of the way. And this is how we got to know the lovely John and Bobbie of Windance!

Step one was to get the front of their boat tied to the back of ours. Given the proximity to shore and the bumpy waves, this proved a little tricky, but a bit of expert / fortuitous driving by Alec and an impressive rope throw from John on Windance and soon everything was set up. Our towing experience is minimal (Alec used to regularly tow dinghies from a RIB, does that count?), but we consulted our handy dandy books and it all seemed simple enough. It took a while to get up to speed, but eventually we were pootling along quite happily and made reasonable time towards Marmaris. We had initially hoped another tow boat might meet us in Marmaris bay to get Windance the final mile into their marina, but the marinaros refused to come out past their breakwater. So, Alec devised an ingenious solution so that we could drive them all the way into their marina.

With a bit of brute force, we pulled in the tow rope and brought Windance up alongside Serenity. We both put all the fenders we had in the middle to keep the boats from whacking each other, and then employed many lines to lash them together. Viola – a catamaran! We’d heard from multiple cat owners that it was perfectly possible to drive one with an engine on only one side, and this advice proved correct. Thus Alec was able to manoeuvre our makeshift catamaran into the marina, where a RIB was waiting to tow Windance to their berth.

We then headed a couple of miles down the bay to our berth at Joya del Mar, the cute little hotel where we’d moored on our previous visit to Marmaris. We quickly parked up (by now Amy and Joe were pros, so we had a crack parking team!), and bee-lined for the nearest pizza. Later we had the chance to meet up with John and Bonnie, now safely ashore, and have a full debrief and some great laughs about the whole thing. Though not in the best of circumstances, we’re very happy to have chanced to meet such lovely people! (Note from several days later: turns out dodgy fuel was the culprit for the debacle – which has very much strengthened our resolve to always filter ours!)

We said goodbye to Joe and Amy the next day after a truly fantastic (and adventure-full!) week, and then started to turn our thoughts to our long journey West towards the Atlantic. We’ve got well over 1500 nautical miles to cover to Gibraltar, so its time to get a move on! We cast off early this morning and landed in Rhodes, Greece by midday. So, that’s the first 25 miles or so under our belts at least!