Day: September 29, 2015

It Just Kept Getting Better and Better!

~ stull61 ~ Leave a comment

Oludeniz was a short hop away from St Nick’s Island, so it didn’t take us long to get there. The literal translation of Ölüdeniz is “Dead Sea” due to its calm waters but now days the official translation is “Blue Lagoon”, which is much more marketable. In the old days, you used to be able to take your yacht into the lagoon. These days you have to make do with the absurdly looking peddle powered craft, or as we did two standup paddle boards. The place is jam packed with tourists, being rated as one of the best beaches in the world – something a little bit over the top in my opinion.

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We pulled up outside the lagoon and anchored and tied up to the rocks next to a 100 foot motor yacht. There’s not a great deal of room for lots of yachts and it deepens up quite quick so not the greatest anchoring spot around. With a bit of swell running around the corner it was definitely only a day anchorage. Whilst everyone took their turn on the SUPs, battling a bit of a swell and a bit of wind, we watched the paragliders descend from Mount Babadağ, a pretty impressive 2000m mountain right on the coast. Mount Babadağ is rated one of the world’s best paragliding sites – now that I can understand.

Oludeniz done and dusted, it was time to find an anchorage for the night and the one we had picked out was full so in the end with the wind picking up, we just went back to St Nick’s Island.

We had an early morning start the next day to beat all the gullets to Butterfly Bay. The plan worked to perfection as we found the ideal spot in the SE corner of the bay and tied up to the rocks just off the beach, out of the way of the 20 million gullets that will be pulling up to the beach at 10am or so.

Butterfly Bay was a bit down on both water and butterflies but still a very pleasant hike to the waterfall at the end. Everyone thought it would be a nice idea to get breakfast on shore, but after having a look at what was on offer, everybody thought it wa now a good idea to have something to eat back on board La Mischief.

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We had a very pleasant motor sail down to Kalkan… again not much wind…and found a nice spot on the wall at about 2.30pm before the afternoon rush. The wall at Kalkan is a bit pricey – 160TL for the night –but still cheaper than Marina prices.

According to a 2012 survey 96% of visitors to Kalkan were from the UK. Despite this, Kalkan is still a very nice town to visit, slightly upmarket, very picturesque with its old fishing town feel, its famous white-washed houses, descending to the sea, and its brightly coloured bougainvillea. It was an old Greek town before the Christians were compulsorily sent to Greece in the 1920’s.

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We spent the afternoon lazing round the Indigo Blue waterfront bar, just across the breakwater from La Mischief, before hitting the town in the evening for some shopping, eating, drinking and hooka pipe smoking (me excluded).

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Next day it was off to Kekova Roads. It just kept getting better and better!

For pictures of Butterfly Bay and Oludeniz see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201973785259136.1073741925.1620379103&type=1&l=22c5cf7d5a

For pictures of Kalkan please see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201962554178366.1073741924.1620379103&type=1&l=2647e8a9ec

To Muddle Or Not To Muddle? That Is the Question!!

~ stull61 ~ Leave a comment

At was about 5pm when we left Gocek, so we decided to head over to 12 Islands, a short hop of a couple of miles. We ended up picking up a mooring, of which there were quite a few provided and tied up to some bollards on the shore. Very pleasant place to spend an evening.

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Next morning we sailed around to St Nicolas Island, another of my favourite places. It’s a great anchorage – a little deep but doable, between the island and the mainland. As usual, we dropped the anchor and backed up to the island, tying up just below some ruins. Had a great swim and then bought some pancakes off an oldish Turkish husband and wife in an old style fishing boat, complete with a charcoal powered cooktop on board. Mojito’s were also on the menu and we tried to get some limes off one of the other boatmen who sell just about anything – icecreams, fruit and veges, bread and pastries, you name it – DSC_0139
they will bring it to your boat. The limes needed a special trip into Ucadeniz, but no problems, they duly arrived a few hours later just in time to make our mojitos. The delay allowed Randy to fully research the world’s best mojito recipes, which turned out to raise more questions that it answered – even one I hadn’t even thought of – to muddle or not to muddle??? In the end we muddled! Randy’s research had turned up another great tip courtesy of Jamie O. who suggested we “clap” the mint to release its minty-ness. Our final good tip was to use a capful of dark rum – in our case Myers – as well as the white. With all the great advice in the world and a bagful of limes arriving by boat, we did a pretty good job of Mojito production.

But believe it not, our reason for visiting St Nick’s island was not to perfect the perfect Mojito but to actually have a look at a very interesting set of old Byzantine ruins built between the fourth and sixth centuries. There’s 5 churches, lots of tombs and other buildings as well as 350 metres of processional walk ways that look like tunnels and are quite fascinating. We walked up to the very end of the island and then back along one of the walkways to the very top of the island where the most impressive of the
churches is cut directly from the rock. They believe that the Island was used by Christian pilgrims en-rout to the Holy Lands. Its also supposed to be the original tomb of St Nick himself, until he was moved to Myra around 650AD. It took us a good 90 minutes to see the whole island before it shut at 7pm, after which we enjoyed a great sunset on the back of La Mischief.
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For pictures of St Nicolas Island please see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10204273859679559.1073741994.1620379103&type=1&l=65cf6adab7