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.
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 – 
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.
For pictures of St Nicolas Island please see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10204273859679559.1073741994.1620379103&type=1&l=65cf6adab7
A Little Bit of Mischief 