Market day in Datca was moved from Saturday to Friday because a religious holiday starts on the 8th for a week. I was ashore buying a dress when I found this out so we quickly provisioned as a few of the places we planned to go to next don't really have anything at them. The holiday is called Bayram. It seems that Mohammad asked a man to show he truly believed by sacrificing his son - after a lot of anguish he agreed and M was so impressed by his loyalty he let him off and just asked for a goat to be sacrificed. So now the custom is to sacrifice a goat and eat it for Bayram. Which they do.

First stop along and across the Datca Peninsular was a long very protected inlet called Kasili. Many boats anchored with lines ashore lining both sides of the inlet. We tied a line to a tree like many others although our book did say trees were a no no (damage to their bark). We were fine for 3 days then just as we were planning to leave a man came along yelling at everyone to get off the trees. It was a nice place despite the amount of boats and the water clean but not clear - good for a cool down though. A few boats came by offering various provisions. Peter and I got very fresh prawns for lunch. Kiki and Cora had gone off exploring for the day - they didn't find much except for a restaurant that wouldn't let them tie up for dinner at their jetty.

After getting chased off we went around to Keci Buku and nearby town of Orhaniye. This time we tied our line ashore to a rock! We were just behind a little island with a ruined fort on it. it's a very picturesque large bay/inlet - many boats but peaceful and lots of room. We met an Australian couple and their friends on their two boats and had drinks on board EN. They left the next day as their black water tanks were full and needed to get pumped out. This is an interesting thing in Turkiye - with your cruising permit you are issued with a "blue card" (actually a white piece of paper) which you have to register each time you pump your black water (toilet) tanks out. You are not allowed to discharge sewerage in Turkish waters. All very well and good but there are limited places to get this done. It creates a bit of an organisational nightmare try to balance where you want to go with tank capacity and pump out facilities. I strongly suspect some people play a bit fast and loose with this as we don't see too many boats leaving an anchorage in the time frame we would expect them to fill their tanks. The busier areas have mobile pump out boats that do the rounds and most marinas have facilities for this but the lesser visited areas can be a challenge. If you can't provide a blue card record of regular pump outs there can be big fines. Greece is different you just have to have your tanks on in anchorages etc then release them out to sea - like most other countries. Marti Marina in Keci Buku is one of these so we joined the pump out queue the day we left.

Our next stop was to be Selimiye but it was very busy and we needed a longer trip to make water so we ended up in Bozburum. This is a lovely big bay/inlet with a nice little town and clear water. We anchored in just under 2 metres - we draw 1.5! Message here - don't dive off the boat!!

We've now just arrived in Marmaris after a day and night in Citflik, a pretty bay with 6 jetties and restaurants at the end of each. You can tie up to these and eat at their establishments but we generally prefer to anchor due to size and concerns over the safety of the structure. This way you can eat at any of the places. We didn't stay as there was a swell at night and katabatic bullets off the hills making it uncomfortable.

As some of the little places we have stopped don't show on the blog's map options it will just show a straight line from Datca to Matmaris. It seems I can't put a link lto our track that we still use from the old boat but can send it direct to fyou if you want. it's more detailed.