From Worldly to Wild - Gӧgova Kӧrvezi to Datça Saturday 21st June 2014

The contrast has been amazing. From the tourist concrete jungle to sweet little Çӧkermle, and then into the wilderness. We travelled virtually the whole of the Gulf of Kӧrvezi, covering over 100nm and found the getting out to be more challenging than the getting in (wind and wave directions). We stopped in some great places, again with wonderful names: Castle Island and Snake Island (Sehir Adalari), Soğut, English Harbour (Değirman Bükü), East Creek - 7 Islands Archipelago (Yedi Adalari) and Two Tree Cove behind One Tree Island (Çati). This gulf is surprisingly green (underground streams?) with lots of pine, amber and some deciduous trees. The water is crystal clear; we had small turtles the size of dinner plates with us in Çati and were sure we saw 2 endangered monk seals poking their pretty little snouts out of the water in the distance. Very few other boats, no habitation to speak of, certainly no shops, except a tiny one in Soğut.

The forecast then urged us to get a move on and get round the corner into the next gulf, stopping under the point in the natural harbour that fronted the ancient town of Knidos (3,000 BC and one of the Dorian hexapolis - 6 major cities). Spread up the hill overlooking its two harbours, it had Stoas and marketplaces and Temples to Apollo as well as 2 theatres. Also the first naked female statue of Aphrodite (no longer there, supposedly there was a back entrance to her shrine so people could stroke her bottom!) by Praxiteles (major Greek sculptor). Not much excavation has really taken place, the site and setting however are unique. It was also home to the scientist and astronomer Eudoxos (founding father of Greek geometry and student of Plato). He built an observatory, mapped the night skies and was the first to explain the heliocentric movement of the planets. He also corrected the length of the solar year. Euclid later plagiarised his ideas and is credited with most of poor Eudoxus' discoveries. Great stop, windy though and a bit bouncy.

So yesterday on into the Hisarӧnu Kӧrfezi, here to Datça. As in the last gulf, there is little habitation and limited opportunities for stocking up - it is advised to shop here. Fortuitously (well-planned of course), the biggest local market happens here on a Saturday. We spent a great few hours wandering around - the usual clothing, leather goods, tablecloths and linens, but it was the fruit and vegetable stalls, along with the spices and nuts of every variety that took our fancy. We returned to the boat laden - a kilo of tomatoes for 30p, long thin greeny, purply beans, hot green peppers, sweet red piments - fruit that smells and tastes like nothing bought at home - it is all home grown and naturally sun-ripened. Dozens and dozens of stalls.

And hooray, we are legal. We got our Blue Card for the "black waste". Cost 30TL not 20 as anticipated. We were helped by the friendly local harbourmaster who phoned the office to arrange our visit. A slight mis-communication problem in the office had us on record as having a waste capacity of 1000 litres! This in a 10.3m boat! When we said, no our tank was 55 litres, they could not cope with that. Lots of writing things down to communicate the numbers. The minimum they could put down was 70L. Ok, we go with that. Only to get back to the harbour, to have the card whisked off us by the head man - our friendly harbourmaster who did speak English had explained the problem to head man - he cursed the poor imbeciles (new on the job) in the office, who hadn't entered in onto the main system and zoomed off on his motorbike. Back with our card in 7 minutes, all done, all sorted.

On that elevated note, we shall close. W's birthday tomorrow. Given my poor performance for R's day, I can only hope he has failed equally. Touché.