Broken leg and “Turkish Delight”
36° 39′ 29.7936” N 28° 51′ 10.5264” E
Sarsala Bay
May 27, 2022
And there I sit, writing to children and grandchildren that I have fallen from a mountain, but that nothing serious has happened. I even include a photo in which I stare, moved but grasped, at my left ankle, which is wrapped in an ice pack.
After ten hours of sleep, the pain has gotten worse. So now, finally, this cheering idiot is ready to listen to his wife, who has been advocating for an X-ray all along. We contact the travel insurance and explain where in Turkey we are with our sailboat, Ronja. At the same time, the skipper’s wife take contact to the boss of the restaurant, we are currently moored outside.
We are as far out in the Turkish wilderness as you can get. A small bay, a restaurant and a boat jetty. No road connections at all. All traffic is by waterway.
Skipper’s wife and the boss of the restaurant, Sezyn, have made a plan. First ten minutes in a rubber boat to a neighboring bay, which has a road connection. Then 40 kilometres with a called taxi to a hospital where the boss of the restaurant has made sure we are waited. A porter is ready at the hospital with a wheelchair. A few doctors ask questions and press on the leg and foot. Four X-rays. Then the chief orthopedic surgeon is ready with the verdict: “Your ankle is broken. The good news is we do not have to do surgery, you can settle for two crutches and the foot in plaster for six weeks.”
Jubii?
A broken ankle is big for me, who has never broken anything. But what I really want to tell is the story of how helpful, engaged and effective your fellow human beings are when needed. Turks as well as travel insurance.
And the taxi driver? He was following round the emergency department, X-ray department and plaster foundry, he wanted to know what was happening, and on the way back to the boat he drove around his private residence because he thought we needed a cold glass of water and some turkish delight (sweet candy).
Way too many Russians
36° 44′ 55.0304” N 28° 55′ 33.59” E
Göcek
The first thing we see as we look up at the morning sky is the Russian flag waving from the neighboring ship at our little Turkish jetty. Four Russian men in their 40s had the night before had the Russian flag hoisted to the top in starboard won, while toasting in small clear glasses and chanting along to the music down from the cabin.
The Russians take up a lot of space in Turkey.
Where 37 European countries have closed their airspace to Russian aircraft, Turkey still keep its airspace and airports open to Russians. The Russians are flocking to Turkey. To vacation or to avoid being in Russia. Probably most the first: To vacation.
Russian-owned yachts have been relocated from France, Italy and Greece to Turkey. Not just the much talked about megayachts of the oligarchs. Also larger motor yachts and catamarans.
“When our marinas are full this year, it’s because of the Russians. They have sailed their boats to Turkey on a large scale,” explains a marina employee in Göcek. Here the Russians do not risk their boats being seized. Here they can enjoy life, forget the war and sail in peace for the judgmental tone of the rest of Europe.
For the rest of us, it has caused the prices of a dock to explode. In just one month, the offer we have lying from a marina in Antalya has been raised no less than three times.
The Russians are everywhere. In the ports. In the bars. In the restaurants. Many of them greet, smile and say good morning. Live the carefree life as if the war in Ukraine has never been a reality.
The rest of us do not know which leg to stand on. Are they good Russians on the run from censorship and oppression in Russia? A few. Maybe. More in Istanbul than off the coast. Or are they just Russians who arrogantly hoist the Russian flag to show the rest of us that they are stunningly indifferent to our opinion and insist on continuing the good life to which they feel entitled.
Here comes your supermarket
36° 41′ 44.3704” N 28° 52′ 7.32” E
Tomb Bay
Usually, one honk in the ship’s horn means: I turn to starboard. In Turkey, it can also mean: Here comes your supermarket.
Fethiye Körfezi – the large waters that house the towns of Göcek and Fethiye as well as a myriad of small independent bays – is the most sailing-dense waters we have encountered on the entire trip from Denmark. Gözek alone has six large marinas, and they are so crowded – and expensive – that the last nautical miles before the marinas are thick with ships at anchor. Superyachts, larger motor yachts and catamarans but also individual sailboats only slightly larger than Ronja.
Thousands are in the marinas. Hundreds are at anchor.
When we sail out to the many independent bays – Tomb Bay, Deep Bay, Ruin Bay, Wall Bay, Seagull Bay – three sailing supermarkets appear every day after noon. First “Market”, which is the smallest, almost like the local mini market. An hour later comes “Carrefour”, which is a French supermarket chain. And finally, “Migros”, which was started by a Swiss supermarket chain but is today taken over by Turks.
The maritime supermarket has an OK selection of groceries.
If you cannot get to the supermarket, then the supermarket must come to you. A great offer for sailors who love to anchor and preferes to avoid the noise and chaos of cities.
Excursion to swamp country
39° 45′ 38.4804” N 26° 8′ 42.2916” E
May 14, 2022
Dalyan
She teaches us to drink Turkish tea, pronounced “Chai,” drink thick Turkish coffee, and eat flimsy cheese rolls for lunch. Her name is Emel, she is Turkish, loves Cuban cigars and has for some years been married to Swiss Andreas, with whom she shares life and daily life in an apartment in Istanbul, a rural cottage in Germany and a sailboat in the Mediterranean. Both are retired.
Today we have gone with Emel and Andreas on a trip in the swamp. We have rented a riverboat, which takes us west to the long Iztuzu Beach, the turtle beach where turtles go to lay eggs. Here we find an opening in the beach, and sail into the delta of the Dalyan River, which winds through man-high reeds and slowly reveals an enormous marsh area.
The first stop will be the ruin town of Caunos, which has only yet been partially excavated, but which is interesting, while among the ruins of the theater, temple, bathhouse and towers we are joined by a huge herd of goats, a donkey, a turtle and a snake more than one and a half meter long.
Later, we make a stop in the tourist town of Dalyan, which is especially known for its spectacular burial chambers carved into the mountainside high above the city.
Before the return trip, we visit the mud baths a little north of Dalyan and get the first mud bath of our lives. More special than actually nice
A super day. Most of all instructive because of Emel and Andreas, who generously pour out their Turkish knowledge.
On the outskirts of a tourist Mecca
36° 51′ 17.766” N 28° 16′ 15.1608” E
Marmaris
We have set our course towards Marmaris, because after lying at anchor we need to have our anchor winch repaired, as it again and again causes troubles. But also, to experience a big city where Danish tourists some years ago filled a lot, but where the Turks today refer to Danes as a people who increasingly have been avoiding Turkey.
We find a berth in a large marina eight kilometers before Marmaris and it turns out to be a wise decision. Marmaris itself is an intense tourist mecca with a huge bazaar and kilometer after kilometer of quay with restaurants and tour boats.
The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1958, so there are not many historic buildings. But for a sailor, Marmaris is an eldorado where you can buy whatever your heart desires for your boat. The city has a whole neighborhood of shops that only deal with boat equipment.
A hug for the future
36° 49′ 18.1992” N 28° 33′ 53.0964” E
May 11th, 2022
Ekincik Limani
Last night I (Kirsten) met a young girl who made an impression on me.
We had moored Ronja at a very small jetty in a Turkish bay far away from everything. Only four other boats at the jetty. A flock of guinea fowls strutted around, looking for food. I gave them some crumbs, which they greedily carved into themselves. A little girl and her young mother were very interested in the guinea fowls, so we fell into conversation.
The girl was from Ukraine, just 17 years old and her daughter two years old. I asked her if she had fled the war. The answer was no, she sailed around in a boat with her father and her boyfriend, also 17 years old. But, she continued quickly, she would rather be at home in Kyiv.
She was sure that the war would soon be over and that Ukraine would be the victor.
Once she got home, she would start university and study political science. She wanted to do so, because she wanted to make a difference in the development of the Ukraine of the future.
We talked at length about the future, about solidarity, about democracy, and after some time the girl asked if we should give each other a hug.
The next morning she had sailed on.
Chaotic arrival in Turkey
37° 2′ 3.8724” N 27° 25′ 49.944” E
May 10th 2022
Bodrum
Chaos. Our first meeting with Turkey is total chaos. The wind whips in through Bodrum harbour, where six or seven sailboats of different nationalities fight for two berths set aside for boats that have to check in with customs. Angry shouts and gestures. Long wait. Perhaps the bureaucracy is worse here than in Greece? Hard to imagine.
And yet, maybe. “Turkey is the worst country in the whole world to declare in,” states the captain of our neighboring boat. We ask him, where he comes from himself. “Turkey,” he replies. He has been with the family on a trip to Greece and now has to declare in his homeland.
Provided with the necessary stamps and on the way to our berth in the large marina, we notice the sounds. There’s really a lot of sound. Voices, music, children’s squeals, megaphones. And in the background, a muezzin fights his unequal battle to call to prayer from the speakers at the top of the minaret. There must be a traveling fairground in the city, we think. Later, we realize that there is no travelling funfair here. This IS the sound of Bodrum.
After a few days, we begin to draw comparisons between Greece and Turkey. The food is clearly better in Turkey. The nature is more lush, more trees on the mountains right down to the water. The Turks’ castles and historical ruins are more beautiful. The inhabitants are friendly and welcoming. On the other hand, they were also so in Greece.
And Erdogan? The president? He’ll be gone after next year’s election, people tell us. His latest economic plan is gasoline on the inflation bonfire. Officially, the government says the price of tomatoes and other foods has risen 75 percent in the past barely two years. “But we ordinary Turks know, that the price of tomatoes has risen 150 percent,” one Turkish woman said angrily.
Goodbye Greece, Hello Turkey
37° 9′ 12.384” N 26° 51′ 24.48” E
May 5th, 2022
Leros
An adventure is over. A new one is about to begin.
After several years of wonderful sailing through Greece, we are on our way to Turkey.
The good ship, Ronja, has been launched into the water after six months of winter hibernation on the Greek island of Leros. We’ve been toiling for a few days to clean Ronja after a winter’s “red rain” – sand from the Sahara that blows across the Mediterranean, leaving a greasy layer of dust and sand over car, buildings and boats.
Safety equipment – powder extinguishers and emergency rockets – has been renewed, and we have received the necessary stamps and signatures that we can leave Greece to sail to Turkey.
We’re ready. For new adventures.