Sailing in Turkey has always been described as a wonderful experience. The european crowds have usually disappeared by October but the weather is warm and the people are friendly. The winds are light and the waters are calm. The experience involves changing to a new mooring every day. When the boat is moved to a new harbor, typically you are met by a crew who will help you tie up the boat. They are usually sons, daughters, nephews of nieces of the owner. There is no mooring fee for this, but the hope is that you will have their family cook dinner for you in the evening. We capitalized on their hope every night and had the most amazing food.
We flew into Dalaman airport after travelling for about 24 hours. From Toronto, we had to fly to Frankfurt, then Istanbul and from there south to Dalaman on the Mediterranean coast. We were picked up at around midnight and transported to Gocek, a small fishing village on the coast.
When I got up in the morning, the first task was to go down to the hotel bar and have some of that famous exotic turkish coffee that you hear about in movies. What makes Turkish coffee so delicious is the grind. Single bean is ground to 45,000 particles vs 100 particles for drip coffee and 3,000 for the espresso. Thus, you extract more flavors than any other method of brewing. In addition, it is the only method where you re-roast the beans in the brewing process. Why is this important? Because, coffee is at its most complex (wine like) stage only for about a week after it’s been roasted. After this period, it oxidizes and decays. Turkish coffee is non-filtered, so the grounds are in the pot. As a result, as the water heats up, you are actually re-roasting your beans!
Imagine my shock when he pulled out a jar of Nescafe and scooped out a teaspoonful into a coffee cup and added hot water. Not been able to communicate with the nice gentelman as my conversational turkish is non existant, I quietly drank my disappointment and brought a cup up to our hotel room for Ileana hoping that she wouldn’t notice the difference. That hope was short lived….
When we got down to the harbour, we caught the ferry to the sunsail Marina and went to our boat, 39 foot Jenneau. The weather was perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky. We had provisioned the boat ahead of time and the food was delivered and was inside the boat. We had supplies like cold beer, wine, a variety of cheeses and crackers, as well as enough food to make dinners for the next seven days. We had fresh fruits.
After dinner, we were sitting in the cockpit of the beautiful sailboat thinking how lucky we are to be in such a wonderful place. The charters generally go from Saturday to Saturday. The boat opposite us was a large beneteau 50 foot boat. These boats typically advertise that there is room for 12 people but I think they are generally referring to perhaps two couples and their kids. There are a maximum of five cabins and I suspect that 2 could sleep in the main salon on the settee. However it would be quite crowded and I am a strong believer that even a large sailboat is actually quite small and with that many people there would definitely be some conflicts that occur over a week of being stuck together. I think it is better to have just one family per boat and the usual conflicts that occur in the family could usually be well-tolerated as they are at home.
I am not sure what the charter company was thinking when they agreed to charter the sailboat to 12 huge Russian men. It wasn’t yet dark but clearly they had been working on getting through their allotment of vodka as there were bottles strewn all over their cockpit floor and they were very loud. One of the Russians approached us in our cockpit and asked for a light for his cigarette. Intrigued by the social situation of the 50 foot beneteau next to us, after some casual conversation, he explained to me that they were all good friends and thought it was a good way of spending some quality time together at the same time doing it cheaply. They had rented the boat for two weeks. He wasn’t sure if any of them knew how to sail, or even cook for that matter. They were planning on using the engine anyway. They could worry about food when they got hungry. They had 3 cases of vodka, so they were set for the 2 weeks. How difficult could it be spend 2 weeks in paradise?
Just as we were getting ready to go to bed, there was a huge ruckus on the dock. Two of the Russians were involved in a vicious fistfight and although they were yelling in Russian, it was clear they were disparaging each other’s mothers or some other insults. It continued until one of them ended up in the ocean. When we got up in the morning, we slipped our lines and quietly motored out into the harbour. It was all quiet on that 50 foot Beneteau and there were a couple of large brutes in the cockpit seemingly passed out. I wasn’t sure where the other 10 were and I would hate to imagine the state of the toilets after all that vodka and G.I. upset that goes along with it. I couldn’t even be certain they would be leaving the dock for two weeks and if they did, I suspect it was highly unlikely all 12 and make it back….
We motored to our first destination, as there was little wind which was about an hour away. We were greeted by three young boys that helped us tie up the boat in the typical Mediterranean mooring.
In the typical fashion, there was no cost for the mooring but they were hoping that we would have dinner with them. We made reservations. The tables were right in front of the water and the food was absolutely delicious.
Dalaman is famous for its mud baths. It is supposed to make you look 10 years younger and get rid of wrinkles because when the mud dries as it pulls your skin. We hired a small boat to take us up the river to the mud baths. When we got there, the place was deserted and we were the only people in the mud baths. Not a bad deal for about $1. After wallowing in the mud, we let the mud dry on our skins. After about 30 minutes, we washed off all the mud. We then spent 20 minutes in the sulphur baths. I don’t think that the mud baths had much effect on my sunburnt, sensitive skin, but it was a very pleasant experience. We are having a cold one at that bar when the tour buses arrived. In an instant, there were over 500 tourists wallowing in the same mud baths.
We had dinner later that night with a lovely couple. They were in their 80’s and spent all their time on their sailboat.
They were French and fortunately, Ileana was able to talk with them easily…. my French is somewhat limited. They spent the summers sailing around the Mediterranean and in the winters, they stayed upon their boat after it was pulled out on land. They would then launch their boat in the spring. Their favourite place was sailing in Turkey because the moorings were free so it was an economic way of travelling around. The dinners at the moorings had very reasonable pricing and the food was amazing. Their own children were not happy about their lifestyle. They were always suggesting they should get an apartment on the coast but this couple would have none of that. They were clearly very happy and delightful. It seemed that they loved every day on the water.
We were hoping that we could talk with them again that evening, but in their nomadic style, they slipped their moorings in the morning and away they went. I suspect that they are still sailing out there somewhere.
After the week had passed, we sailed back to Gocek to return the boat. It was an amazing sailing experience. It far exceeded our expectations for what we would want on a sailing trip. I am certain that we will go back one day.
