Turkey - Finike

Turkish Delight, barbeques and vodka

Here’s a map of our journey from Aden in the Yemen to Finike in Turkey. This covered 1,934 nautical miles making our grand total to date 32,224 miles and we can add Sudan, Egypt and Turkey making it 38 countries in total.

We spent a year in Turkey.  It was considerably cheaper to take a berth in the marina for a year, paid in advance, so we borrowed some money and did that. Finike was very sociable. There were a lot of foreigners and not only live-aboards (mostly English and German) in the marina but also those living in apartments in the town (many Russians). The hard core would meet for drinks on summer evenings in the Rose Garden, well segregated - one table for the English and one for the Germans.  Behind the marina office was a small club house ‘The Port Hole’ with a barbeque area where we gathered on sunny evenings – one of the better parties was my birthday that year. In the winter there were film and games evenings. It was Sandra who frequently organised these social events – she would provide and sell the drinks (which saved us all the hassle of bringing our own), the profits going to her animal charity. The town had been infested with stray dogs and cats which Sandra had routinely rounded up, taken to the vet and had spayed or neutered and then attempted to find homes for. We were all happy to contribute.

Setur Marina office

Our friends Pam and Roger arrived, Cap d’Or bedecked with all their flags, as this represented the end of their circumnavigation, although they continue to cruise.  We’d originally met them in Phuket but we’d missed each other all the way across the Indian and up the Red Sea.  They remained in Finike for most of the year, touring around and working on their boat. Boris and Lisbeth on Li stayed for a while as well as Pat and Olivia on Aldebaran. Mike was commissioned to paint someone’s boat and we decided to try for other commissions. Pat designed and produced a professional-looking poster which we put in the marina office and ablution block. 

Boris and Lisbeth

We heard from Aliesha who finally got out of Egypt in 2008 with a brand new engine, fitted it and sailed to Turkey, but they went further west and we didn’t see them.

My sister Pai and niece Natalie came to visit for two weeks in July. I was only working part time then at the summer school so I could spend plenty of time with them. They hired a car and we were able to do a bit of touring. We also took a two day sailing trip to Kekova to celebrate Pai’s birthday, and mourn the anniversary of Jamie's death.

We swam and saw the ruins of the sunken town in Kekova Rade.  Back at the marina we spent many a happy hour playing the Turkish game ‘Okey’ (similar to Rummikub ) with Cap d’Or. Pai and Nats came for another holiday in February and we explored Myra and the ruins at Arykanda. They gave me a fab new digital camera for my birthday.

One evening we were invited for dinner by Caroline and Jim on Moujik. When we arrived they said they’d been invited by a neighbouring Russian boat to dinner at their apartment in the town and that they’d insisted we come along too. It was a most entertaining evening. The Russian couple, who had a few grandchildren running about were incredibly hospitable. Olga spoke a little English, Slova not a word, and none of us spoke any Russian but with so much goodwill in the air communication positively flowed. Admittedly, a lot of vodka was drunk, very cold and neat. Caroline and I stuck to wine but Mike and Jim tried valiantly to keep up with our hosts, downing glass after glass of the stuff, making extravagant toasts, and getting drunker by the minute. The two Russians remained almost completely sober, and an elaborate, delicious meal was effortlessly served over a long period. There was a great deal of male-sailor bonding and Slova suggested a route that totally captivated Mike – from the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to Rostov, all the way up the Volga River through Gorky to Leningrad, coming out in the Gulf of Finland. Mike, knowing this to be a rarely travelled route, was desperately keen and even I was intrigued as I’d always wanted to go to Russia. However, it would be a very long trip (about 3000 km) and the thought of the Russian winter, which had defeated the armies of Napoleon and Hitler, brought us to our senses.

The area around Finike is famous for citrus fruit, mainly oranges and there are dozens of orange trees planted in the centre island of the town’s main boulevard, full of fragrant blossom in spring.

The Saturday market was the most fabulous market we had ever seen, then or since. The range of fruit and vegetables defied belief, until one recalled the unsightly sea of plastic greenhouses that cover hundreds of hectares of ground all around. The produce yielded by these greenhouses was, however, superb; perfectly formed, delicious and cheap. The market included a bewildering range of cheeses and yoghurts, olives and eggs, bread, dried fruit and nuts, sweets and cakes, and fresh locally farmed trout, as well as an extensive flea market with cheap clothing, shoes, fabrics, household wares and gifts. The market area was enormous, extending five or six streets in both directions, and butted off the main square where there were half a dozen permanent shops selling fresh meat and fish. Around the square were also a number of cafes and restaurants, one of which was the favourite haunt of the cruising community. We both enjoyed Turkish food and often dined in a restaurant in the marina - my favourite was spicy lamb kofta with rice and rocket. When strawberries came into season I went hunting for cream which wasn’t easy to find, but what I did find was fabulous, just like Cornish clotted cream!

Behind the marina breakwater was a swimming platform where we gathered on calm days to swim. Mike was a frequent visitor as was young Timmy, tri-lingual son of Turkish/English Canan and German Andreas on Romoco. We all became fast friends.

In many ways our year here was good and we gave serious thought to settling. We’d made some good friends and liked the country and people very much. Many of the foreign people we knew had invested in a Turkish Lira bank account which at the time was paying the amazing interest rate of 17½%. The banks would only guarantee £50,000 so most had only invested that amount, but even that little yielded a monthly income, after tax, of about my teaching salary! We were very tempted and even went so far as to open a bank account. However, we didn’t have the money to invest at that point, I was weary of teaching and without a good grasp of Turkish any other kind of job would be difficult to find, and finally, the fact that Turkey was still not part of the EU meant we didn’t have the automatic right to remain. Europe beckoned.

At that time, we had an offer on Forever, so on 10 April 2008 we said goodbye to our friends and left Finike. We sailed west to Bodrum to have a survey done, and then headed south, stopping for a couple of nights at Knidos, on the Turkish Peninsular of Datca. Knidos was an ancient Greek city and there are some wonderful ruins - a theatre and three temples - the temple of Dionysus, the Temple of the Muses and the Temple of Aphrodite.

The most famous statue by Praxiteles, the Aphrodite of Knidos, was made for the city.  The original has perished, but a later copy is in the Vatican.

We left Turkey on 23 April 2008 and headed towards Greece.