In the mean time, my new friends, Carol and Maurice on Swan Off, had arrived back in Fethiye and were about to head off to Orhaniye. They kindly invited me to sail part of the way with them, on their Moody 35. It was great to be crew on a different, and more modern boat and we visited some delightful places that were all new to me. One particularly lovely, and remote, spot was Sogut where we spent several days before I took the bus back to Fethiye.
I had a few days on Matapan before friends, Ruth and Freeman, from Woodbridge Cruising Club arrived and we set off on my first 'proper' cruise ( ie outside Fethiye Bay!)We had two weeks and planned to sail eastwards to Kas and then on to Kekova Roads.
We spent our first night, on a buoy, in a little anchorage just outside Fethiye Bay, called Karcaoran where we enjoyed a great fish meal at the restaurant.
We made an early start the next morning - with no wind, as usual, and detoured as we past the Greek island of Castelhorizon - which looked delightful,so we earmarked it for a stop over on our return! We arrived at Kas by mid afternoon and decided to stay on anchor, just outside the marina for one night - very peaceful! We ended up staying a further two nights in the marina and really enjoyed the delights of this little town.
From Kas it was just a short hop to the beautiful bay of Kekova. We had a great sail and, to my sheer delight, managed to get the cruising chute up for a while! I really never thought I would see that beautiful sail set again It felt like a great achievement!
I last visited Kekova Roads, with Geoff, about 15 years ago while sailing with friends so I was pleased to have finally brought Matapan to this beautiful spot and was intrigued to see whether it had changed much in all that time.
Our first anchorage was right at the end of the first inlet, Polemos Buku, to the west of Kekova Adasi. A very tranquil and beautiful bay with just a few boats quietly anchored nearby. Idyllic! Ruth and Freeman took the dinghy ashore to explore and returned having booked a table at the restaurant on the beach. Here we dined, in the company of one other, German couple, on freshly grilled fish, chips and a huge tomato and onion salad. Delicious!
The next morning we took a walk across the isthmus to the ancient, and partly sunken, site of Aperlai, where we found many sarcophagii scattered around the water's edge and on the hillside amongst other ruins.By the time we returned to the restaurant at Polemos Buku a very welcome Turkish breakfast awaited us!
We spent several days in this beautiful, very protected bay - moving the boat just a few hundred yards to new anchorages and exploring the area. The village of Ucagiz was, for me, a little disappointing as it has gone from being a tiny hamlet with two jetties that boats could tie up to to visit the restaurants - to a small marina in which hundreds of days boats are moored to ferry thousands of visitors out to the sunken cities in the bay. The village of Kala Koy, with it's picturesque castle perched above it, was still very much as I remembered it - just many, many more restaurants had squeezed themselves into the available spaces on the hillside!
View of Kala Koy from the castle.
After several relaxing days at Kekova we headed back, eastwards, to Kastellhorizon, the tiny, most easterly of the Dodecanese chain of Greek islands, which lies just a stone's throw away from Kas, on Turkish mainland. This tiny little gem of an island is instantly recognisable as Greek, with its distinctive architecture and colourful waterfront. At one time the island was a thriving economy with a population of around 10,000 - today there are just 430 inhabitants! We enjoyed the views, an ouzo at sunset, and were delighted to spot a turtle in the harbour! We finished off the evening with a lovely meal at a waterfront restaurant.
We made a very early start to get back to Fethiye and found what was perhaps the most idyllic anchorage of the whole trip - a tiny little inlet called Bestas Limani, just outside of Fethiye Bay itself. We spent a lovely evening here and swam, watched birds and generally chilled out before heading back to Fethiye and Ece Saray marina - a perfect end to this delightful little cruise.
