Fast & Furious to Finike

Finike, journey's end for this season - 17th October

We made the most of a run of five days of fine weather anchored in Gokkaya Limani just beyond Kekova. It's a beautiful spot, and home to a several loggerhead turtles that would surface from time to time for us to watch.  Leighton is distinctly wary of turtles from his time as a diver in a marine park when he was a student. As the seawater had a layer of icy cold spring water on the top, it was no great hardship to leave the swimming to the turtles.
Idyllic Gokkaya Limani
 













We were anchored close to Petronella, a 39' Joshua steel ketch, owned by John and Jill from Cumbria, whom we'd first met in Ucagiz. We spent every evening with them over a drink or two swapping sailing stories and using up our remaining locker stores. We enjoyed being with them and found we had a lot in common, so we were sorry to discover they're overwintering in Kas.
We met these goats along a stretch of the Lycian Way from Gokkaya Limani



















We decided to spend our last night before tying up for the winter in Karaloz. It's a tiny fiord-like inlet on the east side of Kekova island.  When we arrived there was only one other boat there, but by the end of the day four charter boats squeezed themselves in as well.  One boatload of Swedes, three boatloads of Germans.  One with small children onboard; another with a crewmember who fancied himself on the guitar.  Peace shattered. 
Morning calm in Karaloz



















According to the pilot, the passage between Kekova and Finike is often windless.  Determined not to motor our last day if we could help it, we'd waited until there was wind forecast.  We got it. Plenty of wind and a steep swell gave us a fast and rolling downwind ride to Finike.  Leighton hand steered all the way as it was too tough for Cathy.
Surfing downwind to Finike

Approaching the marina at Finike





























"You're just in time for the BBQ", announced our neighbours as the marinero was expertly tying Makarma to the pontoon in the marina. And so our feet had hardly touched the ground before we were getting to know the liveaboard community here over a few beers.  What a welcome!

Our mini Vlicho moment

At anchor in Kekova Roads - 11th October

Today we're mopping up after three days of torrential rain and wind - one heavy shower after another. 
Yesterday evening just before dark a sudden squall hit us with a ferocious 50 knot blast that sent the boat heeling right over. The visibility went to zero and raindrops came at us like bullets.  We got soaked to the skin and thoroughly chilled standing in the cockpit with the engine on in case the anchor dragged. It proved a good call to have put 35 metres of chain out in 3.5 metres of water as the anchor held fine. Twenty minutes later and it was all over.  We poured ourselves a generous gin and tonic each to celebrate coming out of it unscathed.

Then in the early hours of this morning, another squall came over.  This one was a feeble 35 knots - hardly worth getting out of bed for, we reckoned. Although our storm was nothing like as bad as the tornado that hit Vlicho recently, it's left us feeling a bit rattled. It's still unsettled today and the barometer's yet to show a rise, so we keep anxiously scanning the clouds for anything threatening that might hit us again.

Annoyingly, the rain's left a layer of red dust everywhere on deck and it found its way through the dorade vents to drip down below. 
A sign that the worst is over?

Extreme Sightseeing

Kas - 5th October

Edd's visit wiped us out. More accustomed to gentle days at anchor, we weren’t prepared for a week of high-octane sightseeing. During his stay we've done two 20km walks over rough mountain terrain, visited a ghost town, numerous historic sites and a mountain gorge.  On top of all that, Edd ran 10km every morning!

Kale Koy - 8000 Greek inhabitants were forced to abandon the town during the infamous population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920's



With the help of Kate Clow's excellent Lycian Way guide we trekked up to the ruins of Phellos perched high above a fertile plain.

The former Lycian garrison was well worth the climb. Lycian rock tombs and monuments untouched for centuries stood in majestic surroundings on a strategic ridge with views on all sides. We had the place to ourselves - no great surprise, given its inaccessibility.

The final leg of the walk took us 1500 feet down a precipitous mule track back into Kas, our leg muscles complaining every step of the way.
The view over Kas from the top of the mountain path














Next we hired a car to visit Xanthos, the old capital of Lycia.
Rock tombs with modern polytunnels behind

Sir Charles Fellows kindly left these behind



























Yet more tombs, a Greek theatre, a Roman agora, a Byzantine church. Sadly part of the site was looted by Sir Charles Fellows in the 19th century and put in the British Museum . The biggest challenge was to avoid the unofficial guides who lurked behind tombs to insist on showing us around.  We drove on to picnic at Patara, which was Lycia's chief port and then its capital after the people of Xanthos committed mass suicide when the Romans defeated them rather than face captivity.  Patara's ruins lie mainly unexcavated under sand dunes on the coast, its harbour now silted up and 3km from the sea.
The silted harbour at Patara

Taking a break at the Greek theatre at Patara




























It's a magnificent place. We were in need of a swim after clambering over all the old ruins in the midday heat and went to the beach.

The day's highlight came at Delikemmer, a marvel of engineering on a hillside along the Lycian Way.
Roman engineering - interlocking stones to form a pipe














The 2,000 year old Roman water siphon system and aquaduct carried water to Patara from a spring several kilometres away. This section is at the top of a 20 foot wall. To our surprise we could see below us the Yesilkoy anchorage where we'd spent the noisy night with the gulets.

If we thought our exertions would bring a good night's sleep, we were wrong. Late in the evening a strong wind began to gust down off the hill. Towards midnight we heard a loud bang and all the lights went out. Some power lines had been blown together, and the resulting sparks set fire to the scrubby hillside, the flames fanned by the gusty wind.  It looked more dramatic than it actually was, but the fire brigade were still at work in the morning to keep the blaze from spreading.
Hillside ablaze seen from the marina















Our second walk was the more strenuous of the two. It took us from the small farming village of Bogazcik down 1,000 feet to the ruins of Aperlae, where we could snorkel over the remains of a sunken harbour.  Then back again.  It was downhill through the scrub, the path getting steeper and stonier as we went.
Spot the path!














We'd overdosed on Lycian tombs by now so Aperlae was a bit of a disappointment.

Yet more Lycian tombs....














The snorkelling wasn't that great either - the water was murky and the underwater ruins were hard to pick out. It was a long and exhausting trudge back uphill. On the way back we foolishly took a detour to the ruins of Apollonia and were exhausted by the time we'd picked a path back across a scrubby hillside to the car.

On the last day of Edd's visit we went to the Saklikent gorge.  It's a tourist magnet with loads of tatty souvenir stalls, but wading up the gorge itself was great fun. The air was fresh and the spring water was icy cold. After only 1km the gorge is blocked by a waterfall and you have to turn back, so we were spared a strenuous outing that day.
 
Thawing out after wading through the gorge














After we got Edd to Dalaman airport for his flight back to London, it was a relief to put our feet up for a rest. It was great he came out to see us and we loved having him to stay.  He's excellent company these days. It may have been exhausting, but we also loved getting off the boat and seeing more of Turkey. 

Overheating

Kas - 2nd October

"Yet another thing to fix," groans Leighton.  The list gets longer by the day.  Unless we keep below 1,000 revs (which gives us 4 knots of speed) the engine has started to overheat. Apart from the heat exchanger cap problem that now has a temporary fix, the thermostat is sticking. A firm tap on it brings the temperature down a little.  Once we're in Kas we'll sort it all out as Edd is bringing some spares with him, but first we've got to get there.

Our stay in Kapi Creek turned out to be unusually sociable. Soon after Colin and Bronwen left to explore more of Skopea Limani, we were hailed from the dock by some old friends who we last saw three years ago. Wilma and Francis were our neighbours back in Ayamonte, Spain. They happened to be passing the entrance to Kapi Creek and seeing it was busy decided not to stop until they noticed Makarma. We celebrated the extraordinary odds that our paths would cross by spending the evening reminiscing and sharing our adventures.

We timed our departure for some wind in the forecast but to our frustration there was almost no wind at all. We managed only three miles of slow sailing to Karacoroen and another six miles the next day along Patara beach on the way to Kalkan. We crawled the rest of the way under the poor old donk, eyes glued to the temperature guage.
We sailed past Patara, the site of a Lycian city & birthplace of Santa Claus














We anchored in Yesilkoy Limani just west of Kalkan for one night. It was a peaceful place until six gulets came and parked close by.

Once the partying had died down around midnight, the wind got up until 4am. Between 5am and 6am the gulets left one by one. We felt distinctly bleary-eyed when we left in the morning for the last stretch to Kas - motoring of course.