- Leaving on our gulet voyage — Gocek and Lydai, Turkey
- Dalyan and Kaunos, Turkey
- Loryma, Turkey
- Kameriye Island and Selimiye, Turkey
- Datca and Knidos, Turkey
- Sailing, Kisse Buku, and Departing from Bodrum, Turkey
Today marked the next phase of our trip aboard the gulet Ideal1. This boat was arranged for us by another Booz Allen employee whose husband is Turkish and a former gulet captain for 15 years. His name is Dogan (pronounced Doe-Han). In fact, he decided to keep us company on this trip which will both provide a lot of local knowledge as well as being a translator for us (not nearly as many people in Turkey speak English as in Croatia). Getting there meant another early morning to catch our flight from Kayseri through Istanbul to Dalaman and then a van to Gocek where we got on our boat. This boat is substantially smaller than the Aurum (small double beds and a tiny head (bathroom), but since there are only four of us, we each took a stateroom. After leaving port, we motored towards another bay to spend the night. On the way, we cut through the middle of a sailboat race. The winds were really strong (a sign of things to come!) and the sailboats were really heeling.
The cove we spent the night in was very calm and we Med-moored as we had in Croatia. Here the coves/inlets are much more crowded and finding a calm place for the evening means getting in early. This gave us time to take a hike. It turns out that Dogan likes to lead hikes his wife affectionately calls “death marches.” We hiked up a very steep hill that was mostly scree and ended up at the ruins of an old mausoleum/tomb and surrounding village. This village was destroyed and its inhabitants killed by Alexander the Great. The area was beautiful and it must be well-traveled since some enterprising individual set up a little tea house off the path. The hike down was mostly uneventful until I took a spill on the scree and tore up my knee, hand, arm, and chest (but I saved the camera!). Not a great way to start, but some caring nursing by Deb and a few glasses of wine took care of things rather nicely!
I should note that this time we are eating most of our meals aboard the boat and the food is fabulous – traditional Turkish cooking, lots of vegetables, fish, cheeses, and yogurt. Healthy, and yummy too. We are also starting to work our way through the 24 bottles of Turkish wine that we bought. Should be a happy cruise! Tomorrow we are off to Dalyan, the site of the ancient city of Kaunos.
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
