Late Season Return to Marmaris

Nov 2 – 16, 2018 – 

Next stop heading east is Eskifoca, a gem of a village about twenty-five miles north of Izmir along the Aeolian coast. Turning east to make the entrance to the harbor the unusual geological formations of the area start to come into view. We had anchored here overnight as we sailed north a few weeks earlier and now decided to make another visit to explore it some more. Since it is the end of the season there was plenty of space for anchoring near the waterfront. We were able to then dinghy right into the center of the fishing harbor where two delightful Turkish fishermen offered to help with our line. Most of the village appears to be around the waterfront with a scenic beach right in town and scattering of homes extending beyond. 

Shadowing the waterfront is a hillside scattered with abandoned windmills and sandstone formations that look like mini fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. It is still amazing to us that so many areas of Turkey have a town that is quite condensed with little transition before the landscape becomes rugged and untouched for miles beyond.

We had lunch at one of the fish restaurants directly on the waterfront where we got talking with the owner.  Within minutes we found common ground.  His sister moved to Boston from here twenty years ago and now owns two restaurants, one in Boston and another less than two miles from where we used to live in the suburbs.  Both serve Turkish food. We will definitely go there when we are back in Boston.

Continuing south and east the following day we had a brisk sail with strong northerly winds and returned back to Çesme Marina for two nights. It gave us an opportunity to revisit Alacati, the windsurfing hotspot of the eastern Med. Like so many other towns on this coast, during the population exchange of 1922 Greeks living in Alacati were sent back to Greece, and Turks in Greece were returned to Turkey.  

The architecture here makes things look so Greek you almost need to look for a flag to determine what country you are in. The homes are mostly stone, many in the center of the village now updated and turned into B&Bs or restaurants. They have tremendous character, and with the additional draw of windsurfing, Alicati has become a magnet for tourism. Even at the end of the season cafes were busy.

Çesme is also a major tourist destination now.  It also was part of the population exchange and today has ferries that run daily between Çesme and the Greek Island of Khios, less than ten miles away. A reminder of its Greek past is the former Greek Orthodox Church that, renovated in 2012, is now a community center. The interior of the building retains the features of the Orthodox church, including the impressive frescoes on the vaulted ceiling, certainly unique for its new function. 

We found a great meze and fish restaurant for a fun night out.  We focused on their wonderful mezes for our dinner and noticed that it was significantly the local population that was dining there.  Always a good sign.  As the evening got later, the owner changed the music to Turkish popular music and started singing. After a few songs, other diners got involved singing, then dancing and musical instruments came out.  Everyone was getting involved and having a great time. In spite of not knowing the music, we could keep up with the beat and dancing. What fun!  We would love to repeat the evening – it had such spirit.

Kusadasi was our next stop on our return to Marmaris.  We had really enjoyed being there as we sailed north and were looking forward to being there again. It did not disappoint.  Our timing was such that we were in Kusadasi for the annual holiday memorial to the death of Ataturk, the first president and father of Turkey.

Mustafa Kamal Ataturk died at 9:05 am on November 10, 1938. 

It is a day of remembering for the entire country.  At 9:05 am everything stops for two minutes. We were out on the main street and watched as pedestrians and cars all came to a complete stop. Even fishermen along the pier stopped and stood erect facing Ataturk’s statue on the waterfront. The Coast Guard boats and the cruise ship in port all blew their horns for the two minutes.

The harbor bustled with activity from tourism to boat building, to commercial. fishing. Walking through the town we found a small produce stand with very fresh vegetables, something Sara can rarely pass by, and behind it an outstanding fish market with an abundant variety of fresh fish.  With the produce and fresh fish, dinner was planned. 

Along our way back to the boat we walked past a government building with an open courtyard and found a small orchestra practicing for a concert that evening. Inquiring about tickets to it we found that it was free and open to the public. Great!

Bob did a great job of grilling the fresh fish and we were then off to the concert an hour in advance to secure seats. When we arrived we realized we were in for an even bigger delight than we realized.  It was a small orchestra featuring a husband and wife duet – she was the soloist and he played an old-style Turkish instrument called a zither. It turns out that he was Tahir Aydoğdu (the “ğ” with the accent breve is silent in Turkish), somewhat of a national treasure in Turkey, see link below:

Tahir Aydoğdu

The concert was in celebration of Ataturk’s life.  For the encore, both performed with the orchestra and the song was clearly one everyone knew as the entire audience, less the two of us, sang along. 

The view from the marina includes the old Castle.  The area along the waterfront where the marina is we are berthed at, Setur Marina, has been completely redone. There is now as modern outdoor mall wiith great public space and sporting lots of end stores and restaurants. We would love to have stayed longer in Kusadasi and explored more of the city, but the winds were blowing perfectly from the north and it was time to keep moving south and back toward Marmaris.

Another late season meltemi and we headed south along the edge of it. It does provide great wind and a brisk sail, which we love, but often are happy that we do not have guests aboard that might not appreciate it as we do.  We did a long sail to Gumbet, an anchorage just outside of Bodrum, arriving after dark and where we stayed two nights and never got off the boat.  

With the wind blowing hard we did boat projects aboard, then headed further south along the southern coast of the Datcha peninsula, arriving at Kuruca Buku in 40 kt winds.  

It is a great anchorage we have been to several times.  Good holding and very quiet.  We spent one night then went on to Bozburun where we enjoyed our end of the season dinner with Ozman and Lynn at their restaurant on the waterfront.  It is our favorite place in Bozburun, sort of our “Cheers” spot.

After a wonderful season of exploring the magnificent coastline of Turkey we arrived back to our slip in Netsel Marina and started the list of projects to get Quintessa ready for the coming winter.

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