~7 months to go before Chloe launches....
Our whole Sailing Chloe adventure is driven by us wanting to seek out diversity, variety and new experiences. We want to find new places, people and cultures. Or at least, new to us.
Turkey is divided into seven regions: Black Sea, Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia. Only the Marmara region (in the NW) is part of Europe, whereas the rest is part of Asia. Also, Turkey shares a border with a multitude of other countries (Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon by land and several others by the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Seas including Greece, Russia and Ukraine just to name a few) that have contributed to its rich and diverse culture which the locals seem to savor and strive to maintain. Therefore, we decided that Turkey must be our next stop so we could experience its culture as well as get in some sailing along the Aegean coastline.
We travelled from Cherbourg, France, through London, to Marmaris, Turkey carrying only our backpacks and sailing gloves. It's a big seasonal tourist trap with visitors coming from various countries and offers great people-watching. Even though the most common tourists were Russians and British (closely followed by Germans and Italians) looking for cheap package holidays in all-inclusive hotels, there are plenty of other international tourists walking around to enjoy the atmosphere. For example, we really enjoyed seeing harmony in the diversity of best friends walking side-by-side with one in a string bikini and the other in a headscarf and topcoat (tesettür)!
Marmaris tourists wander along the miles long beach and marina frontage, taking advantage of the the low cost of restaurants and souvenir shopping while choosing from a huge selection of boat tours and water sports.
We chose a quiet location a few miles across the bay from Marmaris, but able to see and hear the Marmaris nightlife across the water. At Adaköy Marina we chartered a 42-ft sloop for a couple of weeks and set off to discover a series of smaller, often isolated bays in the Turkish Aegean countryside with their local marina's docks and moorings. Some were just remote anchorages, and others had villages attached to them with full service quays.
We had done this kind of sailing before, when in Greece a few years back and were interested to compare & contrast the two experiences. What we really liked was the genuine friendliness and humor of the Turkish people encouraging us to visit their restaurants as we docked up alongside their quay. We were also surprised at how many languages they spoke even though they were in the most remote villages accessible only by the sea. Everyone we met seemed to be able to converse in Turkish, English, Russian, German - from the souvenir shop selling t-shirts to the waiter at the restaurants. As most of the locations we sailed to were seasonal, they worked for 6-9 months out the year to earn their yearly wage and thus, learned the languages of the visitors.
Lastly, we must mention the food - it is absolutely wonderful and so healthy. We have never eaten so many cucumbers in our lives, but they are the very best here. Every meal consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, and yogurt (even breakfast) and as a treat in the small villages, we get village bread which is round and 1" thick and 12"-16" in diameter. It is served warm out of the open-air ovens and eaten with honey and is the most memorable gastronomic experience we had. Sadly, village bread can only be found in the small villages and not in the larger towns or cities.
Regarding the kittens and goats referred to in the title, we refer you to the above video. : - )
On our second week of sailing, Corrie and Rowan joined us from Scotland. They loaded up with sea sickness pills and then we sailed along the coast together, visiting a few more pleasant marinas for swims and sightseeing while quietly absorbing more of the Turkish friendliness & culture.
After saying goodbye to the girls, we will be spending another 2 months traveling through Turkey by land up the west coast to Istanbul. After the first few weeks, we are really looking forward to getting on the road!
