Arriving in the evening you fortunately miss the many gullets that dominate every bay with day trippers, so was wonderfully peaceful watching local fisherman and I even braved a swim before we left next morning. Motoring along with thunderous skies covering the mountains we were confronted with an 'amada' heading towards us. I counted 15 gulets and pirate ships full of day trippers from Antayla and Kemer heading to our beautiful bay so lucky we had left.
The thought of braving the Turkish roads for such a long trip was a little daunting and had I known there was a whole lot of mountain to cross, a thunder storm waiting for us and Turkish drivers who drive in both lanes, I would suggest it was more than a little stupid! Anyway Ill save that story for the next post but suffice to say in 48 hrs I drove 1300km, Helen is still sane (well as much as she ever was), we did a hot air balloon ride (and I hate heights) over the most spectacular and awe inspiring landscape, drove the back roads around the whole region of Cappadocia only to get frightfully lost on our return in the streets of Antayla trying to find the hire car place.
Finally arriving at Antayla, the capitol city of the region, sprawling along the coast line. The marina is miles out of town by the commercial port however it only costs 4TL ($2) and two buses to get into the city centre and old town of Kaleci which is a warren of alleys (very easy to get lost) with shops offering near anything you might want plus cafes.
Antayla was the meeting place for Helen but I was expecting her to text only to learn she had no mobile and she was expecting to reach me via email but we had no wifi however after many challenging hours we finally connected, she joined the good ship Con Brio and we waved goodbye to a nervous looking Steven wondering what chaos might happen to his beloved yacht in his absence.
A photo of their yacht Sunlight, in full flight under two kites - i have never seen that before!
This marina has very few people staying as it is largely local however before Helen joined me, a delightful Norwegian couple, Peder and Aud Lunde on the same arm, invited me to dinner and it was an absolute treat to hear about their fascinating journey and learn of their sailing history. I just love the opportunity that cruising allows to meet an incredible mix of people from all over the world each with their own unique journey. Peder and Aud have cruised 3500km from Norway to Romania on the Black Sea via the rivers and canals (had to drop their mast) of half of Europe and then sailed via Istanbul and the Turkish coast to Antayla.
They also have the most amazing sailing and skiing pedigree. Peders grandfather won gold in 1924 olympics, his parents sailed together in the 1956 melbourne Olympics and his mother was the first female to win a sailing medal, Peder has competed in 4 Olympics -2 FDs in 1960, 1968, star class1972, 1978 plus round the world race, Aud competed in 1964, 68 winter olympics and their daughter has competed in both summer and winter Olympics including Sydney 2000 - how is that for an incredible gene pool! Unfortunately they leave today as I would love to hear more however I hope to cross tracks again one day.
If you are into history, Antayla has much to offer being surrounded by many ancient sites but I am a bit over ruins so an impulse decision saw us hiring a car to drive to the region of Cappadocia, some 600km inland which is world renowned for cave houses and chimney like landscape.
Back to reality of boat life - there is much cleaning, laundry, provisioning to be done getting Con Brio back to its normal tidy state without girl paraphenalia strewn everywhere before Steven arrives back from UK tonight so we will be ready to leave for our next cruising leg tomorrow. As I type our head tank (lu) waste is being pumped out - the not so glamorous chore!
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