Okay, I’m gonna rub it in…
Yes, covid is still wrecking havoc all over the world and upending lives everywhere, but from our little floating bottle adrift on the Turkish coastline, it feels like everything for us is finally back to normal **cue dreamy cascading chimes and a swirling fade into…** Cloudless blue skies bend over the snaggle-toothed grins of mountainous coastlines; azure waters sparkle and spank against the polished hull of our vessel; the sizzling sun melts both the will and the worry to “accomplish” anything; our biggest chore is to fill hefty cloth shopping bags with underpriced glistening fresh produce, and our sticky efforts are cleansed by frequent visits to the sea; the sounds of foreign language echo and weave through the atmosphere like music, and harmlessly ricochet against any need for us to understand them; we eat olives like candy and lazily spit the stones overboard, cherry tomatoes explode like glittering nebulae in our mouths, and we relish the simple delight of a beer made cold by the energy of the sun as we watch it set. After a two-and-half-year hiatus, we are finally cruising again…and it feels good!
Hey I warned you, I’m rubbing it in.
Despite the chaos of covid, it has readjusted the focus. Not only are places less crowded, but in general folks seem more relaxed, less frantically on the hustle. Although tourism outlets need the business now more than ever, ironically it feels as if the giant pause-button that covid pressed has made them more grateful for what they have rather than focused on growing what they don’t. Our cab driver waits for us without charge at the vet; shop owners are less aggressive in hawking their wares; restaurant staff gift plates of cold melon. Then again maybe I just haven’t been a tourist in a while 🙂 Either way, it feels as if the razor edge of modern life has been dulled ever so slightly, hopefully giving us all the chance–no matter how fleeting–to reconsider, reassess, and reevaluate that which matters.
On that note, it appears Clare and I have come back to boating with a bit more patience and understanding for one another than we remember having in the past. Whereas previously a mismanaged anchoring attempt may have inspired elevated heart rates and colorful language, we seem to be handling any hiccups this season with much more grace and aplomb. Though some of this difference may be attributed to the fact that we now have a constant audience to perform for…the cat.
**Insert pet-as-surrogate-child story here…feel free to skip the next paragraph if listening to someone drone on about the mishaps of his/her beloved “progeny” is about as appealing as eating a box of glass.**
Aside from getting seasick on his maiden voyage, Kismet has proven himself a capable sailor–or at least a profound lover of dangling ropes. After hoisting the mainsail with him quietly attached, it’s amazing he’s even still aboard. Yes, he’s finally had his first swim though it wasn’t intentional–we had to fish him out of the scuzzy marina water after he was scared off his own boat by a prowling feral cat. Other dock cats aside, Kismet enjoys making our marina neighbors chuckle as we take him on evening strolls down the pier. He almost wound up marooned on a tiny island but we managed to lure him back aboard just as the sun was setting. He’s gotten used to riding freight on our bicycles and even enjoyed pushing the pedals of our hire car. He joined us in the vaccination effort. Once he found himself stuck in the engine bay with the beast running, and he’s recently commandeered the fruit hammock and now relishes having a safe space that gimbels.
Okay, that’s it, you can put down your box of glass now, I’m done with surrogate-children stories.
Let’s see, what else happened this summer? Oh yeah, fire. Although no stranger to wildfires, the Aegean coastline of Turkey is hit especially hard this summer. Champagne may be mostly water but it’s a poor excuse for a fire-extinguisher, so after waking three days in a row to an ash-covered boat we embark on a long 36-hour passage north to extricate ourselves from the burning bush. This has us zig-zagging between Turkish and Greek waters and dodging a slew of stealthy looking patrol boats from both countries, which at the narrowest point are separated by less than a mile. Covid provides the perfect pretext for closing borders between these two touchy neighbors, and although the sea-borders do finally reopen in late July some friends who make the jump across testify to an excruciating process, conflicting rules, and unexpected surprises…glad we remain committed to spending the season in Turkey.
Instead, we travel inland and do our best to ensure that the country’s most photographed sites remain just so. Pamukkale translates as “Cotton Castle,” a name befitting the fairytale-esque quality of this geologic phenomenon along with the surrounding ancient ruins of Hierapolis. An elaborate amphitheatre is perched atop the sloping hillside overlooking the site, and a young girl in pigtails jumps and dances with abandon up and down the stone stadium seating, perhaps just as girls her age have done for millenia. There are plenty of archways under which to kiss your partner, and half-buried houses and plazas to flex your imagination some 2000 years past and wonder what life in this ancient spa-city must have been like.
Sooner or later you’ll Indiana Jones your way to the edge of the hillside where the staff will ask you to remove your shoes before going any further. Although the vast trail of people slowly parading their way up the face of the hill do look as if they are on pilgrimage in some foreign planet, the shoeless requirement is not for religious purposes but rather as a precaution against slipping on the wet rock. People flock from all over to visit the peculiar calcium deposits that blanket the entire hillside in white cloudy puffs reminiscent of a Mario Bros level.
The wistful among us pay $10 to don a set of angel-wings and be appropriately attired for photographs in the heavenly scene. Kids splash and kick the milky water on their parents who are guarding backpacks full of snacks and extra nappies; young lovers embrace and lean against the cotton candy walls, which sadly are far less cushiony than they appear; and some of us immerse ourselves into the warm mineral-rich water that flows in a torrent down a channel carved from the rock. The setting sun paints the calcified canvas pink, then orange, then red, and shadows stretch from countless limbs like branches from an enormous tree. We return to our hire car as pinpricks of light from distant suns begin to pierce the cobalt sky and make the long 3-hour return drive to the coast in quiet darkness.
After a visit to the ancient city of Ephesus, the house of the Virgin Mary, and the temple of Apollo (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world though you wouldn’t know it today), we return to the sea and hitch a ride south on the blustery Meltemi winds that barrage all Aegean coastlines. We stumble into Turkey’s principal fish farming bay–which looks as sexy as it sounds–before finding a busy cove where gossip says Turkish celebrities are often sighted. Perhaps we would have bumped into one on the Saturday night we finally decide to go out, but by the time we polish off a bottle of plunk, complete a costume change, and find a spot to land the dinghy, it’s 2 am and the only people still up are either cleaning up, or singing along with a drunken busking guitarist playing Turkish folk songs…none of which we recognize.
A brisk stop in the tourist mecca of Bodrum allows us to visit the formidable Castle of St. Peter which now houses a magnificent museum of underwater archaeology. We accidently splurge on a 45-euro fish at a waterfront restaurant, smoke a hookah on the beach before being told we have to hide it because the cops are nearby, and then get denied a ride by three different taxi drivers who all say we should just walk back to the marina. At least we have a cozy spot to wait out a big blow, and get the chance to pump out our overflowing holding tank (ewww!) and fill up on water.
Mission accomplished, we make our departure just as a burst of orange flame erupts from the hillside and spreads across the dry scrub, soon threatening the doors of the highest houses. Within minutes a helicopter is on the scene, dodging masts and spraying nearby boats in a slew of rotor wash as it hovers to collect seawater in a massive swinging bucket from the crowded anchorage. Once full, the chopper rushes up the hillside–all the while spilling a steady torrent of saltwater overtop the city as it goes–before dumping its now seemingly thimble-sized load atop the crackling inferno. Wash, rinse, repeat.
This is our first return to the fire zones since leaving a month prior, and as we reach our way deeper into the Gulf of Gokova the evidence is painfully apparent. Like the set of a Mad Max movie, vast tracts of charred crispy trees spread up the steep mountain slopes, black and barren in all directions, a wispy cloud of dust and ash spins from a gust of wind. The destruction comes right down to the water’s edge, but due to the herculean efforts of both residents and firefighters most of the few small villages were spared.
The relative remoteness of these coves inspires us to get back to our cruising roots, and get in the water. Out come the wetsuits and the underwater camera, and I even brandish my long-neglected polespear. I do my bit to help rid the shallows of invasive Lionfish, a species from SE Asia that has no natural predators here in the Med (or in the Atlantic/Caribbean where I first became familiar with them), and therefore feeds on native populations without reprisal. Their lack of fear does make them dopey and easy to hunt, but they must be handled with caution as a powerfully painful neuro-poison is stored in their mane of quills. In fact, despite handling perhaps a hundred of these fish before, I do manage to lightly prick myself for the first time and spend a good portion of the evening nursing my swollen finger in hot water, the recommended remedy. On the plus side, Lionfish are as tasty as melted butter on hot toast, and I have no qualms throwing them in the pan…and Kismet couldn’t agree more!
Somehow the Equinox (and our 5th wedding anniversary) passed us by and now we find ourselves buttoning up flannel sleeves after the sun sets. There remains another solid month of good sailing weather–just as well because my father is about to join us for the ride south!–but by the end of it Champagne will be back in Kas, no doubt antsy and ornery at the idea of being tied up all winter…or is that will just us 😉