Kids in Charge

With visitors on their way we spent the day preparing the boat to make space for everyone, the front cabin is always used as a storage area so that had to be cleared in order to use the bed. With children arriving, netting was attached on the guard rails around the boat. Last year it took almost a day to do each side, but now that it is already cut to size, this was all done in just a few hours.

After a busy day we decided to go for a walk into town. We found a popular bar in the corner of the main square, the sun was just going down and we decided that we would treat ourselves to a relaxing drink before our visitors arrived the next day. With only one table free we quickly sat down. One drink often leads to another and we were soon feeling very relaxed.

Our visitors had booked an apartment at a holiday resort in Çalış, on the outskirts of the town of Fethiye, they wanted to spend half of the week onboard ZigZag and half in the resort.

The weather was changeable with potential storms. The anchorages close to their resort would not offer enough protection should the wind and storms arrive, particularly if we wanted to spend a lot of time away from the boat. Finike marina is part of a chain of marinas and our contract through the winter includes many free nights at the other marinas within the same group. At Kaş marina we were allowed 14 days so we took advantage of this knowing that Ziggy would be safe here in all weathers and decided to hire a car to drive to Fethiye to collect them.

We arrived back at the boat with our daughter and 3 small inquisitive children. The boat was suddenly very busy and little fingers were into everything ‘what’s this for?’, and ‘what does this do?’ were frequent questions (usually asked after touching it, pressing it, moving it or eating it!).

An ideal holiday for the children included restaurants, beaches, swimming pools and ice cream. So to fulfil one (the most important) of their criteria, we took them in to town for a look around before sitting down at a very good restaurant in one of the busy narrow lanes.

Attached to the marina there is a smart yacht club, Paul and I had already checked it out prior to their arrival, it looked perfect and ticked all of their boxes! The following day we took them along, they loved it, comfy sun beds, lovely pool, small beach area with clear water, food, cocktails and ice cream, something for everyone.

Rabbits ran around the gardens which gave the kids further entertainment, I think the rabbits heaved a sigh of relief after we left!

After a couple of days at the yacht club and another trip to explore Kaş town it was time to take our guests back to their apartment.

Although only approximately 45 nm by sea, the journey by car was a little longer as the road takes you around the mountains and hills. On the way, there is a large gorge in the rocks with a lovely beach at the bottom.

Saklikent Gorge is one of Turkey’s natural wonders. The canyon is 18km long and 300m deep making it one of the deepest in the world and a popular tourist attraction for gorge walkers and climbers.

We also booked an apartment in the resort at Çalış for a few days until the end of their holiday. The apartment was well equipped and it was nice to have the luxury of land life for a while (mainly a washing machine).

There were several swimming pools in the complex and being situated on the seafront, there was also the option of spending time on the beach or swimming in the clear sea or watching the sun set. As it was early in the season it wasn’t busy or overcrowded either in the resort or back in Kas and we often had the swimming pool to ourselves.

The resort was a couple of miles away from Fethiye town, so we caught one of the taxi boats that ran frequently back and forth from Çalış.

After a walk around the town, a bit of souvenir shopping and a visit to the market, we had lunch and ice creams before returning back to the resort.

Our apartment had a nice patio which led out to a pool, it also featured a chimney for barbecuing so we fired it up for a relaxing dinner and a swim. I always like a barbecue as Paul normally does the cooking allowing me time to relax with a cold gin and tonic.

Everywhere we visited we found the locals to be extremely welcoming and kind especially towards the children, we were told that in Turkey children are considered angels and should be treasured. In one of the restaurants the waitress wanted to keep them. It was only because her boss told her to get back to work that we managed to escape with all 3 children!

The end of the week arrived all to quickly and our visitors left, it was time for us to return to Ziggy. It seemed very quiet on board now. We had one more trip to town to return the hire car, visit our favourite cafe (for coffee) and provision for our departure the next morning when we plan to continue along the turquoise coast.