Bozukkale

After almost a month, we finally left Marmaris and motored out of the bay in flat calm water. It was very hot with a light breeze, unfortunately not enough to sail but we were very happy to be underway again.

We headed west along the barren and rocky coast towards the tip of the peninsula and couldn’t believe the speed we were going, easily doing 7 knots. Prior to having our super smooth bottom with a clean and serviced propeller, in the same conditions, we would have been travelling at around 5 kts. This reduced our 26 nm journey by one hour.

There was nothing else to report about the trip so it wasn’t long before we were heading into Bozukkale, a large sheltered bay. There are 3 restaurants who all have their own pontoons to tie up to, which are free if you buy a meal there. We decided to go to the Ali Baba restaurant on the western side of the bay, directly in front of the ancient citadel on the hill. There was a very rickety looking wooden pontoon, the friendly staff made us very welcome and came out to help us moor. Thankfully the pontoon seemed sturdy than it first looked as it soon started to fill up with boats.

A very pretty anchorage surrounded by a rocky shoreline and crystal clear blue sea. The water was slightly cooler here, just 24°C, so we had a lovely refreshing swim before hiking up the hill to the castle.

The ancient name of Bozukkale is ‘Loryma’. Due to the remains of the ancient citadel here, it is now known as Bozukkale which in Turkish means ‘broken castle’.

It is unclear when the castle was built with suggestions being between the 7th and 3rd Century BC. The rectangular symmetrical castle had nine towers and nine bastions, the corner ones being round. It is believed to have been built by Rhodian craftsmen trying to prevent enemies from entering the large natural harbour. The castle played an important role in defending Rhodes and controlling the passage between the East and West Mediterranean.

The walk up to the castle started with a nice path which soon disappeared and we had to find our way up through overgrown vegetation and rocks.

We made it to the top, where there is always a flag, and had fantastic panoramic views of the bay and across the Mediterranean. We could just see Rhodes 12 miles away, the castle’s position enabled soldiers to monitor approaching vessels at great distance.

The castle was originally over 300 meters long and approximately 40 meters wide where despite its size, it blended into the rocky landscape. Minimal restoration work has been done, but 120 meters of the stone walls remain, up to 10 meters tall and 3 meters thick in places. The impressive defensive walls are made with huge cubic stone blocks placed together without mortar. We noticed many similarities to the defensive wall at Nisyros which was built by the Giants in the 4th Century BC.

We walked along the top of the walls which was a little precarious in places, if the goats can do it then I can, just don’t look down!

Bozukkale is a secluded bay with no road connections and a little far for day trip boats to visit. It is only accessible by sea and had a very peaceful atmosphere.

In the evening we visited the little wooden restaurant (which looked almost as rickety as the pontoon) for a very nice fresh fish dinner, the fish was caught locally and vegetables were grown in their garden behind the restaurant. We sat looking out to Ziggy.

In the morning we could see the ladies outside the restaurant cooking fresh bread for the day.

The wind had picked up early in the morning so we decided to leave, it was blowing over our beam so was very pleased with our new found speed and we were able to get out of our mooring quickly before the wind caught our bow, and blew us in the wrong direction against the other boats.

Once out of bay we continued along the coast passing the ruined castle on the sea side. This stretch of coastline is referred to as ‘Ekmekçi Burnu’ by local boaters. Legend says that a young sailor once died on the rocky shore after a storm capsized his fishing boat. It is now thought to be good luck if you throw bread (‘ekmek’ in Turkish) into the sea and give a prayer of thanks when passing the peninsula to appease the powers that be, and avoid a similar fate. Unfortunately we didn’t have any bread so thought they may like some Pringles instead, as you are reading this blog it appears they do!