Guests on Board

It was a lovely clear sunny day with no wind as we left Kuşadası, but once we were outside of the marina, the mist descended on us as we motored into a very eerie flat sea. We planned our route to travel 46 nm north towards the Çeşme peninsula.

After a couple of hours the wind arrived so the sails went up. It was coming from directly in front of us so we were sailing slightly off course. Ziggy was tacking back and forth all afternoon and making slow progress, then the wind dropped and we were struggling to achieve 3 kts. With the evening approaching, the sails came down and the engine was fired up for the last hour of the journey to Port Mersin on the south coast of the Çeşme peninsula.

It had been a long day, travelling for almost 10 hours but at least we were able to sail the majority of the trip. We were very pleased to arrive at the large well protected anchorage at the mouth of a river, there was only one other boat there so we had plenty of space to drop our anchor in the calm water, have a swim and relax for the evening.

We had guests arriving to Çeşme so the following day we continued a further 27 nm around the Peninsula. It was hot and sunny with a good force 4 sailing wind coming from behind for a change, Ziggy was flying at 7 kts with just the Genoa up. As we rounded the peninsula the main sail came out as well and we had dolphins swimming along with us.

As we approached Çeşme, we first visited some of the bays along the coast for options to bring our friends before dropping our anchor in Baba Koyu, a pretty bay with clear water, smart buildings, surrounded by hills, trees and beaches.

The Çeşme peninsula is known to be a windy coastline, the 100’s of wind turbines along the hilltops confirmed this.

The Graham family were due to arrive the following day, they had arranged an apartment in Çeşme as they didn’t want to sleep onboard. Their holiday requirements were to visit us each day in a nice clear calm anchorage for fun and games in the water, plenty of food and drink and maybe a little sailing with hopefully some dolphins along the way.

There was due to be a northerly wind blowing all week so our options for calm anchorages was slightly limited, but we were confident that we had found a couple of good protected bays which would be suitable. We headed to Hacettepe Koyu to await their arrival. It was quite busy but we managed to find a spot where we could anchor in 6 meters with enough space to let out 40m of chain to ensure good holding.

There was a popular beach here called Sera Beach, I’m sure that we came to the right place?

The sun came up over the flat water the next morning ready for our guests to arrive. Paul went to shore to collect them and after unloading all of their bags (I thought they said they didn’t want to stay overnight!) everyone was in the water.

In the evening we walked to the closest town, Dalyan, for dinner. The request was for Kebabs. We found a nice restaurant on the sea front, unfortunately they didn’t do Kebabs but we did have a great view over the entrance to the harbour as the sun went down. When we returned to Ziggy later, the bay was lit up by the boats anchored.

We had a few days in Hacettepe Koyu with the paddle board, unicorn, volleyball, bat and ball games, swimming to the beach bar for ice creams and sundown cocktails, so far ticking some of their boxes.

The following day the wind was perfect for a gentle sail so we lifted the anchor and headed 10 nm northeast further into the gulf of Ildir. First we took a detour back to where we had previously seen dolphins, but unfortunately they didn’t come out to play with us this time.

There was only a light breeze but the sails went up and everyone had a turn on the helm, it’s great having crew to help. The wind then picked up a little which speeded us up and added some excitement as we navigated our way through the many fish farms here.

After a couple of hours we anchored in a lovely sheltered bay in the north of the gulf. There was nothing here except several day trip boats and a small beach area which unfortunately had lots of litter. The water was calm, 29° and perfect for swimming.

As there were no roads in to the bay it wasn’t possible to get a taxi back to their apartment so in the evening we moved a couple of miles south and anchored at Ildir town for the night. After sundown cocktails we went ashore for dinner and found a great family run restaurant but unfortunately no kebabs, failed again!

We stayed in the gulf for the following couple of days between the two anchorages. During the week, everyone had been on the unicorn, (some better than others), so it was time for the annual challenge, this year it was unicorn races around the boat, it all got very competitive but no unicorns were injured. I know it’s not about winning and it’s the taking part that counts, but I’m sure you want to know who won….it was me!

We love having visitors onboard and had a great week on the water but the time passed too quickly and they were soon flying home again. I think we did pretty well satisfying their criteria for a successful holiday just failing on their request for kebabs and dolphins. I guess it’s only understandable that they decided not to leave a tip!