Wednesday 24 September 2008

Sailing The Turquoise Coast 1




It was truly a wonderful week... beautiful weather, great company, lots of sailing, lovely food and early morning swims off the boat in the quiet balmy water.  Every day we'd arrive at a new place, jump into the launch and go off exploring.  We stopped at Knidos a (amazingly preserved) ruined ancient Greek town in modern Turkey replete with its own amphitheater ... 

... what a beautiful setting, you can imagine it in full use, crammed with people, twinkling lights, hustle and bustle and then silence before the play began looking out over the glimmering water.  

Our next stop after Knidos was the Greek island of Symi, this involved a short stop at the Turkish port of Datcha where Mehmet the captain had to spend some hours sorting out our papers in order to cross the border.  Mehmet was not only our captain, but also the chef,  so he used this stop as an opportunity to stock up on fresh fruit, herbs, freshly caught fish and vegetables.  Soon we were starting our 2.30 hour sail to Symi.  After a quick stop off for a swim we arrived early evening and oh what a beautiful harbour, little houses all painted yellow with splashes of colour around door and window frames ....



Beautiful.   We had showers to wash the salt out of our hair and the sun cream from our skin and put on our glad rags for our one night off the boat.  For one evening and one evening only we were forsaking Mehmet's wonderful cooking to go ashore for a meal.  We had selected the Mythos Roof Terrace Restaurant.  After drinks and nibbles at the back of the boat we strolled around the harbour in the evening heat to find the restaurant.  What a view, uninterrupted across the harbour.  There are two ways to eat at Mythos, either from their lovely menu or the chefs choice, the chefs choice means that Stavros keeps bringing you dishes until you tell him to stop. Obviously this is what we went for and the food was DELICIOUS, modern Greek specialities galore but there was so much of it ... by the end we were crying for mercy! We rolled our way back to the boat and all slept very well that night! The next morning after breakfast we got into a people carrier and explored the island's dizzying heights before returning to the boat ... Next stop Loryma

5 comments:

Modelmental said...

Fabulous holiday! Was it a package deal or did you plan it all yourselves? Sounds just blissful.

The Cwtch said...

It was very very lovely! I have to confess I had absolutely no hand in it. It was organised by my fella's family - I just turned up at the airport with my bag! I think they organised it all themselves direct with the owners of the boat.
PS. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying your blog...!

Modelmental said...

Well that's the best kind of holiday, just showing up and having such a wonderful time! PS. Thank you! I love writing it!

TIG said...

Looks like such a lovely, lovely way to the spend the week -- sounds like you had a wonderful time!

The Cwtch said...

Oh it was very lovely and so relaxing Glamorous! It feels like such a long time ago already and it's only been a couple of weeks since we got back!!