Side story: When we had landed, there was a person at the bottom of the escalator with a sign that had my name and somebody else's name on it. I was super confused but my initial thought was "Hey! The hostel is picking me up from the airport! How nice!" Nope. It was just to transport me to the international terminal to pick up my bag...
I waited and I waited for this bus but it seemed unlikely that it was coming. Fortunately, I had 4 people beside me who were waiting for the same bus and not having any luck. We all agreed to share a cab and head into Fethiye as this was the destination for all of us. After an hour with a cab driver who spoke next to no English, we thankfully reached our hostel where I checked in and met up with my friend Caitlin. Later on, we grabbed some dinner at a Turkish restaurant that ended up being super cheap and we ate like kings.
The next day, we departed on a week long sailing journey around the coast of Turkey. The boat could fit 15 of us plus the 3 crew members (who didn't speak a whole lot of English but were still awesome). Along with Caitlin, I had my friends Cate, Robert, and Stephen with me.
Because it was a week long, I'll try and keep this as short as possible. The weather we had was definitely not great. We had maybe 3 days that were hot and sunny. The other 4 was rain and thunderstorms. The lightning was in full force sometimes. Sometimes, it would be flash after flash in the sky without any sound following. Other times, we got an earful. It was particularly unsettling one night when at around 2am, when everyone was in bed, the flash was blinding and the thunder that followed was insane. I had my big headphones in that normally cancel any outside noise but the thunder bled right through them. I thought for a second that the bolt had hit the boat but we came to the conclusion that it was on the island right beside us.
The food we had every day was of Turkish cuisine and the chef on-board did an awesome job. We honestly had so much to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Plus there was afternoon tea every day that came with biscuits. Good luck to anyone trying to lose weight on this trip.
The best days were of course when I could jump off the boat into warm, clear, blue ocean water. On a couple of occasions, the rain didn't stop us from doing it anyway. For me, it was the life to be able to do that, dry off in the hot sun (if applicable), read my book, play some cards, listen to music, and chat with my fellow sailors. For a few others, I think they were starting to get cabin fever and wanted desperately to touch land. We got to touch land a few times. Our first was on the 2nd day where we were at St. Nicholas Island and got to explore some ruins. This was really cool and the view from the top was stunning as the sun was setting behind stormy clouds. Because I swam there, I was unable to take my camera. On the 4th day, we reached land again where there was a small little village. Our first taste of wifi after 4 days ;). On the 5th day, we had reached a small city called Kas that had plenty of shops, café's, and restaurants. When it was night, it was amazing to see how much the city came alive. It seemed more people were out on the streets than in the day. It was beautiful to walk around and unfortunately, I don't have any photos to do it justice.
While in Kas, a few of us went and did some scuba diving. This was my first time so it took me a few tries to get the breathing down right. The only true thing I had wanted to see was a turtle but I only got to see fish, although plenty of it. That's also not to say I didn't get to see a couple of turtles during the course of the trip. We also caught a glimpse of a few dolphins as well along the way.
On the final day, we arrived back in Fethiye, where we had started. These Turkish cities did not seem to have a shortage of Turkish flags hanging around, let me tell you. I thought I had seen patriotism in America, but I don't think you could look anywhere and not spot a Turkish flag. The cities also didn't fall short of the stray dogs and cats you see everywhere which made me sad at first. Then, I realized that the animals seemed quite content and the city folk seemed to take care of them.
Our group was...let's say "tame". We had only one night of everyone drinking, the rest were quiet nights. The captain pretty much told us we were lame. I think for most of us, we were at the end of our big trips and were tired and wanted to take it easy.
I certainly liked the idea of sailing along the coast and docking in places far from civilization with still, blue waters but with the weather, I don't think we got to fully enjoy this type of trip for what it should have been. Some of the girls on the boat had done Sail Croatia, where each night the boat would actually dock at a different city. I would definitely recommend Sail Turkey, but maybe not go in the storm season. Turkey actually also exceeded my expectations, if I had any. The people were friendly, most spoke English, and I never felt threatened. Again, I'm not even sure what my expectations were but I was pleasantly surprised by Turkey.
Next:
Rhodes
Kas
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