Antalya, our most eastern point in Turkey so far and we loved it!

We had a fabulous sail down to Antalya with 18 knots pushing us along, with a few gybes, right to the entrance of the marina, where we moored up safely, gave the boat a much needed wash and settled down to people watch, and we weren’t disappointed!

As the story unfolds, we soon realised the guys on board are trying to re-site the mast by hand, evidently it had a problem with the forestay, but without using another halyard to tie to one of the cleats at the bow to balance out the pressure from the mast, they didn’t really stand a chance. There were two guys trying to hold onto it as the mast started to drop backwards, fortunately straight, so it didn’t hit other yachts. But even with our help, it just wasn’t going to happen!. The marina marinello in his dinghy came to the rescue, taking the end of the forestay and pulling back with his engines in full reverse. Still no joy, it soon became apparent the only thing to do was to take the boat out of the marina to the lifting crane before the mast inflicted any damage to the surrounding boats, thankfully not Seaclusion! Although not before the owner of the yacht next door to it, came back to his yacht  and promptly started his engines, drop the mooring lines and got the hell out of dodge before it came down on him. Well it livened up an otherwise quiet late afternoon in the sun..

Surprisingly we did actually watch it return an hour later, the mast in its proper place, phew!

Antalya

Antalya was first founded in 159bc, so funnily enough the Old Town in parts is very old, with a mixture of Ottoman and Greek architecture. The attraction of the place really lies in the hustling and bustling warren of streets, where you can buy almost anything, if you are so inclined, we were just happy wandering through them, soaking up the atmosphere and watching the chaos of life around us.

The Oldest Bazaar in Town, selling all sorts.

The busy old Port of Kaleici

No wonder visiting yachts are discouraged from going there!!!

Behind Antalya is the massive Taurus Mountain Range, where it is said you can take a cable car up to and ski in the winter. The cable car runs all year but at a price of €33 per person, it wasn’t too hard resist!

The Old Fort and fabulous views over the City

Hadrian’s Gate

Built in AD130 but for years it was encased in the city wall and only uncovered in the 1950’s, since then restoration work has been carried out to the point that we were able to walk through the gate over the pavement with the old wheel ruts carved in the stone all those centuries ago and were still evident for all to see.

A far cry from Finike, we spent 7 hours wandering around the Old Town, taking in the sights, before picking up our hire car, and heading back to the boat ready to sight see over to the Mangavat River and Side the following day!

The entertainment in the marina however wan’t yet over. On returning to the yacht late evening, we sat having a late drink or two and watching a number of both yachts and motorboats coming into the marina to moor up for the night, but I have to say of probably 8 boats that we saw come in, 7 of them required significant assistance from the marina staff to actually achieve it for them, it was hard to understand how they could own these yachts and not be able to moor, god help them if they ever venture across to Greece, where you get no help, other maybe a restaurant owner or a guy in a bar, who may / or may not take a line for you… still it was fun to watch!

19th July 2019