The Start of the Carian Coast from Marmaris.

On the 8th August, we had a fabulous sail along the coast and into Marmaris Bay, our plan being to stay on anchor on the fringes, but the wind and swell changed our minds, so we sailed into the bay to tuck behind an island to the north west of Marmaris town, home to a tiny hotel complex called Joya Del Mar, that had its own quay for a handful of yachts and we hoped had a great chef for our 15th Wedding Anniversary celebration the following night, and dropped our anchor just outside.

The Carian Coast runs from just north of Bodrum down and round to Marmaris, so far the scenery lives up to its write up in our pilot guide, as a somewhat wide and mountainous area, with the exception of Marmaris itself, considered to be a remote part of Turkey, that is until recently when tourism and gullets have brought prosperity, access routes and a large number of holiday homes and hotels to the area. Perhaps that has reduced some of its charm, but as we have never been here before we cannot compare and still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our anniversary was great, a little different, moored up on the quay we wandered into the restaurant with hopeful faces. Sadly the food wasn’t quite up to the pictures on their website, a change of chef me thinks, but we did have some old crooner tinkling the ivories and attempting to sing, which kept us thoroughly amused, and despite it quite not being as advertised it is one we will remember that is for sure!.

The following day Elvstrom Sails arrived to take our Mainsail away which was in need of repair….. and later called with the option to throw some money at the repair which wouldn’t last for long as the sail itself had de-laminated quite badly or bite the bullet for a new one…. Arggg, we had thought when we first bought Seaclusion in 2012 that opting for performance sails would mean a long life span, clearly not, but then we have done nearly 13,000 nautical miles so it was not a big surprise, our genoa is going the same way, but hopefully that will be an expense we can save for next year! After a few calls to make sure the quoted price was reasonable, we took the plunge and now have a spanking new sail!

The other practical thing to note is we were desperately in need to do some laundry, and luckily the hotel put a call in and a lovely chap arrived shortly after, in passing he mentioned that as a Joya del Mar client, ironing was free. Needless to say David disappeared very quickly and soon reappeared holding up just about all his shirts he had been storing up, and our laundry bag got bigger!

Whilst waiting for our new sail and laundry, we had a couple of days to kill so ventured into Marmaris, both evening and daytime, as well as chilling on sunloungers for an afternoon on the hotels beach!

Marmaris itself, once upon time was a quaint fishing village, is not recognizable as such anymore.., Having been extensively damaged in an earthquake in 1957 which destroyed most of the Old Town, it has been rebuilt into a top holiday and party destination, the most popular streets being those surrounding the Bazaar selling mainly poor quality knock offs (not quite Gocek’s standard!) and Bar Street, I wonder why that is! It does have the most exclusive Marina in Turkey mind you.. not that we stayed there, it being a very short taxi ride from our safe little haven at Joya del Mar.

Marmaris at Sunset.

Marmaris by Night, a very different place!

Marmaris by Day

We finally left Joya del Mar on the 12th August and decided not to go very far, instead putting our new sail through its paces with various tacks and gybes, we dropped anchor in Kumlu Buku Bay, then the following day we went around the headland to Ciftlik, recommended to us by a number of sailors along our journey. We had planned to drop anchor again, but the swell somehow managed to work its way into this tiny idyllic bay and after watching the boats on anchor roll rather too much for our liking, we opted to take a place on the quay and boy are we glad we did. The family run restaurant there, Azmak, served up the best calamari and sea bass we have had all summer and that is saying something! It was so good we stayed 2 nights!

Kumlu Buku Bay

Ciftlick

Our next leg is going deep into the two Gulfs, Korfezi & Gokova which are within the Special Environmental Protection Area so aside from the large number of gullets likely to be around during this Turkish 10 day holiday (due to start next week), it should be without new developments popping upon the hillsides, with crystal clear water and gentlish winds, here we come!

15th August 2018