Consider the pomegranate...

"We're NOT going to fall in love with Turkey," I remind Alex as we drop down from the highway into the dazzling resort town of  Bodrum.  It's me who needs reminding. Getting "stuck" in the Med has never been part of The Plan but there's a stealth attack underway, seduction by ruinous means, and I sense my defences crumbling.

That evening, as we race to meet a sunset-in-Bodrum deadline laid down by Jane (a family friend from New Zealand), we are yet again high on the delights of this vast open-air museum. We've made a small detour on the way, at Jane's suggestion. For several hours we've wandered all but alone along the cobbled highways and byways of the largely derelict village of Eskihisar. This heavenly place reveals itself a bit like ripe autumn pomegranates broken into by birds - the outer skin of the fruit represented by rustic stone and wooden buildings of the Ottoman period, its dried flesh by the remnants of Roman and Byzantine periods and its brilliant red seeds by the city at the heart of the matter, ancient Stratonikeia. In Eskihisar, these superimposed civilisations are visibly layered in a way we have rarely encountered before, and they enchant us.

Jane and her Scottish husband Dave, as it turns out, are in this Turkey relationship business much deeper than us. They've committed not only to a yacht but also to home ownership. Plus they have a sturdy Turkish car in the garage.

"Sounds a bit mad," Jane had emailed me, "but it's worth seeing the sunset from our balcony..." We were there, by the skin of our teeth, having loitered in Stratonikeia to stroke the stones....on an empty stomach, no less. The Stratonikeia teahouse (above) was keeping winter hours and we'd forgotten the picnic. Dave barbecued a shoulder of New Zealand lamb bought in Kos (you can see Greece from their balcony). Jane cooked mashed potato and broccoli, then followed up with apple crumble - the quickest back home imaginable. We ate outdoors, in mid-November.  If this is madness, bring it on.

View from their balcony

View from the hotel

Anchor stones

Our life now divides into two streams, it seems. You could describe them as work and play - obviously I use the term "work" loosely! At the marina, we're up to our necks in decision-making. This is the season to equip the boat for future ocean-crossings. Her previous owner, Christoph, managed to sail around the Horn with far less gear than we deem necessary but we all find our niche in the boat equipment world. We're adding a wind-generator and solar panels, to supplement the generator, and we're also having made (yes, the passive voice is the appropriate one - no sewing machine on this boat) a new bimini to give us more and better shade on the aft deck. The anchor chain has been sent off to Istanbul to be re-galvanised, and the sails have been removed to be washed, repaired and stored for the winter. This, as I say, counts as work - Alex's department.

My department is play by which I mean the short land trips which have muscled in on the sailing blog of late. Somewhere far past the lighthouse, right? We get a huge amount of pleasure out of these trips but I must admit, they're tricky to translate.

The tingle of excitement which we feel as we stand in an exquisitely proportioned Greek theatre tucked among pines at the foot of a soaring cliff or  gaze into a cabinet of glassware salvaged from a ship which foundered in 1400 BC at the entrance of an anchorage which we ourselves have poked our nose into - these experiences are intensely enjoyable for us, but unless I can throw a line out to you from these distant times and places, unless I can hook you into their significance and their wonder (as I understand it), I'll be talking to myself. Here goes...

Morning in Bodrum, off season

Bodrum is one of those "quiet" little Mediterranean fishing villages (like St Tropez) which somewhere along the line became summer playgrounds for the rich and famous. We couldn't get near the place in August, so we put it on the "to do" list for autumn because way before Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks et al dropped by, Bodrum was definitely on the map. Herodotus (the Greek "travel" writer/historian) was born there. King Mausolus who gave our language the word mausoleum was buried magnificently in Bodrum. And then there were the Knights of St John (again). I'm quite new to castles, but I doubt if there are many better than Bodrum's. In the photo above, taken from the ramparts facing west, you can just make out the Greek island of Kos on the horizon  - I still feel a bit fluttery looking in that direction. Those weren't happy times.

We meandered through Bodrum castle for the best part of a day. It isn't just that the castle itself is in such good nick (despite the best efforts of the French navy who bombed it in 1915 - they succeeded only in knocking off the minaret which the Ottomans added to the Crusaders' chapel when they stormed the castle in the 16th century - what you see here is a new minaret); in each of the towers and halls, there is a spellbinding exhibit, some martial but many watery because the castle hugs within its walls a superb Museum of Underwater Archeology.

Look at this piece of glass, raised from the seabed after lying undisturbed for 2100 years.

The gold and pottery in the other cases were salvaged from an even older shipwreck a little way east of Kas. We wandered about in a trance, peering at perfectly preserved hippopotamus horns, scissors, ornate gold pendants, necklaces strung with whirly glass beads, whetstones, wax writing tablets, fishing nets, and of course the stock in trade of ancient shipwrecks, amphoras - the beautifully shaped pottery vessels used to transport oil and wine, for the most part. This was a busy part of the world with ships coming and going from the countries now known as Syria and Lebanon as far as north as the Black Sea.

Nearly 3000 years later, you have the Knights of St John turning up on the south Aegean shores and they build their castle - so you could say it's relatively modern, in the scheme of things.

I slide into a window seat in the English tower, which Henry IV started building in 1399, and trace with my finger "graffiti" etched into the stones by bored knights who would have warmed themselves in this spot, in the same filtered afternoon light, 600 years ago. What do the years of a human life count for? We leave behind us matter both exquisite and mundane, but our ability to love and be loved - which I consider to be the pinnacle of human achievement - has to be remade each time a human being is born and dies with them.

Moving on...as we do. Here's Alex (above) at Priene, about two hours north of Bodrum. Again, we had the place almost to ourselves. We intruded on a couple of French girls in the gorgeous little amphitheatre  - I thought they were sketching the best seats in the house, magnificent stone armchairs in the front row.

But no - they were writing a message to a friend who had just given birth to a daughter. Their banner reads "bienvenue Marion" - a message of love from Priene, sent by iPhone.

I'll leave you at Priene. Where better?  It sits beneath yet another massive tower of rock and overlooks the fertile plains of the Meander river (from which comes the English word to meander) and out to the coast. Not a bad spot. The massive columns are what's left of a temple to Athena but there's detritus from this city tumbling all down the slope to the cotton fields below. Architecture in this neck of the woods took a wrong turn around the time Atuturk founded the modern republic, but out of town at least there's more than enough classic stuff to see them through the construction drought even if it lasts a millenium.

Off course

On his bike 

This boating blog has gone a bit off course. If Alex were writing it, rather than doing the myraid other useful things he does, you'd get a very different picture of our life here at Netsel marina.  It bothers me that his deep absorption in, say, the pros and cons of monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous solar panels (not to mention the vagaries of their pricing) is quite invisible to you. I do plan to make amends. Very soon you'll be given access to the Boat Jobs for the Winter List - or rather, the Boat Jobs to be Organised over the Winter List.  Here on Enki, we know our limits. No boat job too small to give to someone else. I joke, but...it's something to aim for, isn't it?

I'd like it noted that when a warm wind blew in from the south mid-week, we on Enki, trained from  childhood not to waste a good drying day, washed our salty curtains (the charter fleets hung out their sails en masse, which is much more sailorly). Sounds like a doddle, but in fact it was hell on the fingertips and the nails. I reckon there are close to 500 curtain hooks attaching Hallberg Rassy's silly little granny curtains (dispensed with in newer HR models) to their sliders, top and bottom. I was ready to give up almost before I'd started, but then Alex came up with A Method and I was in the groove. Not a major league boat job, not even one which made the List, but hey, you do what you can do - and freshly laundered curtains give my housewifely heart a lift.

Back on the cultural beat now.

From the time we decided to winter over in Marmaris, people we met along the way began pressing on us the name Gwen Bylund. "You must get on her email list," they said. "She organises everything." Alex and I didn't necessarily want to be organised, but Gwen, it turns out, is unavoidable. She's a Californian girl gone wild, a blowsy blonde with a backstory to turn her mother's hair white. 

Pineapple - open all winter

In her "old" age (I daren't ask, but she says she's getting old), she lives alone on a Nauticat motor sailer ketch which doesn't look like it leaves the dock too often anymore and vents her restlessness on the clueless bunch which washes up each year at the marina.  

When you first "come in", Gwen (or 'KW' as she's known, that being the name of her boat) mails you her FAQ - it runs to 83 pages. Anything you think to ask, she's been asked before, and the answer's in the FAQ. She runs the morning cruisers' net on VHF 69, sorts out winter activities (like the Turkish lessons), takes delivery of a monthly discounted wine order, oils the Tuesday happy hour at the Pineapple, potluck dinners, the hectic December shopping in Izmir schedule etc. 

But Gwen's real claim to fame are her land tours to known and lesser known corners of Turkey. We have met people who've decided to winter over in Marmaris in large part so they can join one or several of Gwen's tours. I find that surprising because the urge to sail your own boat across oceans shouldn't come bundled with a tolerance for coach travel (I think). But she must be doing something right, because cruisers from years past rave about Gwen's tours.

We've not signed up for any of her longer tours but yesterday we piled into a mini-bus with 14 others and headed off on a "mystery" day tour. There were no carpet shops, and no mandatory stops at tea houses. We were told to bring a packed lunch. 

Our guide, Tas ("like Tasmanian devil") was a clever child with a masters degree in political economy, or some such incomprehensible qualification. A quick little devil with more English accents at his disposal than many Englishmen. His mobile face, river of words and the way he had of slicking back his hair reminded me so much of Alex's Mikey that I couldn't keep a silly smile off my face as I listened to him from the back of the bus. 

The mysteries were: a spectacular temple to Zeus (one of very few in Asia Minor) at a place once known as Euromos, a lovely roadside site we'd not have found but for Gwen; a charming traditional Turkish village called Comakdag Kizilagac (don't ask me to say it) which seemed, miraculously, to be empty of tourists except for ourselves; and near the built-over ruins of Heraklia, somewhere north of Bodrum, beneath one of those bare rock ranges that still strike me dumb, a heaven in which to spread our picnic blanket in the shelter of a ruined monastery overlooking a lake of precious beauty....and discover a new (gasp) kind of rock tomb.  

The old ladies in the villages were ready for us with their wares, and their voracious appetite for a sale would have put a Parramatta Road car salesman to shame. They play the game to win, and they won. But I'll leave Alex's photos to tell the rest of the story. There are times, I admit, when I think he's lost sight of anything other than boat systems theory. Then I need to pull out his photos - he sees so much more than I do, and in such tender detail. I'm so grateful for his eye.

Red tape

We're legal. Turkish residents for a year. How about that?

We picked up our little blue books from the port police with four days to spare on our tourist visas. For one as pathologically law-abiding as myself, my relief can't be under-estimated. I was skipping. Top marks to the Turks for efficiency too. Our applications were processed in two weeks,  exactly as promised, notwithstanding a major public holiday (it felt like Easter to me) falling smack in the middle of that period.

And we're mobile too. There are no photos yet, but the unthinkable has happened - Alex riding a bicycle. As evidence, I give you not one, but two bikes parked at Enki's stern. He's talking picnics. I'm doubtful, but I like his direction. At the very least, having bikes brings our outlying pontoon that much closer to town and its amenities. Yesterday, spotting ominous clouds, I sped into the chicken shop and was back before the rain quickened, dodging huddles of tourists doomed to be drenched on their way back to the cruise ship dock.

There won't be many, if any, more monster liners into Marmaris this year. We're definitely in the off-season now. Race week ends tomorrow. It's been fun, in a crazy way. Plastic sandals and sailing paraphernalia cluttering the pontoon. The new Russian middle-class wearing spanking new boat shoes and matching sponsored polo shirts. Morale-boosting Russian march music - think Smirnov vodka ads - blaring as competitors hasten out of the marina towards the start line each day. The Dutch alongside us counter by turning up the Internationale. I heard boats belting out Highland pipes and rap this morning, but the Russians definitely have the musical advantage. "We are the champions...." I can hear from further down the pontoon. They'll give it a nudge tonight.

The guys next door (and below) 

And when they're gone, we'll be left with the hard-core cruisers. We're meeting a few of them now, and liking what we find. While we were away last weekend, another Hallberg Rassy (our kind of boat) tied up three along from us. Whisper HR, she's called, and she's from Melbourne, via Asia. May and Kevin shipped her to Turkey in April. They know Dave and Melinda, who spent the first two months of the season on Enki, and they knew Russ, who bought our old HR42 Andiamo and sadly died while cruising her in Malaysia. The neighbourhood suddenly feels a lot more like home.