We’re turning around

We’ve reached our furthest point east on our trip today in Fethiye, Turkey so you can now say we're on our way home.  It is a breathtakingly beautiful bay with snow-capped mountains in the distance,  orange trees filling the valleys,  and clear blue-green water beneath us.  It feels to me like an exotic place.  It has the distinctive feel of early spring.  The plane trees (which look to me like maples) are just getting their early leaves, flowers are budding, and the businesses here that make their livelihood from the 6 months of tourism trimming, sprucing, organizing, and furnishing their wares. 

 We left Marmaris on Wednesday morning for Gocek, where we spent a night at anchor before meeting Code’s dad and Mya. I hadn’t realized how much noise we grew accustomed to in the marina until we sat quietly at anchor.  What is so beautiful is that the bottom drops off very quickly from the shore, so it is possible to anchor and then tie a stern line to shore, securing the stern of the boat just a few feet from shore.  All morning long, the boys paddled, practiced dinghy anchoring, and played cast-away on shore.  Code went for a hike and I worked (I got a big project just prior to taking off from Marmaris).

We spent 2 nights in the lux town of Gocek.  It is very upscale, even by American standards, with manicured lawns and shops are full of ‘real’ (versus counterfeit) brands.  Code and the boys were impatiently awaiting the arrival of his dad and Mya.  They tried to stay busy, but they were always checking the time, the taxi stands, and the internet for signs of their arrival.  We have heard so much about Mya as she hasn’t met any of the family yet, and here she was ready to jump aboard and spend a week with the four of us near strangers on a 36’ boat for a week.  Needless to say, she has an adventurous spirit, which makes her OK in my book.  I love having another woman on board.  I believe that women offer something unique and special, and maybe too often we forget that about ourselves.  With the kids, it sometimes gets hard to finish a conversation, so it is good to have a week to try to finish the conversations that we start.

We’re now off to Dalyan, which is an ancient city of the Lycians (an ancient Anatolian tribe) where we will spend the night on the hook (anchored) for 2 nights.  In Dalyan, we’ll see not just the ruins, but graves that are unique to the Lycians.  They carved tombs out of the rock cliffs.  Much like you see in pictures of Petra (Jordan), they carved beautiful facades with Greek-influenced columns  into the sandstone cliffs. 

I think we would have stayed in the Marmaris marina forever…or certainly I could see how people put down roots and stay.   As much as it was getting old, we made some lifelong friends, had established our routines, and put down just enough roots to make us feel uprooted at the thought of leaving.  I am amazed at how quickly that happens.  I think that the only way we could deal with the sad good-bye’s  was to go out for a week long sail and then return for a week.