Skopea Limani and Gocek

Kapi Creek

On 5^th October, after a long motor-sail through sloppy seas, we finally moored in Kapi Creek in Skopea Limani, a gulf near the town of Gocek. We had spent a week on a chartered yacht here with our friends Melanie and Derek in 2008, and we think it’s one of the most beautiful areas in the Eastern Med. There are twelve wooded islands in the gulf and a wonderful choice of sheltered anchorages. We had often imagined sailing our own yacht in these waters , so it felt good to finally be here.

We arrived in the middle of Kurban Bayram, a four day religious holiday, so the anchorage was full of Turks. The odd thing was, their yachts were flying the American flag. We were puzzled by this until our neighbour explained that most Turks now register their yachts in America to avoid paying local taxes!

Tersane anchorage

We spent the next two nights on Tersane Island. The island is craggy and quite austere, but the water in the deep, narrow creek is crystal clear and the bay is bordered by Byzantine ruins. Tersane means shipyard, so it’s likely that boats were once built here. Today, the only inhabitants of the island are Yasim and her family, who have a farm here and run the small restaurant in the bay.

The former Byzantine church is now used as a stable

We were anchored between a Swiss and a Dutch boat with lines tied back to the shore, a technique that's useful if you need to anchor close to other boats. It’s a stressful business sorting out a shoreline with just two of you on board: once you have anchored, one person has to stay on the helm and try to prevent the boat from swinging onto neighbouring yachts (which it inevitably does if the wind is on the beam) while the other person rows like mad for the shore to tie  a line to a rock or post.  On this occasion we were lucky, the man from the Dutch boat jumped into his dinghy and kindly offered to take the line to ashore for us.

The bay is supposed to be one of the most sheltered in the Gulf, but on the second day we had a thunderstorm and the wind suddenly increased from 5 knots to over 30 knots, blowing us straight towards the rocky shore.  Our anchor was holding, but others weren’t, and we had an anxious couple of hours watching other boats arrive and then panic, dropping and dragging their anchors right over ours.

A wild tortoise

Once the storm had passed we went ashore to explore the ruins. We found that Yasim had made good use of the Byzantine Church, which now houses sheep that are lambing! We were also very excited to see our first wild tortoise, apparently these are quite common in Turkey.

The peaceful bay of Boynuz Buku

We had two more peaceful nights anchored in Boynuz Buku, a fjord-like bay covered in pinewoods, before heading up to the town of Gocek to replenish our provisions. Gocek has become a fashionable resort that’s popular with yachtsmen, and there are six marinas in the area, including two that are exclusively for super yachts!  The town has a big selection of supermarkets, but we were keen to visit the Saturday market which we’d heard was good for fruit and veg.

Cooking Gozleme at the market

The market turned out to be excellent, with an impressive choice of fresh produce. We spent a very pleasant hour looking at (and sampling!) the many different types of cheese, olives, nuts, fruit and vegetables before buying as much as we could manage to carry back to the boat. Our last stop was at a stall that offered delicious Gozleme (thin pastry cooked on a griddle and stuffed with savoury or sweet fillings) served with as much Chai (Turkish tea) as you could drink. We had ours stuffed with spinach and goats cheese, and it made a very tasty lunch for just 6TL (£1.60) each.