Fethiye & Gocek

We needed supplies so after a calm safe night under Fethiye Adasi, we decided to bite the bullet and go into a marina. After consulting Heikell and the CA cruising updates, Yacht Plaza seemed like a good bet and the much bigger Ece Marine definitely didn't. As we came around the headland, we expected to see an isolated danger mark between two wrecks. Instead there was a large crane on a barge. It looks as if they are finally clearing the wreckage.

Yacht Classic Pontoon

Yacht Plaza was not that easy to spot. Firstly it has now changed its name to "Yacht Classic" and secondly it is so close to the entrance to Ece Marina that it looks as if it is part of it.

What a place! We went in for a night, and liked it so much that we ended up staying three.
We suddenly found ourselves on holiday, living in the lap of luxury and without spending a furtune. The new pontoon is of excellent quality with tailed moorings, free water and electricity at all berths and a friendly, helpful marinero called Mehmet. The deal is that you pay 35 euro (70YTL) if you don't eat dinner in the restaurant and only 20YTL if you do - a discount of 50YTL. It's a no-brainer to eat in the Restaurant. The food and service is excellent and very reasonable so two can easily eat for 50YTL and thoroughly enjoy it.
Showers, toilet and pool are all free and of a very high standard. If you are into Turkish baths or Saunas, they have those at a price. The only negative was the seawater which during the morning was choked with blue-green algae on the West side of the pontoon. It cleared later each day and was always clear on the East side.

Fethiye has a huge Market on Tuesdays which we thoroughly enjoyed. There are several chandlers and the supermarket about 200M East of the hotel speaks excellent English, has a good stock and delivers free to yachts.

We finally set off on Thursday to sail across the bay to the Gocek side. We had a cracking sail, flying along with up to 20Knots of wind on the beam. We initially intended to anchor in Kapi Creek. When we got there however, we found that the restaurant quay now covers pretty much everywhere you can anchor and take a line ashore. It has laid lines which are attached to a mooring chain right in the middle of the creek making it very dodgy to anchor on the opposite side. There is room for two or three boats to go line ashore at the head of the bay on the right but that was already well choked with boats.

We gave up and went round to Seagull bay. Very odd name - no idea why they call it that. First impression is that it is sand and weed so we expected to get the anchor to hold in a patch. After trying twice we realised that it isn't sand, it's soft, toothpaste-like mud with small stones in it, so the anchor just plows along and never sets. Eventually on our third try, we managed to catch the side of an underwater trench in 18M water. With 60M of chain, we got a couple of lines ashore and settled down. An hour later, there was lots of whistling and shouting. I popped up and found that one of our lines had jumped off its rock and we were drifting perilously close to a fisherman moored on the beach. The Swedish boat next to us (who we had earlier made friends with in Kas) came to our aid and put the line back more securely this time and all was well.

Next day we pottered gently towards Gocek under sail, looking for nice places to stop. There were plenty of spectacular places but nowhere to moor for free. Everything was either too steep, too weedy, covered in Restaurant quays, or chocka with Gulets and Tripper boats. Not a sign of the promised mooring buoys anywhere.Eventually we rocked up in Yassica Adalari, a small group of Island which Heikell says is a day anchorage. We found to our delight that there are now a large number of free mooring buoys.

We tried to pick one up and found it very difficult as the yellow floating mooring loop was three feet below the surface and we couldn't reach it even from the dinghy! After a lot of head scratching and stress, We ended up lassoing the buoy and then I dived down at put a rope through the loop properly. Later, watching others tie up, we realised that our one is faulty as on all the others, the yellow loop is on the surface!

It is a splendid spot - the water is crystal clear and exactly the right temperature - neither too hot or too cold. Magic!