AYVALIK, BALIKESIR.   DIKILLI near Izmir.  FOÇA near Izmir.

Over the last few days we have great fun learning to paddle board near a reef off the yacht in very calm weather. We had a very good traditional Turkish dinner ashore at Bay Nikat Lale, mentioned in our ‘Where Chefs Eat’ book.  The following day, Alana and Ed’s last day, we sailed over to Mosko Adasi to swim and sunbathe.  Malcolm and the others decided the sun-loungers looked inviting at  a small up market resort so booked some for the day, they jumped ship except came back for lunch.  A very lazy, relaxing day before heading over to the marina in Ayvalik.  Here we had a few problems as we don’t have a bow thruster at the moment and the Meltemi wind had got up.  Malcolm was in the dingy acting as as our bow thruster, but it was really not strong enough with the wind and the harbour guys in their dingy did not appear to have a clue!!  as we were heading astern into our slot the wind pushed our stern towards a Cat’ next to us and nearly caught the windows of it with our solar panels, fortunately we just stopped and only slightly bent a staunchon post of theirs for which we have left the details to pay for.  Usually Jonathan is ACE at slotting the yacht astern into spaces with expert ease, so all a tad embarrassing.  Alana and Ed left us the following morning for the airport.

We had an excellent sail that afternoon, after washing the yacht down and doing some laundry, to BADELMI LIMANI which we visited in the strong Meltemi on our way up the coast.  This time we had a very good anchorage which held first time and the weather was beautiful.  We took the dingy and explored the Hot springs, we found one on the beach which was not green and very hot to sit in with lots of little hot bubbles coming up through the beach stones.  We spent the afternoon swimming, snorkelling and paddel-boarding and exploring a very derelict, abandoned hotel, which must have been lovely once upon a time.  We weighed anchor in the afternoon and sailed in 15 knots of wind to ESKI FOÇA.  where we dropped anchor in the bay.  Dinner ashore at a pretty restaurant which Malcolm found on Trip Advisor.  The following morning M and B left us to fly back to the UK.  

We spent the day doing various jobs around the yacht, lots of laundry, cleaning every cabin. Jonathan, meanwhile, set about trying to retrieve the top of the hose fitting from the water tank which accidentally fell off when Malcolm was filling the tank.  He tried everything but it is stuck in the filler tube and the yacht would have to be taken apart to retrieve it.  Fortunately it is not blocking it, I just had a very frustrated and tired husband on my hands at the end of the day.  We went ashore to buy some meat and veg to cook back on board and had a drink ashore and watched the world go by for a bit.  I griddled small noiseau of lamb with Rosemary (from my herb garden), garlic and recurrent jelly with beans and tomatoes.  The Mediterranean appears very dead, and we haven’t caught a fish yet since arriving in Turkey.

BELOW PHOTOS OF:-  Malcolm preparing rice noodles in the galley, Foça, Jonathan’s idea of paddle-boarding……, dinner at Bay Nikat Lale, last photo:- one of the ancient hot spring baths which has a wall and roof, but the water was so green and looked very uninviting.

Alana and Ed