Thursday 13^th May

Up bright and early today firstly to wrestle with the very flaky WiFi here and secondly so Sarah and I could be ready to join today’s tour.

Trevor and Lesley have done a Dalyan river trip before, in fact only about a month ago, whereas we last did a similar trip 25 years ago! They opted to go into Gocek town by bus and meet up with couple of boats with their Dutch friends aboard. They had a long leisurely lunch and missed the bus back, but were spotted by Steve and Chris from Scott Free who were there in their rib (tender) and thinking that they were trying to perhaps escape insisted on running them back to Serafina. Trevor and Lesley accepted and got a good soaking on the trip home for their troubles.

Meanwhile we went off in a bus to Dalyan where the group transferred into 3 river boats for a fascinating trip down the Dalyan river, firstly to see the impressive rock cut tombs dating back to around 300 BC and then on to walk up to the ruins of the ancient city of Caunos dating back to 400 BC. This was once a grand city but it fell into decline as the river that led to its harbour began to silt up combined with the arrival of malaria carrying mosquitos which decimated the population. The final straw so to speak was an earthquake which pretty much levelled it. Sarah and I realised when we arrived that we had in fact been here before as well, but 25 years ago this was just an untended derelict site and there were none of the tourist trappings and attempts at restoration that are there now.

We then had an excellent lunch followed by a trip further down the river to Turtle Beach which is where some turtles always return to lay their eggs. We saw some turtles in the river on the way back and ended the outing with a visit to some sulphur springs and mud baths. Neither of us was tempted to try this, but plenty of people did and it was not a pretty sight!

In the evening there was a skipper’s briefing attended by Sarah followed by cocktails and a large amount of substantial nibbles. There was a slide show running on a big screen made up of photos taken yesterday by a Turkish photographer and the star of the show, because of our location nearest the land, was Serafina. We have been promised a copy of the pictures when we get to Alanya so we may be able to show some on the website www.rhbell.com