36:37.3N 029:05.5E

Sunday 9^th May

Woke to the sound of spots of rain that briefly turned into a proper shower, but the real downside of this was that the rain was heavy with sand and the boat looked for all the world as if we had been sprayed with coffee dregs!

After a leisurely breakfast we used the dinghy to go ashore and made our way through the undergrowth and scrabbled over rocks, kicking up the smells of hillside herbs as we followed the intrepid Trevor on an expedition up the side of the towering hill to view the rock tombs that give the bay its name. Sarah insisted that we pause to view a couple of rock pools teeming with frogs. Fortunately it was cloudy still and so not too hot for the climb up and we were rewarded with some great views although the weather meant that it was not as clear as we might have hoped. Made our way back down to Serafina and decided to get under way as the bay was fast filling up with very noisy Gullets and their loud music and equally loud passengers.

On our way out we picked a spot where we decided to ‘swing’ our gyro compass as we have been getting some odd readings lately. This required us to motor very slowly in two complete circles, each one taking a minimum of two minutes. No sooner had we started this exercise than boats seemed to materialise from everywhere and there was a lot of confusion as we slowly pirouetted in front of them all. Once this had been completed we visited a few other impressive bays before making our way under engine to Fethiye.

The water in Fethiye Bay is a horrible turgid green (s**t coloured by moonlight or Solent brown) which is not very inviting in any capacity. We anchored just off the shore a little way past the main town and its marina in around 12 metres of water and plenty of swinging room around us. At this point in the afternoon there was no wind at all and it was hot and very oppressive along with the sound of thunder rolling around the distant snow capped mountains. As we had tea the wind got up and we enjoyed a very welcome breeze which made it all very much more comfortable however this rising wind revealed that the support strut for our wind turbine had shed a retaining bolt and was wobbling a bit. We secured it with a temporary fix with a smaller bolt and have noted to buy the correct size bolt tomorrow. The peace and quiet of the evening was shattered by the late and very noisy arrival of a French boat which had several abortive attempts at anchoring, each time too close to other yachts for safety and then when they finally got settled, the crew sat out on deck and partied very loudly!

Fethiye is quite a large town and natural harbour, although it is fairly featureless as like Marmaris it was totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1958 and almost all the buildings are concrete structures. One redeeming feature is the restrictions on high rise buildings which mean that it has not grown upwards like so many other places. Parts of the ancient site of Telmessos remain and there are stone sarcophagi around the town dating from 350 BC and the ruins of a Crusader tower still to be seen.  Behind and above the town is the tomb of Amyntas which is an Ionic temple facade carved into the sheer rock face dating from 450 BC.