Sailing Turkey

Day 12 Kaputas, Patara and Butterfly Valley

This morning we left Kas for the last time this trip and we wanted to show Leah and Ian one of our favorite spots in Turkey, Kaputas beach.  This is how we remembered it…

And this is how it looks now…

A little disappointing, but we came, we saw, and then we left.  We decided to go to Patara, which we actually didn’t like as much last time, but this time we loved it.  The wide sandy beach was a welcome change of scenery from the majestic cliffs and mountains we were used to seeing. 

As we anchored the boat off the shore, we saw an adventurous young couple in the distance.  I leave you to find them in the picture. (NSFW)

Also, last time we were here we didn’t go to the ruins of Xanthos, which were really something.  Every time we see different ruins, we remark on how different they seem from each other.  These were being rebuilt to look like they once did, it was so interesting to see the process.

We had a long sail ahead of us, so we pushed off and went along our way to our next eventual stop, Butterfly Valley.  On the way there, though, we saw what looked to be a restaurant tucked away in the landscape and we decided to scope it out.  As we got closer we noticed something not quite exactly right, so through the binoculars, I tried to read the signs in the distance.  It was a backpackers hippie camp, filled with interesting characters… dreadlocked young men, fit older men with long hair, leathery skin and exceptional frisby skills… free-love, organic, granola, bean baggers with questionable hygiene.  We didn’t exactly fit in coming in from our yacht anchored off the shore, but they accepted us just the same and we broke bread together.

While sipping on mojitos, Leah and I remarked on a very attractive woman in a sexy bathing suit, Leah said, “what great shoulders,” Ian noticed some “unfortunate” acne which he attributed to her youth, then Jason chimed in by saying, “I’m pretty sure that chick pees standing up.”  Once that was on the table, we all saw it, too.  And it was all accepted in hippie camp.     

After the nice little stop with our young friends, we set off to see Butterfly Valley, and boy what a sight.  The stop at hippie camp meant that we would be turning the corner into butterfly valley as the sun was setting, which made it a stunning entrance.  The orange glow of the low sun gave the mountains an even more majestic feel as we slowing made our way.  It was breathtaking.

For perspective, we came around from the left of this picture toward the beach in the video

We dropped anchor and sat on the back of the boat in this magical spot and watched the sunset.  Our most beautiful anchorage yet.