Sailing Turkey

Days 7 and 8 Greek Islands

Day 7:

Today we woke up at the D Hotel bay among the beautiful yachts with our “cheap” little charter and decided we needed some real exercise.  We went into the hotel and found out that apparently, rich people don’t actually exercise while at a fancy resort…except in the gym with a (hotel provided) personal trainer – which is obviously not our style. So we found a little path to run on just outside the gates of the resort. FYI-even the path was a little fancy.

Then we took quick showers and enjoyed the infinity pool...like we owned the place

Then we made a quick stop at one of the beaches to take some pictures and enjoy a quick drink.

Next on our agenda was the Greek Islands, so we left our little luxurious slice of heaven and headed off to the island of Symi.  As we approached the little town nestled into the side of the mountain, we thought it was so cute.  There was a beautiful church sitting all by itself at the tip of the bay, seemingly welcoming us to the nation of Greece…

And the town itself was so pretty.

So we dropped anchor and decided to walk around the harbor to shop and eat, but something was a little off about this place… It was breeze-less and oddly hot, much hotter than we were used to.  The shops didn’t have anything local or handmade like Bozburun, it was “Greece” tee shirts made in Taiwan, chintzy shoes and bags, plastic statuettes from other islands, lots of sponges from the water nearby(?), and way overpriced restaurants.  

It was kind of unclean, too, lots of garbage all over (so we decided we would take our trash and leave it in the dumpster there, too). 

After a surprisingly nice (albeit salty) dinner right on the water, we decided to leave the loud and crowded harbor town and find a little bay to anchor in and go to sleep.  That’s the lovely thing about sailing, water is free and we can park our boat anywhere that looks nice, whether it’s a luxury hotel, bustling marina or an empty bay.  As night rapidly approached, we pulled into our relatively secluded bay. A couple of barking dogs and small houses dotted the shoreline and a somewhat recently wrecked boat sat uncomfortably on the cliff a little further out– this should have been seen as an omen.  We dropped anchor in the gloaming, and by the time the stars were out, we were all fast asleep.

BUT, within an hour, we were woken up by a territorial old Greek lady yelling at us in her native language to get out of HER bay and shining her flood light at our boat. After much debate, we pulled up anchor and tried to find another spot a little further up the bay. As we slowed to survey the possible anchorage, another friendly local began hitting us with his green laser pointer…Thanks for the lovely welcome, Greece. Begrudgingly we motored back to the busy, noisy harbor we thought we had escaped after our dinner of salt, dropped anchor once again and went back to sleep.  Ugh!

Day 8

After a disappointing trip to Symi, we had high hopes for our next Greek Island, Rhodes, so we woke up early and got moving quickly. 

As we pulled into the Island of Rhodes, we were so taken by the large Medieval walls around the old city.  They were really impressive, built during the Crusades, and we read that there were buildings throughout the city from all different times, Ottoman, Ancient Greek, Spanish - we couldn’t wait to explore.  We dropped anchor not too far from two enormous cruise ships (which should have given us our first indication of what we were about to embark on).  

We entered the city and traversed the area where the moat once was…high walls on both sides and various methods of defense inside – it was pretty cool…

...but once we walked into the city proper, everything went Greek on us. The city was Symi on steroids… full of tourists, cheap chochke souveniers, more tourists, crowds upon crowds, overpriced restaurants and unfriendly people. And tourists.  It was suffocating and draining, so we decided to get away again. 

We took off to Lindos, a city on the other side of the island…during our 3 hour sail we saw roughly 6 million umbrellas along the coastline. Eventually we arrived in a beautiful little anchorage just outside of the techno-thumping town.  With umbrellas and various instruments of motorized and inflatable watersports humming along somewhat loudly to our left, we turned our attention to the cliffs to our right, and in particular a cave high in the face of one of them…after some quick recon, we were on our way up the side of the cliff.

Not sure who thought we were crazier, the goats whose territory we were invading or the noodling tourists in the water far below.

2 and a half hours later, we had a delicious dinner of chicken and vegetables on the boat, watched a movie and went to bed just as the clubs of Lindos started heating up…we’re old.