Cruisin’ the Med

From Olympus we jumped on a Gulet (large cruising yacht) for four days cruising the Med coast, along with:

our new Kiwi friends from Whakatane

the friendly Aussie bar staff who had finished their stint at the backpackers and would prove to be excellent boat-mates with their friendly banter, similar interest in exploring the surrounds of our moorings (both onshore and underwater), interest in backgammon, and some top-notch play lists on their iPods

Two Californian post-grad students (one Japanese, one Turkish) and a local Turk girl who were travelling together

Two girls from Canada/South Africa who were on their annual holiday together

Four heavy drinking, 60+ Brits who would make us youngies look pathetic with their all-day-all-night drinking, games, and singing

One very brusque, very old German man who made the most of meal times and had an allergic reaction and his legs were swollen to twice the size they should be, meaning that he had to stay horizontal on the deck as much as possible (not very different to the rest of us, though he take part in doing flips off the side of the boat)

Crew consisting of (grumpy) Captain Ali, (friendly) Chef Ali, Old Man Captain (named due to always being at the helm - and being old), and Ozzi the deckhand (whose duty was everything other than steering the boat and cooking the meals)

Boat life in the Mediterranean is something that I could get used to - waking up on the deck to the sun, going for a swim around a few bays before breakfast, then settling on the deck for a cruise to some nearby ruins (sometimes underwater) or villages, anchor for lunch, exploring, swimming, maybe some wakeboarding or biscuiting, then cruising to another secluded bay to anchor up for more swimming, dinner, a bit of party and games, and talking ourselves to sleep on the deck again. Needless to say, I managed to get rid of that pesky “t-shirt tan”. A boat (or at least access to one) is definitely something for the bucket list.

Our last few days in Turkey were spent in Fethiye - a sleepy little marina town with a very cool gorge nearby. Emma and I made sure that all other nationalities present had no doubts as to which country was the toughest by going further into the gorge (which becomes increasingly difficult to navigate) than anyone else by crawling through water pools under huge boulders and climbing with ease the slippery waterfalls that had locals stopping to knot t-shirts into lifelines. Kiwi rugged - respect!

Photos: Boat life - play time, relax time, and meal time