Selimiye to Marmaris and we rescued Fred

Town dock in background.

After Knidos we went to Selimiye.  It was really, really hot and we wanted a place to dock and get electricity.  The town dock was full but Papa found us a place in front of a restaurant.  We liked this place a lot.  We could swim right off the dock behind our boat.  

Very clear water 10 feet deep.

Tutu and Papa ate at the restaurant each night while Zachary and I ate dinner on the boat.   One night Tutu gave us a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew and it was great!  I've never eaten this before.  It was like carrots and potatoes and a gravy filled with tiny bits of hamburger meat but really was beef chunks.  I want my mom and dad to buy some of this when we get home.  Tutu said they don't sell it here in Turkey and that was the only can she had on the boat.  Another night Tutu and Papa brought us some fried calamari from their dinner at the restaurant.  I ate the good ring pieces and Zachary ate the scrawny one with the tentacles.  That was great!

Me on the boat.  We could swim right at the back of our
boat when docked at the restaurant.

After a few days we moved to the town dock to get better electricity.  We could not swim there and we stayed inside the boat most of the time trying to stay cooled off.  Papa found the town bakery and we went there almost every day to buy fresh bread.  They also had some cookie things.  One day the baker made hamburger buns.   We could not find a store in Selimiye that sold any meats, just chicken.  But Tutu had one package of ground beef in the freezer and we had hamburgers as a special treat.   It was very hot inside the bakery because the windows didn't open up.  One day the baker man didn't wear a shirt and his tattoos showed.


One day we found a place that sold chicken doner kebabs.  This is a big flour tortilla wrapped around shaved bits of chicken breast that has been roasted on a vertical spit.  Papa thought it wouldn't taste right, but it did.  In Marmaris the Samurai Kebab man that Tutu and Papa like so much puts chopped tomato and lettuce and a couple of french fries inside the doner kebab.  In Selimiye the man didn't put anything except the chicken and ketchup and mayonnaise.  I like the ones in Marmaris better but this one was pretty good for lunch.

Captain Ozman with the gold teeth

We met Captain Ozman.  He has a restaurant on the town quay.  And his teeth are all gold!  He said he sailed here from Greece many years ago and he brought all his money inside his mouth.  I don't know if he has a boat anymore.  We ate dinner one night at his restaurant and shared traditional Turkish cold starters and 2 traditional casseroles -- 1 beef and 1 shrimp.  His restaurant is known for their casseroles.  I did not care for the cold starters so I had a bowl of fresh tomato soup.  It had tiny strands of some kind of pasta in it and I loved it.

That tiny island had an old stone tower built on it.
It was lined up with the old castle on the hill.
We never found out what this was or how old it is.

Castle ruins on hill

We stayed in Selimiye for 9 nights.  We loved it.  It was one of my favorite places of the summer.  Finally we left because my parents and baby brother are arriving soon and will meet us in Marmaris.  And Marmaris was about 50 miles away.

I liked to feed the ducks in Selimiye

As we got to the bottom of the peninsula there was a charter boat that was coming at full speed from our starboard side, so they were the stand-on vessel.  Papa turned right to go behind them.  And suddenly they turned left and were heading straight for us.  So Papa turned back left again to avoid hitting them.   



Like a lot of the charter boats we have seen, there were too many experts on that boat.  A French woman screamed at us and made hand motions at us.  Then they passed behind us and our fishing line went screaming out really fast.  We think that our fishing line got caught on their propeller.  All the fishing line went out and we lost our lure and all the line.  

Wine grapes grew over the path at this restaurant
at Selimiye

We sailed on and we saw Fred in the water ahead of us.  We tried to get alongside of Fred but couldn't get the boat to go slow enough.  So Tutu circled the boat and came back up to Fred on the bow and Papa used a pole to pull Fred up to the boat and lifted him up.  We had rescued Fred!  Fred is now friends with Pinky, who was rescued in Fethiye when we first arrived last month.


Fred and Pinky are good fenders.  


I think that some stupid charter boats sailing with their fenders hanging down on both sides into the water lost these fenders.  We salvaged them from the sea so now they are ours.


Tutu and Papa said they didn't feel so bad about losing the fishing line and lure because the fender was worth more than those.

Playing the Diva (again)

We stopped in Serce Limani for one night.  We went swimming a lot.  I really like it there.  One of the local men who come around trying to sell us stuff went outside the bay and came back dragging a really nice dinghy with burgundy chaps and good engine.  He salvaged it from the sea.  He saw it floating out on the sea with no boat around, so he went out and saved it.  I guess he gets to keep it.


Yesterday we motored to Marmaris and anchored near the marina.  This morning we docked at Yat Marin marina.  My parents and Damien should arrive tomorrow night.  I can't wait!


(Tutu typed this for me because it takes me so long to type.  I told her what to write and she typed it.)


P.S.  I just lost my second molar!  Seems like every summer I lose a tooth while visiting aboard BeBe.

Knidos

The trade harbor.  The breakwater is about 2700 years old  and still there on the right side.
The other side of the breakwater has collapsed and is underwater.
We had to be really careful coming in so we did not hit the sunken part of the breakwater.

Knidos [Cnidos] was a big city with two harbors ,a military harbor trade harbor. We docked in the trade harbor which is now a fish restaurant harbor.  We docked in this harbor because the military harbor is now silted in.  It is so shallow that only small fishing boats can go there.


When we came in we had to be careful because there was a sunken breakwater on the right side.  The old stone breakwater that the Romans built is still there on the left side.  


That day we walked behind the fish restaurant and could see the old military harbor.  We tried to see the sun go down because we wanted to see a green flash.  But there was an island in the way and we could not see the sun go down to the sea.  It went behind the island.  

The lower theater.  The city was built way up
on those hills and off to each side.
And on the opposite side of the harbor too.

The fish restaurant is on what they call a land bridge that connects what would be an island to the mainland.  This land bridge was there when Knidos was a big city long ago.  There were terraces all up the side of the island side and it faced the old theater across the trade harbor.  All around inside the trade harbor are large sections of the ancient quay still in place.  But those old stone docks are crumbling and boats can't  tie off there any more.

The north side of the mainland part of Knidos.  The statue of Aphrodite
was mounted somewhere in this section.

On the mainland side there were a lower theater and an upper theater, some temples, an Acropolis and the place where the statue of Aphrodite used to be.  The Acropolis was built high up on the hill and was like a fort to protect the city.  What happened to the statue is uncertain.  Some people think it was taken to Constantinople (Istanbul) and was later destroyed in a fire there.  Some people think that the head of the Aphrodite statue is now in England in the British Museum but the museum says that they do not have it.  The statue was near the military harbor.  The was the first nude female statue in the world and people came from all other to see her beautiful butt.  There was a trap door on the rear side of the mounted statue so tourists could see her backside.  One man was so in love with this statue that he kissed her thigh and left a permanent black mark.

Houses and narrow streets were built on this side of the
harbor.  This was called The Camels Hump.
And the military people lived there too.

The dock man said we could have the battery charger on but not the air-conditioners.  But it was so hot that Papa fixed things for us.  He put the dinghy in the water next to our boat where the water comes out when the air conditioner is running.  Then he turned off the battery charger because he said our batteries were charged enough because we had run the engine all the way to Knidos for hours.  He closed off the small front room and turned on that one air conditioner.  We stayed closed up in the little room to cool off for hours.  Papa said the one air conditioner used 5 amps and the battery charger would have used that much.  So we really weren't using any more electricity than the other boats at the restaurant dock.


The town of Datca is where the original ancient Knidos was located.  But marble was quarried at the end of the peninsula.  And there was a better harbor at the end of the peninsula.  So they moved the original ancient Knidos to the end of the peninsula where these 2 harbors are and built a big city around 360 B.C.  It was easier to bring the wine and olive oil to the harbors than to bring the quarried marble to the original harbor farther away.  


The guide book said that Knidos was deserted sometime in the Middle Ages and no one went there again until a British man visited around 1850 A.D.  The British man found a enormous stone lion.  He wrote that "the lion seemed made for the scenery, the scenery for the lion."  This lion was shipped off with lots of other antiquities to the British Museum.  That is like stealing.  The Turkish people would like to have their stuff back to put in their own museums.  

The military harbor, called Trireme Harbour.
Looks too small for 20 warships to me.

The trade harbor has not silted in.  It is the only ancient trade harbor in Turkey that has not silted in.  The harbor at Caunos where we saw the turtles has silted in about 8 miles and the Ephesus harbor we saw has silted in more than 6 miles.  Tutu and Papa also visited ancient Patara and it was silted in several miles.  I think that the reason is because all the other harbors were near the end of rivers that emptied into the sea.  The rivers brought dirt from the mountains and slowly built up new land and the harbor went away.  In Knidos there are no rivers to carry dirt down from the mountains.  But the military harbor has silted in on the north side because most of the bad storms come from the north and the sea has brought sand into that harbor.



The north harbor or military harbor was called the Trireme Harbour and it held around 20 warships according to our guide book.  It sure looked little to me.  I know warships back then were not very big, but  I don't see how 20 boats the size of boat BeBe could fit in there!


Tutu typed this for me.  I told her what to say and she typed it because I type too slow.

A sign at Knidos.  Everything you might want to know about this place.

Pamukkale

On the Cotton Castle, as the Turks call Pamukkale

Pamukkale means cotton castle in Turkish.  








The city has hot springs that have healing minerals. We were not allowed to wear shoes on the castle.  

One of the Pamukkale pools

The spring waters have some mineral called calcium or something that cause terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water.  The terraces are called travertines.  I found this in my Pamukkale journal book that I bought in the souvenir shop.

The pools go down the mountainside

We went to 15 of the 17 pools that terrace down the mountainside. The pools were not hot.   The water cools off as it is carried to the pools. These pools are knee deep.  The bottom is like squishy stuff that feels and looks like ice cream but is not cold like ice cream.

Not snow.

The guide said that some 5 star hotels are using and have diverted some of the spring waters.  They have used so much that Pamukkale will no longer exist in 150 years.  It will all be dried up by then.

Near lowest pool at Pamukkale.  See valley and mountains in background.

Swimming in Cleopatra's Pool

Standing on broken
column in Cleopatra's Pool

We also went to Cleopatra's pool which is supposed to make you young and keeps your skin from wrinkling.  Mark Anthony gave this pool to Cleopatra as a wedding gift.  We swam though the water , but they had a rule that you had to be 16 to go to the deep end even though Zach went to the other side. They had broken up columns in the pool. 

A toppled column in Cleopatra's Pool

I did not know much about Mark Antony or Cleopatra so Tutu explained about them.  Cleopatra was the queen or pharaoh of  Egypt but she really wasn't Egyptian.  The real Egyptians had died long before the Ptolemy family came to Egypt.  The first Ptolemy was a general with Alexander the Great and he was Macedonian, not Egyptian.  So really Cleopatra was Macedonian.  She was very short and skinny and had a big nose.  Mark Antony was Roman.  His name was Marcus Antonius but people called him Mark Antony.  He is the one who said, "Friends, Romans, countrymen.  Lend me your ears" according to a Shakespeare play.  Mark Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves in Egypt rather than be captured by the Romans.

One of the hot spring sources at
Cleopatra's Pool

There were also lots of ruins of the ancient city of  Hierapolis  all around Pamukkale.  It is also spelled Heropolis.  The guide said it was named after the Greek goddess Hera.  We saw the theater and a big museum and some roads and a lot of buildings.  But after seeing Ephesus we didn't want to look at any more ancient ruins.

Hierapolis theater in background and something
else closer.  These old ruins all look the same.

Here is a drawing I made of the pools at Pamukkale.

Ephesus

Something I don't remember

Bus to Ephesus

We went to Ephesus. We woke up early and went on a dolmus to town.  A dolmus is a little bus.  The word dolmus means squeezed.  And sometimes we get squeezed when the driver lets too many people get on.  Then we waited on a bus. When we got on the bus we went to a Turkish delight shop and we ate halva.  The chocolate halva was the best. 

Glad Tutu brought the umbrella.  It was hot.

Then we went to ancient city Ephesus.  Ephesus is really big but the guide said it was only 13% uncovered so far.  Most of the town is still under ground. Ephesus one of the best preserved ruins.  It was hot walking in Ephesus.

Restrooms.  Water was in trench
by his foot to wash bottoms.

We saw ancient restrooms called latrines.  The restrooms were only for Roman men.  The men all went in there together.  Gross!  


In the cold the slaves had to sit on the marble seats and warm the seats for their masters.  There was water flowing in a little trench in front of the seats.  The men or their slaves would wet sponges in that water and then clean themselves after using the restroom.  Sometimes the slaves would clean their masters bottoms and sometimes the rich Roman man would do it himself.  But the slave always had to clean the sponge afterward.  YUCK!  The slaves and women could not use the latrines.  They had to use the fields.  I'm glad we don't have those rules today.

Hercules Gate.  It was in middle of the main road.  The columns made the
road get narrow so wagons could not go down this road.  It was for
walking people.

Library of Celsus

We saw the Library of Celsus, which means Library of Caesar.  It was the first and largest library in the world.  It was a huge building.  There were only 2 libraries in the ancient world.  This one and one in Alexandria Egypt.  Tutu said there also was one in China but the guide did not talk about that one.








Ephesus also was the first place in the world to start a bank.  The guide called it the Bank of Asia.  He said Ephesus was the financial capital of the world.  Kind of like New York City today.  Rome was the government capital but Ephesus was the money capital.

Ephesus had largest theater in ancient world

Down the road from the library was the largest theater in the ancient world.  The sound worked really good.  Another man in our tour group stood on the stage area and said "Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  Lend me your ears."  Zachary sat in seats in the middle about halfway as high as they would let you go, and he said he could hear the man good.  The guide said that the theater was even larger.  They know there are 2 more levels of seating that have not been dug up yet and put back in place.




The first advertisements in the world were in Ephesus.  The first advertisement was for brothels, which is disgusting.  Tutu told me what a brothel was.  The guide didn't tell us.  Stones were put in the street near the harbor.  They put the woman's name and a drawing of her on the stone.  They also put a heart that was broken and a circle that looked like money coins.  And a big footprint.  They had different shape footprints for different women.  If a sailor had a broken heart and some money, he could find a stone of a women he liked and follow the footprints to that woman's house or brothel and have her company to ease his broken heart.  Papa said that later they invented addresses and phone numbers.  I made a drawing of how the guide said these advertisements looked.

                                                                                                                                                                                        Tutu and I saw the House of the Virgin Mary, also called Mother Goddess Mary's House.  Virgin Mary came to Ephesus with St. John after Jesus was crucified.  She lived there for the rest of her life.  The red bricks and stones were the original house.  The regular stones were added to rebuild it.  I wrote a prayer note and sprinkled it with holy water and put it on the stone wall with the other notes left by other people.  Her house was a small chapel with no bed or table.  I don't see how she could have lived there with no bed and no table.  We washed our hands in holy water.  There were policemen with big guns.  The guide said the policemen were there to keep away crazy terrorists with silly religious ideas.  We did not have a camera to take pictures because Papa kept it.  Papa and Zach went to the Ephesus Museum while we went to Virgin Mary's house.  Here is a link to a page that shows what the house looks like and tells some things about it.
House of the Virgin Mary

Delightful Turkey Summer

I  just arrived in Turkey 2 weeks ago, it feels 1 hour ago!  I forgot to tell you guys that its great that you can read my blog. 


First when we got off the boat in Fethiye we went on a walk . On our walk we went on the road to a Turkish ice cream wagon. Turkish ice cream is not fast melting ice cream.  Click on this link to see a Turkish ice cream man:  
An example of what Turkish ice cream man does

Lounging on mizzen deck

How to relax when the sun is too hot

Then we went to the harbor master and Papa had our names added to the crew list,and on our way back we saw a giant turtle (we also saw his dog friend, too.)  

Dinghy driving lesson.  I did not hit our boat.

When  we left  Fethiye  we went  to Tomb Bay. We swam and kayaked and we also went hiking.   Papa taught me how to drive the dinghy.

One of the white goats

After Tomb Bay we went to Kucuk Kuyruk  (This means Rear End.  The bay is shaped like someone's rear end.  That is funny.)  There were lots of goats on the mountains at Kucuk Kuyruk.  I wanted to go pet them but Tutu said no.


We kayaked a lot at Kucuk Kuyruk.

The water was really pretty at Kucuk Kuyuk.

Then we  went to a market anchorage.  It made the boat roll so much I thought I would fall out of my bed.  When we tried to leave the wind was too strong. So we sailed for fun for a few hours and Papa ran the watermaker.  Then we went back and stayed there for two more days.  (Note from grandmother:  a 'market anchorage' is what she calls any anchorage that has a small grocery store.  Most anchorages we have visited have been uninhabited.)

Loggerhead turtle eating crabs at Caunos

 In the market anchorage we also took a tour boat that took us to a river that led up to a huge ancient city (Caunos).  We walked around some and saw an old Roman theater.  It was not the kind that had gladiators.  

Roman theater at Caunos

Castle way up there on top

Tutu dropped her handkerchief and had to go back to the theater to find it while Papa showed us the Roman baths and explained how it used to be.  There was a castle way up on top of a hill but we did not have time to walk up there.

A picture off the internet of the tombs that
were too far away for us to see very good

We were supposed to see some rock tombs but those were too far away up the river to see much.  The tour guide wanted more money to take us there but Tutu said no because she did not want to spend any more money on this tour and we also wanted to hurry and get back to the boat to leave.  There were huge loggerhead turtles in the marsh entrance that ate crabs.  None of us knew that turtles like to eat crabs.  

Pigging out picking crabs

Papa bought some cooked crabs and we later ate these on the boat.  I love steamed blue crabs!  These were boiled instead of steamed but they were still pretty good.


When we left again we changed plans ,and went to Mamaris and docked in the marina right in town.  We walked through the old bazaar and went to Papa's favorite place for lunch and ate chicken doner kebabs made by the Samarai Kebab Man.  That man is funny.  He has a really long knife that he uses to cut the chicken off the round thing.  Doner kebabs are chicken and lettuce and tomatoes wrapped in a big tortilla.  Tastes pretty good.  I like these better than the gyros we ate last summer in Greece.


We were squished in the 1st marina we went to,so we moved to Yat Marin. We are now so far away from the pool ,which is the main reason we came.       


That's all we've done lately so keep following and enjoy.

Cooling off in pool at Yat Marin