Wednesday: Sunken Cities, hill top castles and Kekova sparkler.

Hopper’s 1929 Model A complete with surf board at our local beach in Maine.

I can’t help but combine adventures, and my brain is constantly trying to link activities. For instance, just last week I drove my antique car to a beach with my surfboard strapped to it, (adventure 1) and went surfing in a hurricane swell (adventure 2).  If I had driven my minivan, it would have been much easier, but I couldn’t help myself. 

This morning I woke up here in Kekova, Türkiye, with this Roman era Castle sitting atop a nearby hill within easy swimming distance. Again, I couldn’t help myself, I just had to swim to the next cove and climb the hill to explore the ruins with these guests. It sounds easier than it is to pull this off. Even when we try to do these things with boat captains that we’ve been working with for many years and who speak the same language that we do as a first language, the logistics of such an operation can be complicated. Multiple boats, gear, timing, water, who’s in, who’s out. But our Kaptan Seyfir and his crew are game, and they generally get what we’re doing. I doubt Seyfir and crew have ever had a group that constantly wants to jump off this perfectly good gulet and swim away from it, out of sight. 

Jeff captured the sunrise this morning. Beautiful.

We stashed our shoes, hats, and shorts in some bags and swam away, about 1/2 mile to the end of the next cove, which had a nice bottom of soft white sand. Deckhand Mustafa was right behind us to deliver our stuff in the dinghy. We donned our hiking gear and ditched our caps and goggles. Someone had welded a metal arch together as a welcome of sorts to the trailhead. We hiked away and immediately passed the ruins of a modern era home, maybe early 1900’s? Not far from that, we were overlooking a big flat area, seemingly rare around these parts. What has happened here in the past? Grazing? Farming? Buildings? Was it flooded with the sea in a different era? A glance around us showed ancient foundations lining the hills. This is the thing about Türkiye -  people have been living here for so long that their traces are stacked upon one another, mingled with one another, century after century, and the stuff you can actually see sometimes dates back over 2,000 years. It makes your head spin. 

The scramble to the castle was moderately difficult with a lot of loose rocks, but the views from the top well worth the climb. The castle looked like Crusades era, but was likely built atop Roman era, which was built atop Lycian era, with an Ottoman cannon lying around just for kicks. It seems likely a Christian cross built into one of the remaining walls was blasted out at some point. Another cool thing about Türkiye, though this is arguable, is that these sites are so plentiful that many have no signs, no fences, no fees, no gates, no historic markers. Just you and an interesting pile of rocks and a general idea of the period architecture and your imagination. The most information I could find about this castle was a note on a trails app that said “Castle”. I like it that way.

We climbed back down and met Mustafa and his dinghy at precisely the time we had arranged, and swam back to the yacht. We ate more of the eggy spinach cheesy casserole that had been put out earlier for breakfast. 

Not a hiker, I took the swimmers on a water adventure through the rocks of the bay. Lots of exploring nooks and crannies and little fishes in beautiful light. - HP

We set sail for Kekova Island and the Sunken City. The ruins of a hillside and seaside Lycian village that dates back to perhaps 1400BC are there in stark detail. An earthquake around 200BC severely damaged the town, and sunk its waterfront buildings underwater, where you can still see their foundations. Above water, on the hillside, you can see the shadows of  rooflines on bedrock that had been chiseled away to form walls and the carved out boxes that held roof timbers. Steps lead to the water in dozens of places. It must have been difficult to move around by land here on the steep slopes, but quite easy to visit your neighbors by boat. They must have eaten a lot of fish. I try to imagine what this charming place would have looked like from the water, at night, torches aglow. A magical place. The city today is only tourable by boat - no swimming allowed. If only…

The crew tied La Mia Stella up to some rocks at a little island chain, and we had lunch and a nap. The wind picked up, we snapped a stern line (a first for me), and moved to another bay, and tied up to a tiny island. The bay was busy with perhaps a dozen dayboat Gulets, filled with families enjoying a late summer vacation. Kids, their parents, and older men and women in head scarves splashed around in the surprisingly clear water. A guy in a little ice cream boat buzzed around, the aquatic version of the suburban ice cream truck. At the start of our swim, we spied Mustafa tenderizing an octopus on the rocks. We swam on and saw some turtles, circled the bay and encountered lots of freshwater springs which made for some refreshingly cold spots. 

Crewman Mustafa tenderizes our dinner (octopus) by beating it on the rocks.

L-R from top-bottom: Two baby trumpet fish hiding in a nook or cranny, our gorgeous gulet tied up stern to on the rocks, Kendra swimming through one of a dozen little passages, Sisters sitting on the sea floor, the halo cline (mixing of freshwater springs into seawater - also coooold into warm) dazzles the senses by making everything look a little blurry - think a heat wave on the pavement!

I often use the relative peace of these afternoon swims to plan the evening cocktail. If you’ve read this blog from previous trips, you might know that we always make a “local” drink called ________ Sparkler, with the blank being filled in by the name of the island we’re closest to. Tonight’s concoction was:

Kekova Sparkler:

2oz peach nectar

2 oz white rum

2 oz champagne 

It’s best if the ingredients are pre-chilled. Combine all ingredients in a champagne flute and enjoy.

Our very tender octopus makes it to the table.

The wind subsided as we tucked into a seashore dinner of octopus (very tender), whole fish, and calamari. We open our hatches and doors to let the breeze waft through the Gulet, and we sleep like only swimmers can sleep. 

Hopper

The sky went to pink at sunset, and Samantha got this lovely frame of the full moon rise.

Here’s a little video (with sound!) recap of our day! Thank you to Hopper and Simon for their photo and video footage up on the hill top!