Weather in Turkey can change on a dime!  We had a lovely sunny morning, early evening thunder storms and hail, and it was a three blanket night.  Sunday our neighbor had to rescue my flannel pants which had blown off the line.  She kindly came on the boat and took down all of the laundry, folded it and left it in the basket on our cockpit.  And she was in the middle of working on sanding the hull of her boat which is on the hard just across the way from us.  I had planned on no rain when I’d left the laundry hanging, but didn’t plan on the fierce wind.  That can happen in the Med and I’ve learned my lesson! 

  Sox have been making me happy to check the scores and with several afternoon games I’ve been able to "watch" the simulated game on the computer.  The scores were astronomical so I went to sleep before they ended secure in the feeling that the Sox wouldn’t blow 10 run leads.  Afternoon games start here by 8pm so that’s good but night games start here at 2 am.  Sometimes I automatically wake up and then get up to watch for a bit.  Then I go back to sleep if the score is lopsided no matter who is winning.  I can sleep from 4 to 6 and still feel pretty normal during the day.  But then I don’t have any real heavy thinking to do.  The last book I read had Agatha Raisin as the main character! 

  Randal has been doing boat work and Linda and I hiked up the mountain until the dirt road ran out.  Without long pants and shirts it was too buggy to keep going.  We’ll prepare next time.  We are having 2 Welshmen to dinner tonight.  Randal made an apple pie!  So that’s how it goes.

Ru

DoraMac

Bozburun by Motorbike

We set off for Bozburun planning to avoid all of the wrong turns and double backs of our prior adventure. That ride had been fun and very scenic but this time we really did want to eventually get to Bozburun so took a more “direct” back road. We still climbed over mountains and drove through tiny towns but this time we arrived just about noonish in Bozburun southwest from Marmaris about 50 something miles if you take the most direct route. We took the “not direct” route driving to Bozburun but the more direct route back. We certainly are getting to know this part of Turkey. And considering the marina rates on the southeast coast are triple the rate here in Marmaris we may do more biking than boating.

First order of business was lunch at the very end of town.

We stopped for a minute outside this café, just long enough for a lovely Turkish woman to come out, chat us up, and tell us we must eat in her café. I thought the menu looked pretty short, but Randal said, Ok. They did have beer and the price for the Turkish Pizza was right…4TL for a half meat, half cheese pizza. It actually turned out to be like the spinach-feta cheese pancake thing I had in Marmaris. The meat (not sure what kind) was mixed with sautéed onion so tasted fine to me. I’ll try to remember to take a photo next time. I keep eating first and then thinking of the photo.

A shady spot.

There was a chill in the air in Marmaris so we chose long pants and shirts. It was really brisk riding over some of the mountains. Bozburun itself was hot; need some of those zip off pants and arm warmers for chilly riding but warm stops. We had special bicycle riding clothes but so far have resisted special motorbike clothes other than our big helmets.

Seemed more like the desert than the Mediterranean; but I like the stone and space more than forests.

Even looking like a desert, agriculture, fishing and boat building are the main industries of the 2,000 or so people who live in Bozburun.

Across to the other side of the cove on Sombeki Bay.

There are customs officials in Bozburun so you can check out of Turkey and cruise the short distance to Greece if you so chose. Maybe one day. But not likely this year.

Bozburun is a popular stop for the lovely wood Gulets (large sailing boats) for hire.

MHP is the main opposition party; elections were June 12, 2011 and MHP didn’t do as well as was expected.

Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal) the founder of modern Turkey has a statue everywhere. (He probably would have voted MHP, I think.)

Walk along the waterfront…….lots of flowers!

Places for boats and bathing……

http://www.bozburuninfo.com/bozburun_brochure.pdf is a tourist brochure about Bozburun and tells quite a bit with wonderful photos.

The road from Bozburun.

Lots of terraced hillsides with rock walls built to hold the soil where the mountain had been leveled a bit. I just love stone walls. Robert Frost’ s poem MENDING WALL is a favorite poem of mine and I always think of the several lines of it when I see the stone walls.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

(a wonderful English teacher pointed out that frozen ground can = frost)

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Just leaving Bozburun.

Looking down on Selimiye which we visited last trip.

Lots of what looks like Mountain Laurel or Rhododendron.

The coastal highway.

Taking a break for photos and looking at the road through the mountain.

The whole peninsula is named Hisaronu. The Lonely Planet guide recommends renting a scooter in Marmaris and biking the peninsula which they say is 120 km and should take about 6 hours with stops for lunch and swims. They mention that the only petrol stations are in Turunc and Bozburun but you could get fuel at the Marti Marina near Turgut if you thought of it. They also warn you of terrible Turkish drivers but we have found just the opposite, and hardly any traffic at all to be terrible.