8th January 2021

A new day in Kas brought more wind and swinging, but our anchor was in a good position and a few boats had left for the weekend, so there was heaps of space for us to swing back and forth in the pretty little harbor. We took Lucy and ourselves for a walk up to the Antiphellos Ancient Theatre.

I am always the last on the walks, because I inspect all the plants and wild herbs and flowers. I just love observing nature and could spend hours just looking at things and smelling and picking and inspecting. I spent months looking out for the fragrant smaller white sage that we had found earlier in our trip. I had bought some at the market in Fethiye, but finding it wild myself feels much nicer. So I was very happy to find plenty of it on our walk. I picked a little bunch for my daily doses of sage/thyme and olive leaf tea.

The walk to the theatre was beautiful. Its called the Antiphellos Ancient Theatre and when Covid is not doing its rounds there are still live events here. When you sit in the seats you have the most beautiful ocean view.

We had a nice brown stray dog join on us our walk. He looked so thin. It breaks my heart to see all those stray animals. They seem to be fed by locals, but knowing how much love Lucy gets from us and how she loves the cuddles and walks and attention and seeing the dogs lying around in the streets looking dirty and having injuries, some skinny and lonely I want to scoop them all up and take them home.

The kids found some prickly pear in the park and despite my protests they wanted to harvest some. Manned with sticks and the thinnest plastic bag we found in my backpack and a few acrobatics later a few prickly pears where harvested and already they had prickles all over their hands from holding onto the plastic bag. Once home, the prickly pear saga continued trying to peel with them with all sorts of tools and finally giving up on the operation as there was uncertainty of the double usage of tools and wondering if there might be hidden prickles in the peeled fruit.

We had another windy night ahead, swinging and listening to the sound the wind made makes in the rigging. The next morning we went for a walk into town to find some data and groceries. It was Saturday, and all the locals are in lockdown. We have just recently found out that lockdown measures don’t apply for tourists. So wandering through Kas without many locals about felt like walking though a ghost town. We topped up data and groceries in the Migros and walked back to the boat.

On the way we found 2 tombs in between houses. They seem to be everywhere in odd places. It appeared that these ones had been used by homeless people with cardboard spread over the “bed” like rock carving where supposedly the dead person was placed on in the tomb, and old food and drink packing scattered around. On the other side of the road was another tomb in the middle of what we heard was the market on market days.

We all watched the movie “About a boy” in the afternoon. We made some popcorn and listened to the rain outside. It was a nice cosy family afternoon.

Tim made some calculations as to how many nautical miles we had travelled since we started with a software and while I am not into numbers when it comes to distance it sounds a lot. Its 2,018 nautical miles / 3,337 km’s as per the 9th January 2021.

On Sunday we decided to move on with Imagine and Adventurous to Aperlai / Asar Koyu. We left 10.30 in the morning and arrived 4.15 in the afternoon. It was 22 nm journey and fairly uneventful, which always makes me happy. Imagine and Adventurous had arrived earlier than us and already gone for walk and explore in the ancient ruins on the hill. They were free anchored and rafted up so we joined them.

Tim and I where keen to for a walk too before the sun went down and take Lucy for a bit of exercise. Luca decided he had seen enough “old rocks” for now and stayed on the boat, but Nina came and joined us. It was another beautiful ancient site with tombs and ruins everywhere. I just can’t believe how much history there is in Turkey – everywhere you turn.

Tim took some drone footage and photographs as usual. Lucky he enjoys it mostly, as really it is a job to always have to capture everything we do. I am often slack and don’t even take photos as I try to be in the moment and really see what’s right before me. We had some chips and a drink on top of the hill while admiring the setting sun over the sea and we all felt content and happy.

On our way back Nina walked first and me next and Tim behind us. There where lots of rocks everywhere and I just heard a rock rolling and Tim falling behind me. I turned around and saw him falling in a hole by a tree. My heart stopped, it gave me such a fright. Some of these rocks are sharp and there are holes everywhere. There are no Osh regulations at these sites and I was so worried he had hurt himself.

His first comment when I reached him was “I hope I haven’t crushed my drone”. Go figure. I was more worried about him crushing his bones. I took his photo gear off him and helped him up to assess the damage on his body. I think he was super lucky, that there where only scrapes and bruises and I was so grateful that backpack was on his back, protecting his spine. Tim was soothed that his drone wasn’t crushed but soon discovered that his phone was smashed and bend, which was in his back pocket in his jeans, so it took the full force of the fall.

I was just so glad that nothing worse had happened, as so often we were in the middle of nowhere and it was just me, Nina, Lucy and Tim there. Lucky I had taken a radio, so Luca could call us if something was up at the boat, so I could have called for help since Adventurous and Imagine where there too, but it really makes me realise how vulnerable we are out here if things go wrong.

After a shaky walk back to the boat after that fright, we nursed Tim’s wounds and he got his arnica and hypericum pills from me. We went over to Imagine to have a drink and some snacks with the others. We really needed that drink after that fright.

Tim felt so flat about destroying his phone, as he uses it for so many things. We don’t have insurance for small items and not much of an income to talk about, so loosing a piece of equipment that is worth over $1,000 NZD really hurts. He uses it for so many things, photography, navigation, weather, anchor alarm and god knows what. Lucky he had another broken one that he can use as a spare. Its less broken than the smashed one. The funny thing is that the smashed phones camera still works. He taped it up with cello tape, to not hurt himself on the smashed screen glass, but looking at it one wouldn’t think it still had a functioning camera.

In the big picture I was just glad and grateful that there was little damage to him.