TURKEY’ S TASTY SHORES
With its secluded coves and bakery boats, the idyllic Turquoise Coast is a breeze for sailors
HErE was a tall order: could we go a full week without a shop? That might sound attractive to the more intrepid, but not to an urban family of five who can seldom reach lunchtime without needing the supermarket. As it turned out, the lack of shops was no problem at all during our week sailing around Turkey’s Turquoise Coast. In fact, we have rarely eaten better. For in among this patchwork of isles and inlets in south-west Turkey lurk all manner of excellent, family-run restaurants and even the odd floating bakery. And you can only access them by boat.
You certainly do not need to be a sailor to enjoy the thrill of a sailing holiday, of waking up in a new place every day and jumping over the side, of a guaranteed sea view for a fraction of the price of a villa or hotel at the water’s edge.
We booked our week through Sunscape Yachting, Surrey-based experts in boat holidays all over Europe and the Caribbean. They will not only sort you out with a sailing or motor boat, but also someone to sail it.
As a sailor myself, I took charge of our boat on this trip. But I wanted to try something I had never done before and join a flotilla. This is where you sail in a group, do your own thing by day and then meet up in a new place at the end of the day.
Each Sunscape flotilla has an experienced professional team who go ahead to arrange everything. It means when you arrive in a harbour, even in high season, you have somewhere to tie up, someone waiting to help moor your boat without scratching the paintwork and a reservation at a tried-and-tested restaurant.
In other words, it removes the most stressful aspects of a family sailing holiday. The result is less shouting and rather more sundowner time at sundown. Plus you make friends on the way.
We were one of ten boats sailing from Fethiye, the boating centre of the Turquoise Coast. It is also the home of Sunscape’s Turkish partner, who organise flotillas and yacht charters in these parts. Our boat, much to the children’s delight, was called Scooby-Doo, a 36ft Oceanis with three two-bed cabins.
Each day began with a short briefing on the evening destination and good spots for lunch. Nowhere was more than a few hours’ sailing away, allowing plenty of time for swimming. The evening rendezvous could be anywhere in the Gulf of Fethiye, with a dozen islands and umpteen bays to choose from. In Kapi Creek we tied up on a small quayside by a restaurant serving big plates of mezze and kebabs for only a tenner a head. Though there was no sign of any shops, the parp of a horn the next morning announced the arrival of a fishing boat converted into a roving corner store. Even more remote was 22 Fathom Cove. Here, we woke up to the magical whiff of a floating bakery producing soft Turkish loaves at 50p a go. Best of all was Cold Water Bay, so-called because of an underground spring running straight into the sea here. It was not so much ‘cold’ as a few degrees below the rest of the Turquoise Coast — delicious. It is overlooked by a clifftop restaurant run by a delightful couple who give a free cooked breakfast to anyone who had dinner there the night before.
Our flotilla was mainly British, plus a sailingmad family from Holland. Some were keen to sail all day, others pottered along at a leisurely pace. It didn’t matter. There was great camaraderie.
When our eldest ignored instructions to wear flip-flops on an old jetty and ended up with a chunk of wood in her foot, people were on hand in seconds with first aid kits. Since our flotilla included a doctor and nurse, a husband and wife team from Herefordshire, she was fixed up in no time. Equally impressive was the fact that one thing never came out of our medical kit: mosquito spray.
I have been bitten to pieces all over the Mediterranean down the years, but the Turquoise Coast is mosquito-free. I don’t know how Turkey does it and I am not sure I want to know. But to sleep under the stars and wake without angry, itchy bites all over one’s arms and legs is one of life’s great pleasures. It’s almost as good as waking up to freshly baked bread in the middle of nowhere.