We were so disappointed at Knidos as we anchored off to the left of a very busy pontoon. There was a flotilla in, but the bay was generally very crowded. And no-one smiles. it’s a serious business this cruising.

At 2.30 am, I heard much laughter coming from a dinghy. Though I couldn’t hear the words, it was English being spoken in drunken tones. Once they were on their yacht it was as if someone would end up in the water. in the morning the more sober amongst them must have sailed the boat away.

We crossed the gulf at its widest point, leaving Simi on our left. Winds favoured us and we anchored in the North Bay where it is shallow enough fro swimmers from the beach to reach Peperuka, which is what they do. We went to our usual restaurant for a pizza, but their machine was broken so we went to look at a fast food place that was mobbed. There was a queue with no empty tables anyway so we walked along to another place which looked promising. The food was nothing to shout about but we ate and returned to the boat.

   Next morning, I tried a new place on the harbour to access internet while Bob went for haircut. For around £10.00 he got a full beauty treatment. Hair, cut and waxed, from head, ears, between brows and nose – and – he was given a facial. Only in Turkey would he have put up with that! He looked polished and well-groomed, as he never has before.

  Bob’s first was a facial, while mine was swimming with no noodle! This bay is now called ‘No-noodle-Datca’.

On August 16th we had checked into Turkey in Datca and sailed to Orhaniye to meet Gurmeet and Roshan. They spent four nights with us on Peperuka – a great first experience of sailing for Roshan who will be ten next month.

On the Sunsail charter boats we always moored up at a jetty and ate at the restaurant, but this time we anchored off; lots of gulets, four restaurants and no swimming as the waves were too bouncy. It was a rough two nights.

  We have been up to the fort on the hill on an extremely hot day, so we were not going to do it again.

Ekincik is the bay from which the tripper boats take passengers up the Dalyan River. It is a busy route with huge ferry boats bringing people from Bodrum and perhaps Kos. The price we were quoted was 30 euros each which we declined. We told them we’d walked over to Dalyan last time we were there.

   On the way here we passed Marmaris and Icmeler where, in 2010, we had met up with Gurnath and Harry on our Sunsail charter boat.

   I had forgotten Ciftlik until I saw the island at it’s entrance. The speed thrill boats make this a noisy anchorage.

On the trip into Turkey Bob said the Gocek inlet was like ‘coming home’. This is where we started with chartering Sunsail yachts. My first sailing experience was on ‘Moon River’ a 36 foot yacht. Gurmeet and Dipi joined us for half of the week, that was in 2009. Since then I’ve sailed 1716 nautical miles including my Day Tripper course on the Clyde Estuary. This trip so far is 1062 nm from Kalamata and it’s not finished yet. The sense of achievement cannot be denied in sailing but I am often very tired. Holidays of two weeks are fine but longer means that all my clothes are dirty and full of salt until we reach a shower on-shore. My hair becomes clogged with salt even if I rinse it out after a swim. Another milestone has been that after over two and a half thousand miles at sea I can let go of my ‘noodle’ float. I am now swimming without it, although Bob is holding it in case I flounder, lose confidence and need to grab it.

   We sailed to Ekincik missing out all the bays which are so well-known to us – Kapi Creek, 22 Fathom Cove, Wall Bay, Ruin Bay, Tersane Creek,Deep Bay, Tomb Bay and a new place to anchor which is on the larger bay coming out of Ruin Bay where we an extremely kind and well-mannered young Turk told us that it was busy because it was the end of Ramadan and then swam over to Peperuka, jumped aboard and helped us tie our line ashore. I declared to Bob that it must be Eid and sure enough a new moon appeared – I took a photo. That was on the trip down. We had good winds towards Ekincik, passing the bay near Dalaman where there were dinghy sailors who came out as far as we were. Brave.