Fethiye
Eastern Mediterranean
Turkey

29 October 2009

My Dear Capitan David, Capitano Giovanni, καπετάνιος Πέτρος, and एडमिरल सिंह *

cc: Family and Friends

On your next cruise to the eastern Mediterranean, I recommend you explore Fethiye Bay (Fethiye Körfezi).  Drop anchor astride any number of idyllic islands: Yassicalar ( Flat Island ), Tersane Island, or Kizil Ada (Red Island ).  Swim and snorkel in the clear turquoise waters of Cennet Köyü ( Paradise Bay ) or Klopatra Hamami (Cleopatra’s Bath ). 

Give your cook a day off.  Sail into Fethiye Harbor and dock at the marina.  Sea-side and cliff-side restaurants serve delightful Turkish dishes featuring fresh fish and sea food. 

Steady your sea legs and wander around Fethiye (ancient Telmessos). The Tomb of Amyntas (350 BCE) is a Doric style Lycian temple cut into the rock wall of the cliff facing the sea.  Close to the harbor is a Roman theatre.

Is your crew busy scraping the algae off the hull?  Take a short ride into the mountains to the sorrowful site of Kayaköy (Karmylassos).

Kayaköy was a mountainside village of several thousand Greek Christians who had lived there for hundreds of years.  Every home had an unobstructed view of the valley below.  But at the end of the Greco-Turkish War (1919 - 1922), all the inhabitants along with tens of thousands of other ethnic Greeks were forcibly removed from Turkey and deported to Greece.  Ethnic Turks living in Greece were removed to Turkey .

Today Kayaköy is a ghost town of abandoned stone houses and churches.  Trent Lockwood, a travel writer describes his reaction: "Few times in my life have I so physically felt the collective void of a people vanished, the expectant silence that hangs over the empty houses of a missing population…."

David, Peter, Jack, Madhvendra - you’ll work up an appetite climbing up and down the rocky paths.  Stop for lunch at Ekizoglu JJ’s Place. 

"Turkish Omelet" and "Turkish Pancake" sound quite innocent on the menu.  But what a meal!  The "omelet" is two fried eggs atop a spicy stew of fresh vegetables atop a not so small mound of flavorful rice.  The "pancake" is the size of a large pizza.  The dough is rolled and then baked in a stone oven by a local woman who sits at the side of the outdoor restaurant.  She folds the "pancake" and fills the soft warm bread with feta cheese and greens.

Before you weigh anchor and continue your odyssey to Marmaris or the Greek island of Rhodes, send your quartermaster to restock provisions at the Fethiye marina.  Ships chandlers and tackle shops abound.  And don’t forget a gift item for the first mate back at home port.

Smooth sailing,

Jan

* For all you landlubbers, my friends are Captain David Alinsky, Captain Jack Calabro, Captain Peter Theoharis and Admiral Madhvendra Singh!  (And you thought all my friends were just miserable swabbies like me?)