Exploring Kuruca, Buku

July 28, 2010: Exploring Kuruca, Buku

After three days of travel, today is our one break day. We stayed in Kuruca Buku, with the thousand foot mountain peaks overlooking the bay. Kuruca Buku is separated by a small sand spit from Ciftlik Limani. Dick said that the hike all the way up the mountain had fabulous views of the two bays and would only take an hour. He was right about the fabulous views.

We took the dinghy to the fisherman dock and walked along the beach. Allen found an empty sea urchin shell. Shortly after that we started heading uphill on the "trails" that Dick had told us about. The trails were not much more than bare patches between the shrubs that grow up the side of the mountain. Even though we started out at 10:00 AM the sun was hot and the rocks were already radiating heat.

Sharra suffered some mild heat stroke, so our pace was slow. Dick's one hour hike turned into two, then two and a half. It was a real scramble at the top as we climbed up over crumbling rocks. At the top we had views along the coast and down into both bays.

After walking past the enormous Turkish flag we walked along the beach facing Ciftlik Limani until we found a beach side restaurant. We finished two litres of water in no time before ordering lunch. We took our time and recovered from our morning walk before heading out along the beach.

We walked the length of the beach before turning back and finding the open air market. Sharra bought herself a dress and Allen bought himself some shorts, while Dick, Karalee, and David bought more groceries. We have two teenagers on board and they eat every two hours like clockwork.

Then it was back to Van Kedisi. The wind had shifted, so we had to up anchor and reset in another part of the Kuruca Buku. Then it was time for a swim, reading, cooking dinner, and finally we all played Settlers Catan -- a board game. We were so engrossed in our game that we didn't realize other boats were trying to get our attention as we were dragging anchor. Fortunately, we were dragging into deeper water, so no harm was done. In the pitch black, we lifted anchor and reset, before resuming our board game, once again securely anchored.

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