We weren’t planning on stopping in Kekova Rhodes, but after it got rave reviews from the Kemer crowd we decided to pencil it in for at least a night. One night turned into five due to strong winds and a great anchorage.
The sail there went well. The wind was blowing the right direction, but there wasn’t any really. We were clocking about 5 knots… but that was what we were creating with our motoring so it doesn’t really count as wind. We made great time though and arrived in the middle of the day which is always ideal.
This is the Simena Castle and the town of Simena that is at the entrance of the bay. Our boat was anchored on the other side and we could see the back of the castle from our window.
As we were trying to figure out how to maneuver through the rocks a dingy came out of the opening and we automatically thought it was someone from a restaurant or dock telling us their place was the best. The small town here, Üçağiz, is known for bringing in the tour buses and putting people on the gullets. The gullets (wooden boats that take people out for tours) take the tourists around the bay, past the sarcophagus garden, past the castle and over the “underwater city”. The occupants of the dingy were not people coming to try and sell us something, they were people we knew!
Dad had met Bruce and Pat, on Persevere, in Amalfi the first time we went through and then we ran into them again in Mykanos. Well sure enough they wintered in Gocek Turkey and had just left the marina too. Out of pure coincidence we ended up at the same anchorage. We went over to their boat for drinks that night and then met up for lunch in town the next day. (Check out their blog, if for no other reason to see a great shot of our boat at sunset)
This is a shot of our boat from Persevere. We actually moved it from this anchorage when it started to blow bad because we were drifting into shallow waters. The simple act of moving the boat from one side of the small bay to the other was a task with the wind blowing against us every step of the way.
The weather pattern in Kekova Rhodes, at least during this time of year is that it’s dead calm and beautiful until around 1:00pm when the winds started to pick up. By 2:00 we were clocking 30+ knots of wind and the boat was spinning around the anchor like a top. It would blow like stink until the sun was going down and then it generally let up and calmed down into the night.
The first couple of days Dad and I made it into town for lunch, or to use the free internet at the café/pension that was being run by an English expat and her Turkish husband. We could park our dingy there and go shopping at the small grocery store and then have just enough time to make it back to the boat before the wind started to really howl.
The second full day we were there Dad and I thought we should explore Simena and the underwater city that was there, do a little site seeing. We got a call over the VHF from Hobnob, the couple we went to Cappadocia with, before we left and it turned out they were on the other side of the bay from us. So we motored over and had a cup of coffee and then motored to the castle. My bum got a little wet which wasn’t a big deal because I figured the walking would dry it off. We got a bite to eat at the café that was going to watch the dingy and started the climb up to see the Simena Castle. It was 8TL to get inside, and there was nothing to see but rocks and a tree or two so we voted to hike around it instead and found one of the coolest sarcophagi gardens.
This sarcophagus was just sticking out of the water. Dad drove the dingy over when we were looking for a place to "park".
These were solid rock sarcophagi we were seeing. They have been broken into and were empty. I told Dad if anything jumped out or grabbed me I was leaving and done for the day.
We could see the sarcophagi climb all the way to the top of the mountain and down to the sea. We were trying to imagine how long it would take to carve one out and how rich a person would have to be in order to hire someone to chisel a grave out of a solid piece of rock for them and then have it moved up to the top of a mountain.
A view of the Pipedream from almost the top of the mountain. Our boat is the red one on top of Dad’s thumb. Persevere is the blue one to the right. The wooden one to the left is a boat that someone has anchored and left. It’s being stripped of anything valuable, has no lights to show its position at night, and is just waiting to sink.
The wind was starting to pick up so we decided it was time to climb back down to our dingy and head back to the boat.
The ride back to the boat was a true adventure. In the end we had a lot of fun, but it was cold and very wet. The wind had picked up significantly and the swell with it. We were pretty exposed coming around the corner from the Simena and the waves are so much bigger when you are in an inflatable boat that close to the water. It felt a lot like tubing. I was holding on to a handle and trying to predict which way the wave was going to tilt the boat. Then I would lean this way or that and just hope I didn’t get thrown into the water. Waves came up over the sides and we were soaked, with salt water, down to our socks and underwear. Once we were in the protection of the bay, it wasn’t quite as bad, but it was still a wet adventure.
Bruce and Pat were planning on heading out that Sunday and decided to just bite the bullet and leave. They have a bigger boat with a lot more power “under the hood” so going up against a lot of wind, while uncomfortable, isn’t quite as bad and impossible as it is in the Pipedream. Dad and I had planned to follow them out, but after a full night of tossing and turning Dad made the call to stay put and ride out the wind that was blowing through Monday and Tuesday. I’d say we made the right decision.
Monday the wind blew well into the night and we clocked 39 knots at some points. We had a bit of swell so it was a bumpy night with the soothing sound of howling outside. The rest of the time in Kekova Rhodes was spent enjoying the scenery, it was a beautiful place, and catching up on some much needed reading. The Vodafone worked for about 15 minutes every day so communications with the outside world were limited at best and with the weather, we didn’t want to risk the ride into town just to get online. The oddest thing to me was even with all of this wind, the sun was shining. There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight, it was just blowing.
Hobnob moved over towards us the last evening to run their engine and we invited them on board for drinks and snacks. It was fun comparing our trips so far and a great way to end our stay in Kekova Rhodes.
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