Cabin Fever!

If you’ve been around awhile, this blog post might seem a bit familiar, as well, I’ve written about it before.  A LONG TIME AGO IN A PLACE FAR, FAR AWAY I had another blog, who’s life was tragically cut short by hackers (okay, okay, fine posts were getting few and far between, but still!).  My last few meager posts on were blurps about our Turkey and Greece trip, but in perusing one titled Cabin Fever! I was reminded of our last full day on the yacht boat.

And literally, it was a FULL day on the boat, as we were stuck in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Not to worry, we were within swimming distance to the shore.  We were “in” Knidos and yes, I’m using quotation marks because we weren’t in Knidos, we were in a small docking bay at the edge of Knidos.  The problem was that by the time we arrived, there were no more docks available (I think there were a total of three available to the public).

Docked for the night was the official term, however, I cannot reach landfall without getting wet or rowing myself in—and even if I did, there’s not a lot around except one dodgy looking restaurant, a lot of sheep, a few passing headlights, ancient ruins and a huge sundial…so I will stick to my story of being stuck.

The day didn’t start out so bad—we left Greece to make our way back to Turkey. We got to Datça, a city in the middle of the Datça peninsula, which was directly in our path back to Bodrum. Once again, the Captain and our passports left the vessel. This time we had no instructions to stay on board, so we disembarked and rambled about the town for about an hour.

Our passports magically returned, we had lunch, and then headed back out to begin our sail northwest. We were to spend the afternoon/stop for the night at what we believed to be another small sea-side village at the tip of the peninsula, called Knidos. The bay was pretty full by the time we got there, so we dropped anchor in the middle and were going to moor on the empty side. Turns out it’s private property and we can’t tie down there. Also we discovered that our dingy boat motor no longer started.  The poor crew members had to row all the way to shore, get yelled at by the locals, and row their way back to the boat to convey the message–however, since the owner was shouting loudly and gesticulating excessively, we didn’t need to speak Turkish or Greek to get the gist.

Another boat kindly offered us use of their dingy for the price of 4€ each person. No thanks! So we spent the afternoon napping, reading, writing, playing cards, backgammon, etc, anything to distract from the fact that we couldn’t (without much effort or money) leave the boat. At this point, I know you’re thinking why not just pay the 4€? It was the principle of the matter!  And the Captain wasn’t offering to pay either, which was a rant for a very long informative email to the tour company, since it was his non-working dingy that left us stranded.

Overall, I really can’t complain, as it was very a relaxing day and a complete opposite of the jam-packed beginning of the tour or life in NYC in general.

As I lay listening the lapping of the water, I realized that–with proper phone and internet service, of course–I could easily pack it all up and move here. There is something inherently charming about the laid-back lifestyle of a small sea-side village, miles and miles of sea from anything resembling a city. No hustle, no bustle, no worries–just so long as I don’t have to spend any more nights anchored in the middle of a bay, with limited options for getting to shore.