Datca (Terry)

Here we were in yet another place we’d never heard of in our lives.  In fact, apart from Turks, I think not a lot of people know about this place.  We arrived in Datca about 7 days ago, on Market Day.  We anchored in the North Bay in crystal clear water in a depth of about 12’.  The anchor dug in well and we sat comfortably for 4 days, dinghying in to whichever side of the bay we wanted to go to.

 

 The restaurant strip on the Nth Harbour

 

 

Our favourite restaurant was on the main drag, Zekeriya Sofrasi.  The main guy is Ahmet Sakarya and the other main guy is Hussein but I couldn’t work out what the relationship was between the two.  Cousins?  They’re not brothers because I asked.

They have traditional Turkish dishes of things like chick peas with lamb cubes, or eggplant with mince mixed in.  Lamb soup with quartered potatoes, sliced carrot, broth and a lamb shank - $4!

The dishes are numerous and each costs 8TL.   We ate there many times in our 7 days.  It cracks a big mention in Lonely Planet and is well deserved.  They were genuinely worried when we said we had moved from the North Bay to the Harbour and were pleased to see us when the drama  had subsided.  Wonderful people.  We got so familiar with the place that I was getting my own drinks and organising my own glasses, reaching behind Ahmet to access the glasses case.

Ahmet and Carol outside Zekeriya

Last Sunday, we took a taxi up to the old town of Eski Datca (just means old Datca) to look for a geocache on the street that leads to the house of a famous Turkish Poet Can Yucel.  Couldn’t find it so we went back to the street corner where there were 3 restaurants and looked at the menu boards.  One, a small gardened restaurant, had Pasta with Eggplant Sauce.  This dish is a favourite of Inspector Montalbano of the Vigata Police force in the TV series so I just had to have it.  It was superb and cost me $5.50.

 

Eski Datca Garden

 

Pasta with eggplant sauce is right here!

 

While having lunch, Carol struck up a conversation with the three people at the neighbouring table.  They were Irish and two of them owned Villas in Eski Datca.  One was Joe Barlow, from County Down, a quiet man of considerable understated wit, and the other two were a mother and daughter combination of Mary Anderson and Pauline McKenna of Maghera in Co. Derry.  What a delight this chance meeting was to prove.  Mary (** y.o. yesterday, Friday 6^th June) doesn’t look a day over 60 and Pauline, her daughter, is a BC recoverer like Carol is.  We had a great chat in the restaurant.

 

 

 

Pauline and Mary

  Some weather headed our way on Tuesday and we had to decide where to run to.  This entire peninsula is open to the south-east.  Guess where the wind and swell was coming from?

We left our anchorage in the bay, as it was completely open and when the wind did arrive, there were waves breaking in it.  The South anchorage was no better and we went into the harbour.

The harbour master was adamant that if we wanted to stay we could, but he sure wasn’t recommending it one little bit.  He even said if it became untenable during the night or next day we were free to leave without paying harbour dues. 
Despite this, I chose the harbour wall anyway.  To our starboard, the Datca Belediyesi workers had removed dozens of large wooden squares that cover the new section of the wharf – they are sick of losing them in southerly gales and stack them off the harbour when one heads their way.

So began a night we won’t forget in a long time.  We spent Tuesday/Wednesday under siege in the harbour with savage cross-swells pounding hard into the wall, then bouncing off the harbour wall and back on to us (why did we end up the outside boat?)  All in all, it was most distressing.  At about 2am, some random Turkish guy, in his late 50s or so, appeared out of the gloom and said that we were too close to the wall and there was more wind to come.  He said we would be destroyed.  Excellent.  Just what I wanted to hear at 2am with the worst to come in 10 hours’ time.

 We corkscrewed and gybed, danced and bounced for hour after hour.  I slept in the cockpit in case I had to hit the engine in a hurry if our anchor gave way and we had to head for the high seas.  One of our neighbours a little up the pier, a little more sheltered than us, said that he looked at us at 2am and couldn’t believe that our anchor was holding given the amount of pitching we were doing.  But it did, a big wrap for Manson Supreme anchors.  It was also useful that the Admiral had managed to get about 50 metres of chain down when I was backing in (I know it is me that says “Now” but her speed on the paying-out is greatly appreciated as it means the anchor goes where I wanted it in the first place).

Morning came with a small lull but only for an hour or two as then the major part of the gale hit.  We had 38 knots over the deck at 11am and again at midday.  The sea was still raging and we were still corkscrewing wildly.  The owner of the Sunrise Bar, where we’ve had one or two cold Efes lately, came over and advised that we move even further from the dock so we went out another few feet.  It gave a little respite as we were only being bashed from two sides now instead of three.

That's our lifeline in the bottom left corner of the photo

As forecast, by 4pm it was all over.  The wind was now light and in the north, so it was across the land and you wouldn’t recognise the clear harbour water as the same boiling mass of a few hours before.

We finally winched back in and got off at about 4:30, about 22 hours after battening down for the night.

We wandered off to buy some stuff to replace a geocache that’s gone missing up the hill from here and then had a few beers with our new friends Eric, Jane and Jane’s brother Nigel on “Pisces”.   Eric and Jane’s daughter is an Aussie now, living in Buderim with her own daughter and husband.  They sat out the storm in the harbour as well, but were a few boats further inside the line of the breakwater than we were.

We then decided to treat ourselves to a dining extravaganza and went up the hill to the Culinarium Restaurant, a Lonely Planet recommendation. It is owned by a German lady and her husband, a Turkish man.  He lived in Germany for 30 years before they came back.  As a chef, he has “the touch”.  Everything we ate smacked of skill.  It was simply magnificent – home made Turkish ravioli with Porcini mushrooms, some of which were toasted on the top, were the closest I’ve had to a plate of truffle and cream pasta – cost, $12.50 Australian.  Carol had shrimp stuffed Zucchini flowers. She then had a sea bass in lemon sauce and I had a chicken breast with a mushroom cream sauce and lightly spiced Couscous.  Even my broccoli was superb!

The whole thing, which we thought was about to be a rare splurge, came to under $60 Australian dollars for two.  The restaurant sits high above the harbour and has all-round glass windows for a superb view.  Put it on your must-visit list when you are in Datca.

 

 

Culinarium view

 

Having a wander down the main drag on Wednesday after our storm, we ran into Joe, Mary and Pauline.  They asked us along to a Café for Friday night.

Our night in the Polka bar.

Friday night is expat night in the Polka Cafe.  Alex the Scot wanders along with his guitar and plays, accompanied by a young-ish Turkish girl who plays all sorts of things that tell you that this lady is one natural musician – flute, recorder, mandolin, violin.. what ever she picks up.  She is Turkish, played with an Irish Band in Istanbul and her favourite song in the whole world is…..Molly Malone!!  And she sings it beautifully.

 

Well, Alex let fly with song after song, and as there were bucketloads of Irish there, mostly Irish tunes.  He worked out that we were Australian and played a couple of Eric Bogles for us.  The craic was wonderful, as we all sang along with him to old favourites.  Early on, I let him know it was Mary’s birthday and instead of the usual Happy Birthday To You, he said he’d do something else.  When I sat back down he started up The Mountains Of Mourne instead so we all sang along and Mary herself misted up just a wee bit.

 

Pauline and her mum Mary to the left, Pamela (Jim's wife) alongside me, Carol and Joe (Jim's brother) and Jimmy took the pic

Saturday is Market Day in Datca, and it is one very large market indeed.  Just to give you an idea of what it costs to provision in this neck of the woods, we did a tally up.

 

Fresh Produce			Lira	$$ Aud
Lettuce	1		1	$0.50
Apples	3		3	$1.50
Capsicum	4		2	$1.00
Beetroot	3		1	$0.50
Cherries	0.68	kg	4	$2.00
Apricots	15		3	$1.50
Peaches	5		3	$1.50
Radishes	6		1	$0.50
Tomatoes	5		2.5	$1.25
Capsicum	4		2	$1.00
Eggplants	4		2	$1.00
			24.5	$12.25
Meat and special
Cheese, 2 year aged	0.50	kilo	14	$7.00
Kalamata	0.50	kilo	13	$6.50
Almonds, blanched, roasted	0.50	kilo	25	$12.50
Walnuts	0.26	kilo	13	$6.50
Mince	1.00	kg	28	$14.00
Lamb Fillets	6		15	$7.50
Chicken thighs	6		11	$5.50
			119	$59.50

 

 

Carol's favourite stall

 
 

 

My favourite stall

 

 

 

 

The tomato man's brother

 

 

 

Our tomato man

 Saturday was warm and pleasant and Carol went for a swim out the front to check on the anchor.  Luckily, nobody was over it, nor the one on either side, and we looked clear for take off on Sunday morning.

Another Australian boat turned up in the afternoon, and another Australian catamaran.  (Earlier that week, Gone With The Wind II owned by a Kalgoorlie chap and skippered by a Fremantle chap was in the bay).  To cap it all off, 4 more Australians got off a French-owned charter boat right the doorstep of our favourite drinking hole, the Sunset Bar - A couple from North Perth and a couple from  ?? I forget.

At a respectable 8am Sunday morning, the Dutch alongside us and then ourselves motored slowly out over our anchors and headed north-west, leaving beautiful Datca behind.