We had done some research and picked one of the companies that the Lonely Planet guidebook recommends. We felt pretty confident about our decision when we parted with a good chunk of lira for this excursion.
But that's pretty much where our confidence ended and the red flags started to pop up.
The bus transfer that took us to the dock (about an hour and a half away from Olympos) was disorganized. We made stops for no apparent reason, we backtracked, and the driver gave the impression he was improvising the whole affair. First red flag.
During the ride we were told that we now had to buy our own drinks to bring on the boat AND we had to pay an extra 20 TL each for ice to keep our drinks cold. We exchanged disgruntled looks with the other passengers and I told Shane that I think this is what is meant by the term"fleecing." Shane joked that with the driver collecting the equivalent of 160 Euros for 4 days worth of cubes the boat darn well better be carved out of ice. Second red flag.
Next we were dropped off at a dock and abandoned for 45 mins. Eventually someone came and picked us up in a dingy and brought out to the yacht we would be sharing with 14 other passengers. Our yacht was blaring obnoxious techno music and a young shirtless crew member with his underwear half out of his shorts asked if any of us in the group were the passenger names scrawled on a ripped looseleaf piece of paper he was holding. Nope. We weren't. Third red flag.
At this point, I stopped counting.
He went down into the galley for a bit and left us all on the deck with our luggage. A young Russian man in the group remarked the whole thing was like the beginning of an Agatha Christie novel.
Eventually shirtless underwear guy came back and showed us to our cabin.
I would like to tell you that this is the part of the story were everything started to go smoothly, but unfortunately, things were just getting worse.
Firstly, our room smelled. If you mixed one part moldy, one part musty and one part sewage-y, you'd get the idea.
Secondly, it was dirty. The whole boat had a shoes-off rule so I was not too excited about walking barefoot into our dirty room for four days. Parts of the floor were rotting away and the bathroom was in bad need of repair and some serious scrubbing.
Thirdly, it leaked. Every time the boat traveled our room would fill up with 2 inches of water and we would have to wade shoeless through the stagnant water and some unidentifiable floaties to navigate the cabin.
At this point we realized the boat may actually be sinking faster than our hearts.
No one on the boat ever wanted to go down to the cabins therefore we spent as much time as possible on the top deck, even at night. Everyone slept on the sunbeds, which is customary on this type of cruise anyway. But in our case, it was kind of a necessity. One of the other passengers on the boat took the sheet off their bed to use on the sunbed and revealed a black mold-covered mattress.
But we could still enjoy a nice ice cold beverage in the sun right? Nope. As it turns out, there was no ice on the boat. There was freezer for drinks but it was only turned on once a day so that the drinks were warm or lukewarm most of the time.
The cruise turned out to be more green than blue for poor Shane. Shane experienced the ultimate in unfortunate trifectas when he had food-poisoning, sunstroke, and motion sickness for 2 days. He was in a terrible state and I even considered hiring another boat to take us back to the mainland to see a doctor.
But there were highlights too. The water was amazing. It was wonderful to be able to jump off the side of the boat anytime for a swim and a snorkle. We enjoyed being free of the beach crowds.
The idea for the people on this yellow-banana thing is to hang on.
The idea for the people driving the boat is to try and knock off the people on the banana thing.
As it turns out, we were in good company on the boat. Shane played chess with the Russian and we bonded with our fellow Canadians on board. I talked design with an Industrial Designer from Spain and we had many late night chats with Efe from Izmir who had a strong interest in paranormal and occult topics. We discussed everything from ghosts and reincarnation to astral projection.
Efe also had a background in Marine biology and assuaged one of the Canadian's fear of shark attacks in the surrounding waters. Sharks were around in these waters but they were quite small and fearful of humans. He said that his diving friends told him that if you stick your nose in the water and it smells like watermelon, that means there are sharks nearby. Apparently shark oil smells like watermelon, but I couldn't get past the whole smelling underwater thing.
While we adored the swimming and the sun, we were more than happy when our boat finally docked in Fethiye. The cruise was actually cut a few hours short because the boat was taking on too much water - in our room - so it had to go in for repairs.
Shane was still sick and we were both feeling grubby. A Turkish bath was actually sounding like a really good idea...
Hardcore!
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