We pulled out early this morning to head to Turgutreis, Turkey, which is on the western edge of the Bodrum Peninsula. We would have liked to have spent another day exploring Kos and another day or two exploring Rhodes, but the marina at Kos was full and we needed to go. When we made the reservation they had told us we could only stay for the three nights.

The trip to Turkey was short, only taking 1 1/2 hours. Good thing, because the waves were rough yet again. We had made a reservation at D-Marina. The reservation had been confirmed via email, but they had not asked for payment up front. We pulled up to the marina and called on the radio. They responded that they had no space for us. What? We replied that we had a reservation. They didn’t respond, nor did they respond to subsequent calls. We waited in the harbor outside the marina, hoping they would respond to us eventually. We heard a boat on the radio call for a pilot boat to help them leave. Maybe we could get this newly vacating spot? Eric hailed the pilot boat as it neared us and asked if they could find a spot for us. They told us to wait, and a few minutes later they were escorting us in. Phew!

We were directed to a slip intended for a larger vessel. It is Med-moor style parking, but instead of dropping anchor, you tie a line to a mooring, instead. The pilot boat helped us attach our line to the mooring, then we backed into the spot. We were surprised to see that quite a few of the very expensive boats surrounding us were American flagged from Delaware. Wow. We’ve never seen so many Americans in one place before, nor can we remember seeing a boat from Delaware ever. It didn’t take long for us to figure out none of the boats contained Americans. Interesting.

The first duty of the day was to check into the country. The reason we picked this particular place is because the port officials are all in one building at the ferry terminal, located right on site. The paperwork was standard and check in easy, but it required a lot of going back and forth from office to office. Quarantine first, then Police (for visa), then Customs, then Port Authority, then Police, then Customs, then Port Authority. If the offices weren’t all side by side, it would have been a pain.

Once we were checked in, we went to lunch at the yacht club. The yacht club was full of tourists using the pool and just hanging out, and we got the sense they aren’t boaters. After lunch we walked around the marina complex. The marina complex is fairly new, huge, highbrow and posh. In addition to the marina, yacht club with pool, and ferry terminal, there is a shopping mall, restaurants, a movie theater, basket ball courts, tennis courts, sauna, amphitheater, helicopter landing pad, dry dock, and probably more that we missed. The stores in the complex were high end, such as Armani and Polo. In the mini-mart they charged $4.00 USD for a regular 16 ounce can of soda. From the way everyone was dressed, we got the sense that this complex is definitely a “see and be seen” kind of place.

We rested in the afternoon and had dinner at the Armani café attached to the Armani store. Eric was desperate for really good pizza and had high hopes from Italian Armani. The pizza was good, and it had sauce, which is hard to come by in most of the world. But it was ungodly expensive — a thin crust pizza for one ran between $22 and $29 USD depending on toppings. And the restaurant was packed!

We also enjoyed another spectacular sunset bright red sunset. It looked especially pretty with the boats of the marina in the foreground.