Our first task of the day was to wash out the chain locker. We cleaned out all the salt and dirt and picked up all the debris that had collected at the bottom. It wasn’t nearly as dirty as we had expected it to be, but there was more debris in the bottom than we expected, which affects the water’s ability to drain.

Once the locker was done, Eric painted anchor chain markers at 50 feet, 100 feet, 150 feet, and 200 feet. The chain came painted, but the paint had seriously faded and was barely discernable, so it needed to be re-done. Everything above 200 was still intact and didn’t need to be repainted.

In between rounds of chain painting, he would help Christi touch up the bottom paint. We painted the strip along the water line that was starting to fade ever so slightly from sun exposure, then painted over the spots where the paint was chipped or somehow marred. Then we cleaned the through hull intakes and outtakes, which were completely full of barnacles. It turns out that of all the tools we tried, a large flathead screwdriver was the best at prying those little buggers out of the intakes. Then we painted inside the through hulls as far as we could inside to try to prevent future barnacles from growing in there. And, since we are sure you are wondering, we had a can of paint left from Australia on board with us, so no, we didn’t buy any new paint in Turkey.

Today we also had someone come to fix a few chips we had in the gel coat. The spots they fixed are perfect. You would never know there was a chip there.

The team doing the metal and wax are doing an incredible job. Kosmos gleams and shines everywhere they have worked on.

We were done with our work for the day in the early afternoon, so we decided to go for a drive around the coast. The yacht that was blocking the road yesterday was now inside the yard, and the road was magically repaired with fresh asphalt. We suspect that the boat was too heavy for the road and destroyed it. That would explain both the boat being stuck and why the men were breaking the road up, removing the damaged areas so it could be repaired.

We found a little restaurant off the main highway and had another cold appetizer plate. The plate came out with four dishes: broccoli in some kind of lemon marinade, chopped greens in a yogurt sauce, eggplant (aubergine) in a yogurt sauce, and white beans with onion, tomato and carrot. We found the yogurt sauce in the greens to be bitter. The yogurt sauce with the eggplant was delicious. The other two dishes were good.

We continued on around the peninsula, weaving in and out of endless little bays and inlets that grace the shores. The water is a stunning blue, and there are also lots of little peninsulas and islands that add to the splendor of the scenery. The views from the road are stunning. Most of the coastline is dominated by series of track houses. The undeveloped areas between and above the tracks are much the same as we described on the bus trip to Bodrum. Between the incredibly similar landscape and the track houses galore, we almost felt like we were driving around in San Diego. The only reminder that this wasn’t San Diego was the fact that the houses are Mediterranean style, concrete with flat roofs, instead of stucco with pitched roofs.

We stopped in the seaside town of Yalikavak, on the northeast side of the peninsula, and walked around for a little bit. It reminded us of Turgutreis. It is small and cute. Near the parking lot there was a family hang out area by the water with a few rides for kids. Beyond the open play area, along the waterfront it is mostly tourist shops and restaurants. As with most of the places we have been so far in the Med, the water is incredibly clear in the sea. We were told there isn’t a lot of plankton in the Med, hence the visibility. The most interesting things along the waterfront is a windmill that was built in 1859.

There is also an outdoor café where you sit on brightly colored pillows and bean bag chairs around little coffee tables on a patch of grass. It is a similar setting to Mahua in the Andaman Islands, except you are on grass in the sunshine instead of in a gazebo. What made the café even more interesting was they had a collection of at least a couple dozen different kinds of hooka water pipes for customers to choose from. We could smell the tobacco wafting from the café as we passed. Behind the waterfront there is a gigantic mosque, and from what we could tell, that was most of the town.

We got back in the car and continued our tour of Bodrum Peninsula. The surroundings are pretty consistent for the majority of the drive, lots of bays dotted with little islands. We saw one crazy bay within a bay within a bay that appeared to be an especially calm, protected and inviting anchorage, probably comparable to Rincha, Indonesia (our pick for flatest anchorage we have ever been to). After our drive, we had a quiet night aboard Kosmos.