Ekinçik Limani

Ekinçik Limani

We left Küçük Kuyruk on 8 October to continue our journey west towards Marmaris. The passage was uneventful with just enough wind to sail for part of the passage followed by a motor into the bay at Ekinçik Limani.

Ekinçik Limani is a convenient passage stop and we joined several other yachts anchored in the bay which, by evening, was quite busy. Having anchored and then run a line ashore in every other bay in which we have stopped at in Turkey, it felt quite strange to be swinging at anchor off the beach; very UK style anchoring.

Ekinçik Limani is the closest safe place to leave a yacht to visit the ruined city of Kaunos, 5 miles to the east, with its King’s Tombs set into the cliffs, so we wanted to see what transport options there were to get there. A tripper boat was one option with a pick-up from BV and a return 3 or 5 hours later. However, the cost of the tripper boat was the same whether you provided 1 passenger or 12 so with just 2 people it would be an expensive trip. It would be much better if we could share the cost of the tripper boat with some other crews. However, Ekinçik Limani was described in our guidebook as an off the beaten track, quiet and peaceful holiday destination popular with backpackers and hikers so we decided to go ashore to see if there were scooters available to hire or a bus service to Kaunos.

First, though, we had to do some maintenance. BVs engine was due a change of fuel filters during her winter lay-up. When you change the fuel filters you always get some air into the fuel pipes and, even with some careful bleeding of the system, there is the possibility that the engine will stop a few minutes after it has been rstarted. If we had left changing the fuel filters until we were in the marina at Marmaris, Sod’s Law would guarantee that the engine would stop just as we were trying to do a tricky manouvre into the narrow pen ready for craning out. If we left changing the filters until after we had been craned out we would have the same potential problem next year just after we have been craned back in and would be trying to get into our new mooring spot. To save these potential yachting embarrasements we changed the filters at Ekinçik Limani, knowing that we woud need to run the engine for a reassonable length of time on our way to Marmaris which would confirm that everything was working properly.

Our trips ashore were very pleasant but not very fruitful. We had an evening foray to the beach resaurant to use the internet. Unfortunaately, half way through our visit the (very observant) waiter let us know that our dinghy had escaped from the beach and was trying to drift away. I stripped off and took a pleasant evening swim to recover it before returning to the restaurant to finish my beer and internet admin.

Our day trip ashore the following morning found us some some very basic food supplies and confirmed that Ekinçik Limani is indeed a very peaceful sleepy hollow, but we saw no sign of scooter hire or a bus service to Kaunos.

However, pleasingly one of the e-mails I had received the previous evening was from the Mediterranean section of the Cruising Association letting us know that next season there is planned to be a cruise in company along the Lycian coast visiting all of the sites we want to see, including Kaunos. Perfect timing as it answers exactly how we are going to tackle all of the interesting sites we have found out about over the last couple of weeks. Our next task is clearly to book ourselves onto that trip!

Ekinçik Limani, Turkey