Turkey Tour Day 7 - Overnight Boat

Ahh the day I've been waiting for since we signed up for this trip. Naturally the sore throat had abated just in time and I was suffering a mere blocked nose. A nose so-blocked it may as well have been concreted closed for all the air that got through.
Luckily for me I have a life partner who is a nurse and she saw fit to completely ignore my needs and put those of people who had a busted ankle from a few days ago in front.

Women...

Anywho, the day had come and we awoke to another hot day. I got a decent amount of sleep. I feel like I am always playing catch up lately.
Those damn buses and their lack of comfortable sleeping positions.

I had a shower and we had breakfast, another traditional turkish breakfast including a giant fried egg. Tasty indeed. I had another shower, got dressed and did absolutely nothing while Danni played on the laptop. At some point I fell asleep.
I was awoken to the pounding of a gorilla on the door, well it sounded like it. Then I was told not to fall asleep while Danni went to the shop to get us a drink for our drive to the docks. Taking this advice under advisement, I promptly feel asleep for another 15 minutes.
Eventually I woke up and got the bags out and into the van. The van took us along the windy roads of Cirali and into Kekova.
Kekova is the home of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas.
Saint Nicholas was known for his generosity and "miracles" in the town. He was born into a wealthy family and would leave gold coins in the shoes of people who left them outside. Another story is he would drop bags of coins down the chimney of a man who had three daughters but was too poor to have a dowry for them, so he could not marry them off and they would become prostitutes. Nicholas would do this every year for three years and the father was able to marry of his daughters and provide the dowry.
This, plus Coca Cola in the 1960s, invented the idea of the current Santa Claus in the red suit and jumping down chimneys and flying reindeer we have today.

We browsed around the town, they have a statue of St. Nicholas, before we boarded our wooden boat and began our trip around the Mediterranean Sea.

Jealous yet?

Boy was it amazing. The water was flat and clear, the surrounding mountains were panoramic and it was simply peaceful. We swam with the sea turtles (well I did, no one else got near them), the water was so warm. I went exploring amongst the rocks, seeing all manner of different, smaller fish. We were taken to different locations and allowed to swim, unfortunately, no other sea turtles were present in these areas.
After the swim we drove past the sunken "city" which was basically a bunch of stones of a former village that was washed away by the water. It was fascinating to see, though I am not sure how they lived since most of it was on the side of a hill. I guess smart decisions weren't something they were known for back then since they built on the side of a hill and had their village washed away.

A man's home is his castle 

We went past an old castle on a hill, on it's own island, while mostly in ruins, the outer wall still remained and it still dominated the hill and the (liveable) houses beneath it. The houses are interesting in that no one else is allowed to build there anymore so it is pretty much it for as long as the Turkish Government says so. We stopped at this island for fresh, home-made, ice cream and it was delicious.
I had peach and banana, it was so creamy and so fruity.

There's a great ice-cream shop on this island

Afterwards we rode along the sea until night fell and we had fresh, grilled fish for dinner. Also tasty, before we settled in for the night on the top deck of our boat with a foam mattress, a blanket and nothing but the stars and the moon.

It was a great nights sleep.

The moon...if you've never seen it before