The Blue Cruise, Fethiye to Olympos July 1st -4th 2010

Upon return to the ship (the Babavelli) following an evening spent using wifi in an ice cream parlour ( rock and roll) found the crew drinking on deck with some girls who had been on the cruise before. They had nothing but good reviews and the crew seemed friendly enough, even got some free beer ( I would be paying for my drinks for the rest of the cruise). It turned out however that the sail on the boat was broken and the crew would be working on it all night so I had a restless but free nights sleep in a boiling hot cabin below.

Next morning I spontaneously traded my travel guitar ( crap sound but light) for a full size nylon string semi acoustic ( better sound but heavy ) in a local music shop and got back to the boat just as the rest of the passengers arrived. They were made up of 5 Turkish dudes and their other halves one of whom was English and another 2 were from the Ukraine. In addition to this there were 6 nice girls from Australia and a girl from Vancouver in their early 20's who came on board with a mission to get suntanned ( despite the fact they already were) and the inevitable wheelie suitcases that had pissed me off so much in various train stations across the continent.

We set off around midday to the first destination Butterfly Valley and anchored for a swim. Best swim ive had in years the water was clear and there were fish ...a bit disappointed we didn’t actually make it into Butterfly valley itself , which was billed as a great nature spot by the booking agents. I think this may have been due to the crew being too tired to get the outboard off the ship and ferry us across. The next stop was Odulenz beach again billed as a great place to spend a few hours....however we just laid anchor again and stayed for about an hour. It was becoming apparent that the majority of the trip would be like this, which was cool but after a couple of days on a boat its nice to have some space.

We stopped for the evening and I caught my first fish in over a decade over the side of the boat , I thought I had killed it by accident when I struggled to get the hook out and the captain chucked it back in the water roughly ...this leading to the inevitable fishing guilt ( the reason I stopped fishing in the first place ) ...however after a couple of minutes it seemed to recover a bit and started swimming back towards the bait lopsided....dumb fish alright.... nicknamed it Jesus on account of the full resurrection it made in the end.

That night was asked to get the guitar out by the Turkish guys and rapidly realised I had forgotten how to play any songs in their entirety resorted to making one up Scruon style about the Aussie girls ( who turned out to be a lovely bunch of people) Lyrics went something like this: Beautiful Sydney Girls on a Turkish boat, doing their best to get skin cancer, with their wheelie bags in the hold below its a wonder this boat can even go ...etc this seemed to go down well.....

Next morning the engine started at 4am so didn’t get much sleep , the next day was spent in pretty much the same fashion....when we did get off the boat at a town called CAS for a couple of hours the whole world was rocking after being on the sea for 24 hours. I felt about as spaced out as I have over the whole trip and struggled to make any meaning full conversation for the rest of the day.

The next day watched the Germany Argentina game with the Turkish guys, who all spoke very good English and were super friendly, and then got a small taxi boat back to the babvelli. This allowed us to get in close to the coast on the way around sunset and was really struck by the natural beauty of the place...

That evening after dinner on board ( we got all meals included in the price) we all went to a hilarious bar in the middle of nowhere called the smugglers inn ( only accessible by boat) and had a good time on the dance floor. Turned into one of the more memorable nights of the trip but woke up the next day with another banging hangover and struggled through the rest of the morning.....( seriously have to hit the boozing on the head for a bit turns me into a jibbering wreck the day after )

We eventually got off the boat around midday and got a bus to Olympus ( have to admit that 3 days on board was more than enough for me and was fairly relieved to be back on terra firma esp as some of the crew turned out to be real dickheads)By the time we checked into the hostel in Olympus was just about feeling normal again place was so chilled out decided to stay an extra night to recover. That evening went out to a club in town with the Turkish guys for a goodbye drink. The "bull Bar" had a western theme and had a live campfire in the middle of the outdoor dance floor (can you imagine the Valley Commando style carnage if they allowed this in the UK ) The cliental were mostly Turkish clubbers and every now and then someone would leap across the fire in the middle of a song...craziest club ive ever seen no doubt.

Next day hit the beach and began 2 day chill out process before heading on to next stop: Cappadocia....