For a go-go-go traveler like me, taking a “Blue Cruise” along the Turkey’s southern coast seemed an egregious waste of time. But when Sarah was too sick to go north, it seemed a good idea, especially when we read that the itinerary would things like sunken ruins, fishing villages, and a dance club reachable only by boat. The price, $180 each, seemed a little steep, but we haggled down to $140, a price that we were sworn to secrecy over.
The boat we spent four days on
I was glad Sarah was along: no matter who the other dozen or so passengers were, I knew we’d have a good time. But as it turned out the other passengers made it worth it. For social reasons explicable only to an anthropologist, our group rapidly split into three tribes who would little interact during the entire voyage. There was the older group, the retirees in their 50s and 60s who dissected every aspect of everything: the food, the color of the water, the comfort of the cabins. There were the Australians, who numbered five, came separately and immediately congregated together (I’m sad to say that they’d still win in any survivor situation) and the rest of us: four Americans, one Greek and one South Korean.
A motley crew we were: Brenna was a lesbian (she would make sure you knew this fact within minutes of meeting her, so it’s kind of a defining characteristic) who had worked as a masseuse in Greece, which is how she met Stella, a distracting beauty who routinely kicked my ass at backgammon (I blame the bikini). Stella was pursued by Ryan, a graphic designer from Colorado on an extended world tour, (who would quasi-succeed with her by the end of the trip). This left Doyon, on an eight month trip and who had stopped to teach math for a month in a hut in Nepal “because I thought it would be fun.”
Me, Stella, Ryan, Brenna and Sarah. Doyon is taking the picture
I’ve met a number of people while traveling, exchanged a lot of email addresses but a couple hours at a hostel or a club does not let you now a lot about a person. Four days on a boat is a really good way to actually get to know people. With Ryan and Doyon I talked of travel and women. With Stella I flirted, but mostly kept that chill so as not to get in Ryan’s way. With Brenna I also talked about travel and women (she was ready to jump on the first ferry across the Black Sea to Ukraine when she heard of the women there), but she and I connected in a way I rarely do with people and we spent many hours talking and laughing and debating about absolutely nothing.
Me conning Brenna into giving me a back massage. Baring the needed tools, it was done on the dining room table with suntan lotion serving as massage oil
Our patterns on the boat were quickly established. While the boat was on the move we’d read (between buses and the boat trip I went through three books in nine days), tan, talk, and play backgammon and chess, all to a constant soundtrack from the music blasting from the galley, everything from Cat Stevens to Moby to Turkish pop.
Chilling on the boat. This is also where most of us slept since the nights were warm
As you can see, life was very difficult
The boat would stop, usually in some unidentified cove, and everyone would jump overboard and swim in water that was blissfully warm (with strange cold eddies that would hit you).
Sometimes we snorkeled with leaky gear. Sometimes we fished with nothing but fishing lines and hooks. Sometimes we would go cliff diving (the first time it took me an hour to work up the courage to actually dive, that is head first, from the top of the cliff, some thirty feet above the water. Before then I would jump, scream like a girl and curl into a cannonball).
The clarity of the deep, fish-filled water
An octopus caught with nothing but line, bait and a hook
Me, jumping off a cliff
After a while our captain, Mustafa, would tell us we were leaving and we pull ourselves out of the water, arrange ourselves on the deck, and ply the blue waters some more, to swim, tan, talk, eat, read, repeat.
Getting my ass kicked at backgammon
Could you concentrate on the game?
Often, Turks would come out to the boat to sell us ice cream or stuffed pancakes
Me, hanging off the bow
Delicious Turkish food, three times a day
Stella, Ryan, Me and Sarah jumping off the boat. Stella didn't quite get the idea.