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After a breakfast of real toast (Peter and Allison taught the crew how it is done), wonderful cherry jam and the usual goat cheese, tomatoes and olives, we set out for the Dalyan Delta, with its long, golden, sandy, "turtle" beach at the mouth of the Koycegiz waterway. Although there are still two bars, and umbrellas dot the beach, the hotel has been shut down, for this area is now a nature conservation area and refuge for sea turtles and blue crabs. The turtles lay their eggs here in August.
We board one of the small co-op boats and enter a maze of natural waterways lined by tall marsh grass. The scene is reminiscent of the movie The African Queen. The boat looks very similar, with a noisy two-lunger engine. Our captain, Victor, however, looks nothing like Humphrey, although like the character in the movie, he likes to drink.
A short way up the waterway we encounter two platforms with a net or weir blocking off the river. There is a man on each platform, each running a huge winch. They winch the net out of our way and we putt putt through the opening. This odd contraption is in place to prevent the fish from the lake from going to sea. The fish are grey mullet and their eggs are harvested for Turkish caviar. At midnight the river is closed to all boat traffic.
We continue up the grass lined waterway and in the distance, high on a hill, we see the ruins of a medieval castle. A little further on we come to a bend in the river and the ancient harbour city of Caunos comes into view. High above the city, magnificent wall tombs are carved into the face of the cliffs.
It is hard to imagine how they managed to cut these magnificent structures in the cliff face, let alone live in them. (Both the living and the dead cohabited in these tombs.) These awesome structures continue to line the banks of the river as we continue upstream.
As we pass by the village of Dalyan, a shimmering,opalescent blue bird, whose body shape in not unlike that of a kingfisher, zips by. I ask Victor, our captain, what type of bird it is and he says "nice bird."
Farther up the waterway, we tie up to a rickety dock, where two old men are fishing. As we leave the boat, Victor points out a tree where the week
