An amazing day today.  I love being out on the water and we had booked a day cruise on the yacht Vela.  This has to be the best gulet (traditional wooden Turkish yacht) operating in north Cyprus.  It’s a large yacht, licensed to take 75 (unimaginably) but he generally goes with less than 20.  Today we were 10 which made it feel like a private experience.  So much space.  The decks are festooned with massive cushions under shade and really comfortable cushioned loungers.  On the aft deck there is a large dining table and the skipper has a bbq positioned on the rail.

We took about 40 minutes to make our first stop at Escape Beach.  In fact it became our only stop because we got a very calm anchorage there tucked behind the island.  The Vela carries snorkelling kit, floats, noodles and other water toys.  So, as soon as the anchor was secure we went down the ladderway into the water.  It was divine. So warm, clear and calm.  Daisy did lots of freediving, picking up shells from the sandy bottom.  I wallowed on the surface, keeping an eye on any approaching craft.

We had lunch around the table on the aft deck.  The captain’s mum does all the cooking.  First lots and lots of meze dishes.  All sorts: Russian salad, cheese borek, onion patties, aubergine salad,  marinated courgettes with yoghurt and herbs, cheese bread, black bean salad, white bean salad, beetroot, stuffed peppers, couscous, bulgar wheat chilli salad, tzatziki, humus…. lots and lots.  All so delicious.  Then our chosen main course bbq’d by the captain on the aft bbq.  I had fish – a sea bream.  Other choices were chicken or lamb shish.  We had new potato salad and tiny roast potatoes, green bean salad.  Following all this, we had a small cup of dessert.  I have forgotten the Turkish name but it was a cinnamon syrup that had all sorts of bits of fruit, nuts and chick peas in it.  Sounds a bit weird, I know, but it was really yum.  A full bar was available of course.

After lunch, Daisy and I went swimming again, more shells were retrieved and we made it over to the island.  Just so lovely……

Escape Beach itself got terribly noisy from abut 230.  Some sort of day party was going on, leading into the nightclub sessions later I suppose.  Live djs playing on the beach.  Suffice it to say, it was loud.  Suffice it to say that if you are not part of the nightclub generation you might want to avoid Escape Beach on a Saturday afternoon,

We hauled up the anchor about 330.  Some people were asleep by then.  The captain came around with tubs of ice cream and also a plate of fruit.  We got back to Kyrenia at 430.  Sad it was over.  Could easily spend several days on that boat.   One interesting thing was that one of the ther people on the boat was Vicar Wendy, the ex Vicar of Kyrenia.

Still boiling here.  35C today and very warm tonight.  We weren’t very hungry after our enormous lunch but we made bacon sandwiches mid evening and watched a movie.   Penny packed as she and Dave are sadly off home in the morning.  Has gone too quickly as usual.

I do very much recommend a day on the Vela.  It gets rave reviews on TripAdvisor and I can very much see why,  Can’t wait to go back.