We got on the boat and headed out towards the dive site. I found out that the boat doubled as one of those cruise tours and a dive boat, so most of the people on the boat were not diving. They only had to pay something like 20 Lira for the boat while we paid 100 TL. On the boat ride over there, I met this girl named Can who was pretty cool. I learned that she was in college in the US. She studies at Brown University and is back at her parent's place for the summer helping out with their boating business. I wish my summer job was being on a boat all day in a tropical location. That sounds like the life to me!
We came to the island where everyone else would spend the day swimming. Here's what it looked like from the back of the boat.
We suited up in the tanks and descended for our first dive. The dive was maybe 40-50 ft (not sure exactly since all of the equipment was in meters). We ended up doing two dives and overall I was mostly disappointed. We saw a few fish, but not a large amount and certainly not as many as I saw when I dove in Mexico and the Bahamas. I was also disappointed that both dives were at the same location. I was hoping we would maybe do one dive at one location and another at another. That's how most dive boats work. The coolest part was that the dive master who was leading us found a baby octopus for us to play with, Everyone was able to put it in its hands and you could feel the suckers attach to you. When it was scared at first, it even inked! The rock formations were decent too, but not the most impressive I had ever seen. Perhaps I should have chosen to dive in Fethiye instead...oh well.
The boat had grilled fish for lunch and after a while at that swimming place, we went to another swimming place. The water was pretty cold, which was surprising for the month of June. I guess you forget just how far north Turkey is when its so hot outside. I think Turkey is about even with New York City, but you'd hardly guess it when you see water that looks like that! :)
After two swimming stops, we arrived back in Bodrum. As I said before, it was largely disappointing but oh well.
When I arrived it was still a couple of hours before sunset. I decided I wanted to take a trip to the end of the Bodrum peninsula to see the sun set. I have heard the sunset there is quite beautiful (as it is on the western edge of Turkey looking over the Mediterranean). I took a bus out to the small town of Gümüşlük and walked down to the shore line. Oddly, the towns name means "of silver," but with a sunset as brilliant as the one I would see, I would have excepted it to be "of gold." The shoreline here is protected by headlands just on the other side of the bay. To get to the headlands, you have to wade through water, which got all the up to the upper part of my legs at one point. I was concerned about my camera and my backpack, but it all worked out ok.
Across the shoreline to the headlands was "Rabbit Island." The island is named as such because rabbits live here. Shocking I know! The cool part was that there were enough here that even I would catch a glimpse of them.
After snapping a couple of photos of rabbits and flowers, I climbed my way to the top of the headlands and positioned myself for the sunset. The view was absolutely amazing!
While at the top of the mountain rising out of the water, I met a man with a group of kids. He explained to me (in English) that they were a group of kids who took a trip down here as part of a diabetes camp. Apparently all of the kids had type 1 diabetes. It made me happy to see that they had some solidarity and I reflected for a few moments on my grandfather who had passed away 3 years earlier. He was also a type 1 diabetic and so I have a special affinity for those people and can sort of understand the difficulties they have to deal with every day. There were also two women sitting together who did not speak to me and were sitting on the ledge. I sort of suspected that they were a lesbian couple, but wasn't ultimately sure. I probably ruined their alone time, as I stayed for the entire sunset. Here are some pictures I took from it and the subsequent moon rise:
This is kind of what the island I was on looked like too
Other pictures of sunset:
After watching the sunset, I walked along the beach a little bit. Had I visited the place earlier in the day, it would have been a neat place to swim. Instead it was just a nice walk.
I returned to Bodrum and went to a place that was open along the seaside for dinner. It was one of those little kumru sandwich places. When I sat down the waiter greeted me and I responded in Turkish. He immediately told me to hold on a sec and after 5 minutes, a man came up and asked me what I wanted in English. Apparently he had decided from my one word utterance that I was not a native Turkish speaker and that he would need someone else to take my order. This area was very popular for British tourists. Well the guy came up and asked me what I wanted. I said that I wanted a kumru sandwich but without pickles in Turkish. He responded in English, so you don't want pickles? I'm sitting here thinking to myself...no shithead...I just said that in Turkish just for the hell of it. So I merely said, come on man, I am just trying to practice my Turkish, give me a break. After I said that he was much better about responding in Turkish and I was able to order and ask for things throughout the evening in Turkish. I then retired to my room and slept for tomorrow I would be heading to Fethiye.
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