December

The weather this month has been a bit mixed, only to be expected for this time of year though. We suffered some heavy rain storms which did damage locally but we also had some beautiful sunshine which warmed up the place and brought back the smiles to faces around town.

A visit to the Greek island of Meis is a pleasure not to be missed at this time, primarily to get a couple of bottles of duty free booze for Christmas. I’m including this in the December heading although the visit was actually on November 29th. This was my first visit to the eastern bay and it certainly won’t be my last. I was surprised at how peaceful it is, as if the harbour in the western bay isn’t peaceful! This view of the east bay also shows the town of Kaş in the background and illustrates just how close the island is to the Turkish mainland. Quite why I have never ventured over to this side before I can’t explain, seeing it has increased the charm of the island many times for me.

Whilst having lunch in Meis I noticed the owner of the restaurant cleaning some fish that had been delivered to him. The local cats had noticed it too and were hovering around waiting for a lunch time tidbit. The bigger bits he threw in the harbour for the turtles, there were three cruising around in competition for the scraps.

Another visit of the month was to Kalkan. This town has grown a lot over the last fifteen years but the harbour area still retains a charm of it’s own. We had lunch and a wander around to look at the result of a fire that had completely gutted a few of the bars and restaurants by the harbour. They will probably have some temporary facilities ready for the opening of the 2015 season.

Elswhere around the harbour most of the gulets had been taken out of the water for winter repairs and upgrades.

The Coastguard were still operational too.

A walk with the dogs along the beach at Demre was on for Christmas Day morning. Another of the beautiful days in December. No-one else on the beach at all although work on the new marina was continuing just past the southern end near the hotel.