A Lull in the Action: Boat Tour on the Aegean!

Today we all woke up early to take a boat tour on the Aegean Sea. Irmak’s dad suggested it as a good idea, so we went along. (He made sure to give me and Suzy some sea sickness medicine beforehand though!) We were running a little late after our breakfast, so we just barely made the boat before it left the shore! There were maybe 200 people on our boat, and it was 3 stories tall. The bottom floor was tables where you could sit or eat in the shade, the second floor had some tables and some open areas where you could lay out your towels and tan, and the third floor was all areas for tanning. We had a spot on every floor, so we spread out.
There were a lot of us that ended up going: Umur, Irmak, Umurhan, my dad, my mom, Suzy, Dave, Semo, Irmak’s cousin Sukrucan and his girlfriend Kasha, and me. I chose to lay on the third floor on my towel, since I started to feel a little seasick when I was sitting at our table. I chatted a lot with Sukrucan and Kasha, and slept a little. It was really warm, but the sun felt really good.

We stopped about every hour or so at a different secluded beach on the Aegean Sea. When the boat stopped, we jumped off the back and into the clear blue water. Dave and Sukrucan were adventurous enough to try jumping off the second and third floors of the boat! We were all scared for them, but they were fine.
We had fun taking turns with the goggles and looking at the interesting sea life on the bottom of the sea. The water was really deep, so we got our exercise treading water. Each swimming break was about a half an hour to an hour, which was the perfect amount we needed to cool off before climbing back on the boat to lay under the sun.

We stopped at 4 places total, and the last one was an island called Donkey Island. When we got there, we swam to the shore and walked up the beach to a fenced in area where there were about 50 donkeys just hanging out! Irmak said they had to fence them in due to problems with poachers in the last 5 years. Some people were feeding the donkeys watermelon rinds, and they looked pretty happy to be getting attention from us.
We swam for a while, but by the end of the day we were wiped! We got some ice cream on the boat, and watched an eclectic belly dancing performance on the second floor deck by one of the bartenders before we docked back safely at the shore.

When we got back home my family changed and showered quickly before we went out to dinner with Semo’s family at her mom’s restaurant. Memet came to pick us up, and then we went to the restaurant, which was in a part of town called Alacati.
The area was so pretty, with lots of little boutiques, shops and restaurants all close together. The streets were narrow, and there were hundreds of people walking the streets. Semo’s mom’s restaurant was also an art gallery and a small hotel. It was decorated very beautifully, with the artwork of some of the local artists on the walls. There was a beautiful pergola over the restaurant that took the place of a roof, and lots of brightly colored murals and decorations everywhere.
We ate a delicious meal, caught up with Semo’s family, and got a tour of her mothers place. When we were done eating we walked around for a while on the streets, and then we walked back to the car. On the way back to the car, we saw a mother cat on the porch of a house feeding five of the tiniest kittens! By the time we all got back to Cesme, we were exhausted!

Julia Marie