Beach Club

Monday 1st October

We had decided the night before that we were going to make use of the beach club facilities today, which meant a leisurely 10.30 am departure on the minibus.

It was another glorious sunrise and promised to be another beautiful hot day. A cock crowed somewhere in the valley and a goat bleated on the hillside behind.

After the dreadful summer in England and the poor summer in the Languedoc, its good to be somewhere for two weeks where the weather promises to be just right every day. Mind you, whilst we suffered in a cool and wet way in Western Europe, they suffered the opposite extreme here in Turkey with heat registering over 40 degrees in the shade for most of June. Ouch!

We meandered down to breakfast and then realised what a mistake we had made by not bringing everything with us that we needed for our trip to the beach. It meant that we had to go back up to the room, which meant going back up the 162 steps between the bar and the front door. After just two days both of us were suffering badly with solid aching calves – the steps had certainly taken their toll on muscles that we obviously hadn’t used to that extent in such a short space of time. I’m sure they will be better in a couple of days but for now, well, just getting up from a chair is an act of strong will with gritted teeth. There is certainly no need to go near the gym.

The minibus journey down was the first time that we had seen the whole valley in daylight from the bottom of the hill. The resort is built high up on the mountain above a deep ravine – hence the need to drive up and around the mountain to get to it - the ravine plunges straight down from the edge of the hotel premises. All the buildings are stone built with tile roofs, which mean they blend into the hillside extremely well. The route down to the beach isn’t particularly attractive and could best be described as scruffy

On the private hotel beach are twenty or so square wooden decks laid out in two rows across the browny-grey sand. Each deck has two triangular bolsters and two lounger mattresses and two enormous square cushions, all covered in the same taupe fabric. A small table and raffia umbrella complete the scene. A ‘bed on the beach’ is how Debrah would describe it, much happier sitting here, with the gentle sea breeze tempering the heat and the repetitive sound of the waves splashing on the beach making her eyes close at every opportunity.

So it was, we passed away the hours of the day – reading, sleeping, swimming, watching the boats passing to and fro across the bay.

A number of gulets came into the bay at lunchtime and anchored up for their guests to swim or enjoy the dubious pleasures of ‘doughnuts’ or ‘bananas’ – trying to hold onto a large inflatable whilst it is pulled along through the water by a speedboat. A local ferryboat announces it’s arrival with very load Turkish music from its loudspeakers. The Marmaris – Rhodes hydrofoil ferry causes a sudden surge in the wave size after it has crossed the bay on its daily journey.

The beach slopes quite quickly once you enter the water, which is the clearest Mediterranean blue and warm and soft and extremely buoyant. It must be quite saline because there is no real need to tread water when you stop swimming – you just lie there floating.

We ate lunch at the Beach Club – salad and chips and a carafe of white wine – and had a bloody mary at the bar at the end of the day as we waited for the bus to take us back up to the hotel. There was only one other passenger waiting by this time – everyone else had either left after lunch or had jumped on the bus for the gulet passengers or had taken a taxi because they couldn’t wait. The other passenger was a lady called Catherine and, naturally, we all got chatting. The bus had the two young lovers on it on their way back from Turunç, which they described as ‘crap’ – although they did pick up some cheap fags and booze!

Coming down for dinner before Debrah, I bumped into Catherine and her holiday companion, Irene, at the bar and they introduced me to Emma, the 25 year old nanny working for the hotel owner and his wife. There was a discussion going on about the Turkish language, which I couldn’t join in because I know only about two words and I’m sure that I don’t pronounce them very well.

Dinner was OK and the local red wine I chose was not the best, which was a shame, but we got our computers and got Debrah logged on the network and drank a nightcap whilst both tapping away on the bar. Somewhere in the dark an owl hooted repeatedly.

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candidate no 4: Crazy Frog
Oh dear - desperate, ex-husband bashing, bitter divorcee who seems to latch on to any vaguely good looking bloke regardless of their hovering wives. She then spends the next two hours not letting the poor sap get a word in edgeways whilst she goes into scarily personal details of her tawdry family life. She and her son don't get on apparently - I'm with him, and the poor ex-husband. When he walked out on her it was a total surprise, she said. Not to anyone else, love. Dreadful, dreadful woman.
verdict: CHAFF to be disposed of and burnt immediately