St. Nicholas Island (updated)

Promptly at 6 a.m. the gullet engines cranked up and the ship was underway. We left the cove where we had been anchored and headed out into the open Aegean Sea. The sea was not terribly rough, but this boat is small and angle of the waves and wind was such that there was quite a bit of rocking. Mary resorted to motion sickness medication, as did some others in the group.

By 8 a.m. we once again entered sheltered water between the mainland and a small island. As soon as the anchor was dropped, breakfast was served. Then five of us plus Ersin, our tour leader, transferred to the dingy for the short hop over to the island for some exploration.

Officially named Gemiler Island, it is known locally at St. Nicholas Island — even though there is no evidence that Saint Nicholas ever set foot on it. However, a monastery dedicated to him was established here in the 6th century AD, and the ruins of this Byzantine monastery are what we came to explore.

The ruins are fairly well preserved. One of the churches still has frescoes visible on some protected walls, even if earthquakes have collapsed the roof.

A hungry cat and several loud goats accompanied us as we explored a very large, rectangular water cistern. This structure also had a collapsed roof, but the heavily plastered walls indicated that they could once hold water.

A “tunnel” of arches allowed monks to climb from the lower monatery to the main church, at the top of the mountain, without exposure to sun or rain. Much of it is intact.

The main church itself still has mosaics visible in the floor, though the structure is quite ruined. The view from the summit was spectacular. On this bright, sunny morning we could see paragliders in the sky, launched from a 6000 foot mountain several miles away.

After returning to the gullet we had our final opportunity to take a swim in the Aegean. The water was not warm, but after the initial shock, quite pleasant.

After lunch, the dingy shuttled the entire group to the mainland shore to board a van that took us to Kayokoy, a “ghost town.” In 1923, as part of a treaty ending a war with Greece, Greece and Turkey agreed to a sort of ethnic cleansing program.

Although Greeks had lived in Anatolia since the Trojan Wars celebrated by Homer, 1.5 million ethnic Greeks were told they had only days to pack up and leave for Greece — a country most of them had never seen.

(A half million Turks were also deported from Greece and sent to Turkey, but most of them had not been in Greece for 2500 years. Also, Turkey is a much larger country and had an easier time assimilating them.)

This “ghost town” was a Greek city of roughly 35,000 people that was completely abandoned 100 years ago. The amount of vandalism, destruction, and decay that has occurred in just one century is a clue to how more ancient cities became ruins.

The van took us on to the resort city of Fethiye, a place bustling with tourists from all over the world, and hundreds of gullets and other boats docked here to take them on excursions much like the one we will soon complete.

A few remained at the gullet, which had come here and docked while we toured the ghost town. But most of us continued with the van to the city center.

Our tour leader took us to a rather unique fish market. It is surrounded by restaurants. One goes to the fish market, picks out a fresh catch, and takes it to any of the surrounding restaurants which will prepare it. The restaurants make their money on a service charge, side dishes, and drinks.

We also went to a supermarket, where the tour leader needed to pick up a few groceries for the gullet’s cook. Supermarkets in countries around the world are always fascinating to visit.

From here, we walked ourselves back to the dock and to the gullet. Once again, our tour leader had a DVD movie for us to watch. This one was much better than the one yesterday. It was a documentary biography of Ataturk, the father of the modern Turkish republic.

Before dinner, the gullet left the dock and anchored in a quiet cove across the bay. But we will return and disembark early in the morning.