This comprehensive guide covers all the practical information you'll need to cruise the various coasts of Turkey while also telling the tale of the author and his wife's own cruise there. Aboard their 55-foot ketch, they enjoyed many fascinating experiences and they relate them in a way that will have you following their wake ASAP.
Latitudes & Attitudes
This lovely book is not exactly a cruising guide, not exactly a memoir of cruising the coast of Turkey. It's a hybrid, and a very effective one. The Italian author and his wife Nicoletta moved aboard their 56 foot ketch Jancris in 1993, and cruised in the Med until 1998, when they participated in a round-the-world rally organized by Jimmy Cornell, which began in Jerusalem and ended in Rome. The Millennium Odyssey was an event planned to draw attention to the possibility of peace among nations in the new millennium. It's exactly that kind of optimistic outlook that makes this book special. After their two-year circumnavigation, the Giacons spent the next three years exploring the fabled coast of Turkey. The author does a wonderful job of communicating their delight with the people and places they visited. The book is divided into four major sections, and each of those is further divided into an account of the pleasures the Giacons discovered on that particular coast, as well as the sort of data you'd expect to find in any cruising guide
sailing directions, customs info, hazards and attractions. Even this latter information is not the dry recitation of facts to be found in many such books; the author describes the places he finds delightful in terms that most of us will find irresistible. But it is the descriptions of the Giacons' personal experiences here that are most riveting. There's something for everyone in these accounts
the strange and unusual places they anchored, the intriguing people, the ancient ruins, the cool piney forests that fringe some of the coves. The author even entertains us with the details of sailing a 56 foot boat
for example, he blithely discusses setting his 1800 square foot spinnaker, which he and his wife are able to handle, he says, due to a superior sock design. Most of all, this is a wildly romantic little book. The author can scarcely stand to let a page go past without in some way referring to Nicoletta's beauty, her fair skin, her blue eyes, her kindness and grace. I liked that a lot. Potential voyagers whose spouses do not sympathize with their dreams should buy this book and give it to those skeptical better halves. Love is powerful.
Living Aboard
This book...gives practical information on a plethora of topics ranging from anchorages and marinas, to the weather and the local resources. It invites others to enjoy the unspoiled and beautiful coast, which has a history as many of the legendary archaeological sites mentioned bear out. If you are considering a season or more in the Eastern Mediterranean, this is well worth reading
Royal Naval Sailing Association