The Bozburun Yacht Club

Our yachting mates Craig and Lesley from S/V Valentine came visiting the crew of Pavlov in Bozburun. Apart from losing his left testicle in a bet gone horribly wrong, Craig also mentioned a mythical yacht club in Bozburun. Now we’ve lived in Bozburun most of this winter and have never found anything as lofty as a yacht club. Craig muttered something about a catamaran that raced a high speed on the bay that was moored at the end of the point. We were intrigued and decided to investigate.

Lesley and Craig arriving in Bozburun

Catching up at Osmond's

Craig, worried about what he might lose?

Today loomed as looking like rain, and we’d been quite industrious the last few days with Pavlov’s bottom having received its penultimate coat of antifoul. So after a morning spent catching up on blogs and peering into various internet black holes (help, I can’t escape the event horizon), we decided to go exploring for the Bozburun Yacht Club.

Megan ready to hit the trail

Boats being built everywhere

We headed along the promenade around the bay, where the road ends at a hotel. Since there were many more buildings stretching around the bay, we searched for a path. There was a goat track climbing up around the shore-line and we followed it.

Path heading around the bay

Past sheep, goats and a blaze of wildflowers which appear only briefly in the spring, we followed the well-worn path which stretched around the bay. There were several buildings, hotels, and homes along the waterfront. These must be water access only, or by foot.

Local poppy

Wildflowers everywhere

Local olive grove on the headland

Local inhabitants

We stumbled across an itinerant stone mason, who was keen to tell us all about his trade, and his pension in Selimiye. I admire the business sense of Turks, who seldom let a chance go by to advertise their services.

Local stone mason

Approaching the headland

At the end of the headland, we could see some interesting boats moored to a jetty. This might be our sailing club! We brazenly marched down some steps through private property, explaining to the owners that we just wanted to get ‘down there’,  pointing to the moored boats.

Moored trimaran and catamaran

We found the Bozburun Yacht Club at the very tip of the headland. It is inaccessible by road vehicles, access is usually by water.

Dismasted cat and ORMA 40 racing trimaran

Beautiful stone jetty and traditional Turkish yawl

There was a variety of moored vessels, docked at a very attractive stone wharf and breakwater. The boats were very unusual for Turkey, being racing multihulls. These type of vessels are almost unknown in Turkish waters.

Surrounding gardens

ORMA 40 racing trimaran

We were met at the yacht club, which is really an exquisite boutique hotel that caters for adventure and extreme sailing, by an extremely gracious host, Edhem Divana.

Our host, Edhem Divana

Edhem invited us to tea, and shared some of his family's history building this most elegant resort on the headland. Edhem's passion is extreme sailing, and he is working to introduce this to Turkey. He had a Hobie F20 racing cat, a 40 foot catamaran, and a French built racing ORMA 40 trimaran. He holds training camps here to introduce multihull racing to Turkish sailors.

1930's Turkish built yawl.

Edhem inherited his love of sailing from his father who built this home and jetty as a holiday retreat for the family, to escape the hot Istanbul summers. His father also bought an exquisite wooden yawl of about 30 foot length as the family's sailing boat. Edhem still sails this boat, built in 1930 and it is in beautiful condition, moored behind the family's breakwater.

Megan points to the harbour entrance

Megan and Edhem looking over the view from the library

Edhem turned out to be a very well educated conversationalist. He told us about his grandfather, who was an official in the Ottoman Empire. A google search revealed that Edhem was named for his grandfather who was descended from a Grand Visier of Abdulmecid. He serves as a provincial governor and as Minister of Commerce and Posts. He was a supporter of the Kemalist revolution and translated Descartes 'Discourse de la Methode' into Turkish. Edhem junior showed us the library bequeathed to him by his grandfather: it was filled with first edition works by Shakespeare, Voltaire, works in French, German and English. It would be enough to send any bibliophile to heaven.

Entrance to the library

In the photo, you can see the original stone cottage built by Edhem's father, behind the newer white veranda's. This building is dedicated to the library.

View of the headland from above

Again, we were grateful for the generous hospitality of Turks, who are willing to share their family's history with us. It turned an afternoon stroll into a fascinating glimpse into Turkey's history and some of its leading families. We were also impressed by the depth of Edhem's intellectual background. He studied International Relations in the United States, and is now practicing that art through the medium of sailing. We wish him all the best.

The mythical Bozburun Yacht Club

Both Megan and I feel grateful that our life throws these wonderful adventures our way, for the price of nothing more than an afternoon stroll and an inquisitive nature!