Fethiye – first impression of Turkey

We knew that you need an agent to enter Turkey by boat, so we booked one early and sent him the documents so that he could prepare everything as we had discussed. The whole procedure should only take about 30 minutes.

Two hours before reaching the harbour in Fethiye, at the pier for ferries is the customs area, we reported to the agent. He said, you have to wait until the 10 o’clock ferry is out. We wanted to use the waiting time to refuel, but we weren’t allowed to, because we had to enter the country first, and nothing was possible before that, not even docking anywhere. So we cruised in front of the harbour and soon used up 2 hours of diesel.

Then finally we were allowed to dock around 10:30, but now we had to wait another hour, although the agent was in the office in front. Then nothing prepared by him, we were allowed to try to do the passport formalities ourselves with the unfriendly officials who spoke neither English nor German. After about an hour, we finally got the OK, the papers would now be prepared. At least we were allowed to drive to the other side to refuel. The petrol station attendant was as you would expect in Turkey, very friendly. Again waiting for the agent until the papers came and then very unfriendly when we had no ambition to come with him to a duty-free shop to buy cigarettes. We just wanted to get out of here. We knew that the next marina was in Kas, and that was still a long way away. But this time Poseidon was on our side, tailwinds and long waves for surfing.