Sea Kayaking

Those that know me well know that I am not one to normally sign up for outdoor adventure activities.

Oh, sure, I love camping and don't mind 'roughing it' one bit - but add serious physical exertion- like hiking - on top of that? No thanks!

Indeed, usually I have to be dragged kicking and screaming by my captor/husband and forced up and down mountains, growing more and more hostile and plotting revenge against all hikers and their evil bretheren.

Sea kayaking wasn't like this at all. 

I was genuinely excited about this trip. A little nervous about whether my rock solid arm guns and core strength would be up to the physical challenge, being that my guns are more like 80 year old Bingo Wings and my core is made of marshmallow (mmm, marshmallows).

For some reason though, water activities don't stress me out.

For one thing - I'm a strong swimmer and can't actually drown due to my oft mentioned awesome floating abilities.

Also, I don't feel like I'm going to overheat and die when in/on water, so that's a bonus.

And finally - kayaking = sitting. All good with me. 


The trip was brilliant - a mixture of easy, tranquil paddling and some much harder, slightly hairier stuff through waves.

Plenty of snorkeling (which Engin, our tour leader pronounced in a rather Borat way as "schhhhnorkeling" as in "Today we stop here, yes? and for afterwards we will do zee schhhhnorkeling". So funny. 

Beautiful, remote scenery, the clearest most beautiful water and secluded, private camping spots.

 Setting off on the first morning - this is actually the sea, not a lake

 Stopping for a quick swim

 And stopping for lunch

 

 A slightly odd place to pull the kayaks up, but we were rewarded with awesome scchhhhhnorkeling

Camp spot the first night. K clearly very excited

 Heading off the next morning

 The beautiful, clear, aqua water we were paddling on/swimming in

 2nd day lunch spot

 A visit to the famous "Cleopatra Beach"

Nothing to do with the Egyptian lady herself, this amazing sand is called "Cleopatra Sand"

 

Turkish people come from miles around to see this famous beach and its sand.

This photo was taken towards the end of the day and was apparently very quiet.

ok. I totes love swimming with 300 of my closest friends.

Except you aren't actually allowed to touch the sand, or walk on it. 

Definitely not allowed to lie on it. 

There is a guy on duty - not a lifeguard, hell no - if you drown that's your own business.

He is there to stop people from walking on the precious sand.

Weird. Especially for 3 Aussies. 

We were peppering Engin with questions "is the sand magical?"

No

"Is it meant to have healing properties?"

No

"so it's just sand then?"

Yes

"riii-iiight......."

umm. Dudes. It's just sand.

 The gullet tour boats filled with people who came to see the sand.

 We don't need no gullet boats, we paddled here ourselves thank you very much.

 Camp spot on night # 2

Our bed. Looks super comfy right?

Wrong.

 Before sunrise on day #3

 Watching the sun come up

 Preparing ourselves for the final day

Last snorkeling spot

We finished off in the afternoon and then had to jump on a local bus - stinky, dirty and exhausted - to get to Fethiye. 

On the bus - which was mercifully air-conditioned - my arms were burning. 

So I said to M "this is weird, I'm cool to the touch but my arms feel like they're on FIRE"

He quirked an eyebrow at me and said in his best my-wife-is-retarded voice "Yes, that's called muscle burn, it's what happens when you use your muscles a lot"

Huh. Muscle Burn. using muscles a lot. Weird.

Overall an absolute winner. Highly recommended. 

And goddamn - the shower that night was the best I've ever had. 

xx