7 - Ayvalık

It was quite windy (and Ayvalık is infamous for its wind) so we chose not to anchor in one of the bays to spend the night, to swim and to enjoy nature but had to continued to the marina. The harbor entrance is really tricky and for your first visit it is guaranteed to give you goose bumps as you need to cross a very narrow channel to reach the inner bay.

The city is cute but not beautiful. But it was gorgeous before as I saw so many run down historical buildings. It is also hard not to notice the large number of very attractive young girls living here ! This has to be because when the Ottoman Empire collapsed many Eastern European Turks from Yugoslavia, Serbia, Greece etc. migrated to Anatolia and settled on the Çanakkale-İzmir shoreline. For those, who don't know, İzmir is famous for its attractive girls !

Ayvalık Marina is run by Setur Marinas, a subsidiary of Koç Group who also ownes RMK Marine, the best known superyacht and war ship producer in Turkey. As RMK makes Turks feel proud for its achievements (right now they are building four 80 meter coast guard ships as well as multiple super yachts) Setur has nationally known low service standards ! The company even merited itself for working with the fewest number of employees ! In the past their Istanbul (Fenerbahçe) Marina was well-known for not answering telephone calls and sometimes they failed to meet incoming yachts ! Nowadays they are not so bad but Koç Group did not get rich by spending money and then waiting to collect their investment back. They get the strategic places, then offer minimum service with expensive prices until they make money. In their Ayvalık marina we had problem with our AC because the amperage was not sufficiant even when we requested extra power (over 16 amperes).

It was very windy. We did not feel comfortable to eat outside but inside was really hot ! We were in discomfort and our baby did not sleep nice so we wanted to leave the next morning but were experiencing quite strong winds. Normally this should not bother us as we are not a small boat and have the power and seawortiness to cruise under most conditions but primarily because of our baby and also because we disliked the very narrow chanel we decided to spend one more night. I am glad we did because I took the opportunity to walk in Ayvalık and discovered the old buildings.

The main street is not special, lots of recently made ugly buildings. But when I  took the small side streets parallel to the sea, I really enjoyed what I saw.

View from the Marina

An Old House

Few Historical Buildings Are Left

The next morning we decided to leave the marina no matter what ! And funny it is, the wind stopped after we left Ayvalık harbor. It appears the local geography was intensifying the wind !

Once we left Ayvalık we were still longing for the summer to 'start.' Other than a short stop at Assos we were in need of swimming. We had been on the sea for almost five days but we could not swim.