Hot Hot Hot 2025 - Gocek

For the second consecutive year, our annual Hot Hot Hot trip had some wrongs to put right. In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, 30 people had booked to sail from Gocek and travel south, with additional plans for some participants to head north the following week. In the end, only one boat carrying six people travelled as far as the Kekova Roads!

For 2025, four boats were chartered from EGG Yachting and 25 HOEOCA members gathered in Gocek, which is approximately a 25-minute taxi ride from Dalaman Airport. Most participants arrived before the day, with the final seven joining at lunchtime. The boats were ready ahead of schedule, allowing time in the afternoon for handovers, provisioning, and settling in before having dinner at one of the many restaurants along the waterfront.

Our fleet consisting of Sea Friends, Dianora, Feel the Magic and Mavi Mercury, all between 41’ and 45’, set off on Sunday morning for a long leg of c40NM up to Ekincik, sadly, mostly under motor. 3 boats opted to berth on the quay at the west end of the village whilst Feel the Magic opted for My Marina on the far side of the bay.

On Monday, and as planned, we took the day off for a very full day trip in flat bottomed boats up the Koyceguz River to Dalyan. This started with an opportunity to get close up and personal with some beautiful cave and arch formations along the coast before entering the river at Turtle Beach, which is an important egg laying site for Loggerhead turtles, not that we saw any! Beautiful, nonetheless.

Our boats then made a stop at the ruins of Caunus, an ancient Roman city about 5 miles up the river, where we climbed to admire the spectacular views out to sea. Onwards to the town of Dalyan where we wondered at the amazing rock tombs carved into the hillside and made a lunch stop at the delightful bougainvillea clad La Boheme restaurant in Dalyan. After a selection of mezze and beers the obvious place to go next was a mud bath followed by a cleansing swim in a freshwater lake for some before the return journey back to Ekincik.

On Tuesday we had an easier day and sailed across to a large bay, Kumlu Buku, on the outskirts of Marmaris where we moored up on the very nice pontoon at the Beach Club and were able to enjoy sunbeds and lovely swimming from the beach for the afternoon. Also, very  superior shower and toilet facilities and a fabulous view over dinner, albeit it at a price.

Our plans to continue to Ciftlik and meet up with Mark & Cathie Stansfield on Ubulukutu were scuppered by EGG Yachting (the charter company) sending us a bad weather warning for Thursday so 3 boats made the decision to cross back to the Gulf of Fethiye early for protection. This long day was made even longer by being in the way of an exercise by the Turkish navy, 8 war ships, so we all had to change course to 180 until they had passed which they did, albeit very slowly! The good news was that it was quite windy so we had a good sail.

Meanwhile Mavi Mercury had decided to return to Ekincik where they developed a problem with a gear cable and ended up putting an anchor down in the middle of the harbour. Happily the ever efficient EGG Yachting arranged for an engineer to come on board and the problem was fixed so they were able to follow on the next day.

Safe in the Gulf of Fethiye, we spent the next two nights in the variously imaginatively named bays, such as Wall Bay, Deep Bay and Tomb Bay, getting out for an exhilarating sail during Wednesday. For those of us who have visited before, this is an area which has changed beyond all recognition, not the landscape but the facilities. Ramshackle jetties have been replaced by smart pontoons with water and electricity; restaurants offer much more sophisticated food but all at a huge cost. Super yachts abound with dinghies continually whizzing across the waters. Not for nothing does this area have the reputation of being the most expensive in the Mediterranean. 

Far too much of our last day, Friday, was spent refuelling and having the tanks pumped out although everyone managed to anchor for lunch and a last swim before returning to base for 1600. Handovers were completed, stories exchanged and a last dinner enjoyed together at the Kebab Hospital. For a lucky majority there was further time to spend in Gocek or further afield, for others a lunchtime flight back to the UK.