MARCH 2016 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 45CRUISING
was recycled into Roman temples and
forts. The Roman bits were reworked
by the Byzantines, then the Selcuks and
Ottomans added their own bits. When
empires disappeared the locals recycled
it all into houses and roads. If you pick
through the reworkings of the architecture
you will find all of human history here.
We sailed up the coast, stopping at
night wherever we got to. There is always
somewhere to pull into so we pottered
up to St Paul’s Bay, scooted across to
Kirkdilim Limani, on up to Yeni Foca
and then to Ayvalik. The wind gods were
benign and for the most part we had
southerlies or light easterlies in late April
until we got to Ayvalik. The marina sits
at one end of the town and we were quite
happy to stay a couple of days tucked
under its sheltering breakwaters until a
northerly gale had blown itself out.
Ayvalik once had a significant Greek
population left over from Byzantine times,
like most of the coastal towns hereabouts.
Until the exchange of peoples between
Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, most
people who lived on the Turkish Aegean
coast were Greek. You can see it in the
architectural styles of the houses and
churches. Opposite Ayvalik is Alibey wherethe old Greek church built on the site of an
earlier Byzantine church has been restored
complete with frescoes and fittings. It
is now a museum and library. You can’t
miss it on the way into the lagoon and the
anchorage off Alibey is not a bad one
when the meltemi is blowing hard.Rod and Lu sail Skylax
eastwards towards the
remains of the ancient
Byzantine empireByzantine architecture is scattered around the coasts of Asia Minor, as seen here at AyvalikALL OTHER PHOTOS: ROD & LU HEIKELLPICTURES ABOVE: KEVIN JONES/SAILINGPICS.COM