Wednesday Thursday and the cutest little cove on the Turkish Riviera.

Strong winds are forecast, so we make our way west, toward the base of the Datca peninsula. Along the way, we made a stop at Dişlice Island for the night. More of a geological wonder than anything else, with big conglomerate rocks sticking up into the air, It’s a popular spot for day trips. Getting here in the evening gives us a chance to make first ripples in the morning, which we did.  

Our next couple of anchorages and swims were in coves along the Datca peninsula. We had varying degrees of water clarity, but we made the most of it and got in some good swims. We even made a conga line to get through the last ½ mile or so. 

Bencik Koyu was a particularly interesting spot, where our captain tucked us into a gulet-sized cove surrounded by pine trees and blue-green water. The winds really blew through the evening, but this big gulet handled it nicely. 

Some shop talk - Heather and I have had to respond to some changes in the market, and we’ve had to make some changes in the way we reach new customers. The first big change was the loss of our 15-year relationship with United States Masters Swimming. SwimTrek, another swimming vacation company, gained exclusive rights to advertising in their magazine, called Swimmer. So we got cut out. The next thing that happened was AI. SwimVacation naturally gets ranked high in Google searches, which was our best source of new guests for a long time. AI searches have now taken over the traditional Google searches, and it tends to recognize Bigger rather than Better, so we’ve been largely cut out of AI based searches, as well. Not to fear, we have our best people working on it. 

The first thing we did in response to all of this was to hire a Public Relations firm. They’ve already placed us in magazine articles like one in Authority Magazine, and New York Magazine, and we’re hoping to get some journalists to join some of our trips in 2027. 

We’ve also been trying to do a bigger variety and make more frequent social media posts. We now have a TikTok presence, which has been a lot of fun this week with the introduction of Captain Speedo and the Gogglettes. 

Let’s move on to dinner. Smoked eggplant, Tzatziki, some kind of Turkish Salsa, fries, grilled chicken and Kafta. Rice pudding for dessert. The wind whips through the portholes as we hit the hay. 

Hopper