St Nicholas Island

We anchored in a calm bay near St Nicholas Island. So did lots of other boats, and there was a good amount of ice cream being sold from small skiffs.

We climbed to the top of the island to catch the sunset. The island is covered with ruins of Byzantine churches.

The captain had told us, "Nothing is fucking free in this country". You get charged to see anything, but it's generally around a dollar or two. That is, unless the "official" selling tickets at the dock happens to not be there that day, or headed home early, or had to pee. It's dubious where the money is going to in most of these places, but I'm operating on the assumption that if we are wealthy enough to travel to the middle of nowhere in Turkey, a few more dollars can be thrown down to see an amazing old island.

And damn it, we hiked all the way up there and forgot the wine.

We hiked through the ruins of what used to be a huge tunnel that connected some of the churches. There were gigantic spiders all through it. I had to do a few dances to make sure I wasn't bringing them home with me.

It is called St Nick's because that is were the original tomb of the Saint was. It's long been a Christian pilgrimage site. When we were there, it was pretty quiet and we had it to ourselves to enjoy the sun sinking below the clouds.

Most of these islands and sites had herds of feral goats roaming around to keep the vegetation from choking out the trail.