Turkish Riviera II - Pirate Hulks of the Manavgat River

The childrens' excitement grew as the masts of a ship appeared behind the treeline, that must be our ship! quickly followed by confusion as the more and more sets of masts appear all along the treeline. Soon the bus turned off the road and bounced along a short gravel track before setting us down next to our vessel for the day: the fearsome Barbaros. A cruise boat built to look like a pirate ship, with three masts, a raised wooden quarter deck with the bridge, and (water) cannons down both sides.

Most of this holiday was spent doing nothing, but we did book one day as pirate adventure cruise with the children. We, along with other families of just-not-quite school age children, got settled in the plastic seats and tables on the deck as 'Captain Spider' and his first mate 'Dragon' welcomed us, and the children - their new crew - aboard the Barbaros¹. A strange mix of health and safety announcements and establishing that the recruits were fearsome enough to raid other ships. And other ships there where.

All along the lower stretch of the Manavgat river there were parked many pirate cruise ships in various states of assembly or decay. I'm not sure what strange tourist market forces have worked their invisible hook on the day cruise industry here, but all the ships were decked² out as pirate ships. While false masts, bow sprits and wooden styling would just make them antique, the liberal use of skull & crossbones designs and often very elaborate painted carvings and murals on the stern featuring famous pirates from film and TV made it very clear that these were not common merchant ships. Compared to some of these very garish designs the Barbaros looked stately and respectable.

As we made our way out of the river Spider started to spin his tale; he'd been robbed of his treasure by his old adversary 'One Tooth', who was locked up below but refusing the tell him where the treasure was. So now, with his new dastardly crew of under-age pirates, they had to find the parts of a treasure map and retrieve the buried loot for themselves.

It was a very intense experience, not only was the PA loud, but there was often music playing, and lots of practising of the ship's war cry:

That mean both our children held back a bit, and Child B spent most of the day sitting on one of our laps and watching the events from a safe distance on the quarterdeck. Child A was also pretty wary to start with compared to the other children who quickly assembled in front of Captain Spider to listen at close range to the story, and loudly picking their own pirate nick-names.

As the adventure picked up pace, and the first parts of the treasure map were found, the Barbaros sailed out of the Manavgat river, turned north west and headed for the historically important City of Side. Eventually mooring off shore ³ for lunch and to let those who wanted jump off and have a swim in the sea.

From our position bobbing in the gentle waves of the Mediterranean, you could look directly at famous Temple of Apollo that sits on the shore, evidence of Side's importance as a trading port in antiquity. Side contains many famous ruins from Greek and Roman times. Of we weren't in a position to explore any of that ancient heritage, and it would have been nice to see site, and understand more of the history of Side, but that wasn't the trip we were on - the audience of the day wouldn't have understood it, or been very interested anyway. They were drying off, eating lunch, and wondering where the third part of the treasure map was.

We weren't the only pirate cruise ships underway, and others were moored around, collecting their guests out of the water and offering them lunch too. If the sounds were to be believed they'd then be followed by more loud dance music and probably more generous rum rations. If it wasn't for the children I don't think I'd want to do a pirate themed drinking cruise, I'd much rather wander around the nearby ruins - but that's a matter of personal taste. Those other cruise guests are probably much better at relaxing than I am.

After lunch it was back to the treasure hunt, and once the third part of the treasure map had been found there was a surprise foam party on deck - which I think was just a cunning plan by the crew to get some soap onto the deck to clean up after lunch. Notably the other cruise ships didn't appear to be having foam parties in the early afternoon, cementing our crew of pint-sized pirates' reputation as the hardest partying crew in all of the eastern Mediterranean.

Once the third piece of the map was safe, it was scanned for clues, which revealed that the final piece and treasure were located on 'Snake Island', to which we then sailed and made landfall. I won't reveal its top secret location, but only observe that it had more catering and jet-ski hire than I had expected from a desert island.

After their swim and some foamy dancing Child A was now much more interested in the story, and excitedly rushed out with the other children to search for the final piece of the map.

As soon as the shout of "Found it!" went up, and a child raced back to Captain Spider clutching a small pouch, the excitement became almost too much. Carefully holding the bits of the map together, the captain and his ever faithful, shovel wielding, first mate Dragon, guided their junior crew through the local landmarks on Snake Island. After some enthusiastically, if not accurately counted steps, Dragon was given the order to start digging, and when the spade hit something solid it was almost impossible to hold the crew back from getting their share. Slowly opening the chest first revealed a snake, which was quickly identified by the children as being of the harmless rubber species, and then payday: some lollies and bead bracelets as the reward for their hard adventuring.

With the hunt happily concluded there was a bit of time to swim in the sea before we boarded the Barbaros for the final time and sailed back up the Manavgat to her birth. This being a cruise in German, there was, naturally, some paperwork, and each new crew member got a certificate authorising them to raid and pillage other pirate vessels they should come across. While this kind of outing isn't the kind I would have chosen for myself, regarding it snobbishly as too tacky and 'touristy'⁴, it was certainly an adventure for the children and the ship's crew did a great job of engaging and exciting the children.