'Moron fish-drop boy' wasn't, ideally, how I had wanted to be known. The crew were too polite to say it directly to me, of course, and too smart: why would they jeopardise what they gleefully describe as 'the best job in Turkey' just to bad-mouth a guddling fool of a guest? Still. I'm sure they thought it, as I'm sure they had their own words for all of us. The pretty girl who tans too much; the girl who's still alluring despite the trembling hangover; the athletic swimmer-boy; the cheeky boy with the good CDs. I had hoped, of course, to be known by the end of the week by whatever the Turkish is for 'He whose eyes grow salt and sharp and cornflower-blue as he gazes helpfully for hours off the port bow in case we all suffer simultaneous retinal failure and forget how to sail, and later regales us with charming anecdotes featuring a startling lack of any discernible point', but there you go; moron fish-drop boy it was, and I had only myself to blame.
Three days into the most perfect sailing trip, and I had decided to do something more than chat idly on the sundeck with a cold beer and a bowl of olives and a handy breeze coming off the Marmaris peninsula, for there's only so much of that kind of stuff you can take - although looking back now, writing this in London in winter, 'only so much' would constitute about 40 unbroken years. I was going to be helpful. I was going to be 'helpful'. We were anchored this lazy afternoon near Ingiliz Limani (English Harbour), a terribly pretty hidden bay which the Allies used as a secret torpedo-boat base against the Kriegsmarine, and Soner, the hyperactive superfit cook, had taken off with snorkel and harpoon to catch us something fresh for supper, even though the ship's lock ers were bulging with food so fresh and authentic and Turkish and varied that it could have sat proudly in any Islington deli.
He was half a mile away, swimming hard, against the current, so I unlashed the boat's tiny fibreglass kayak, lowered myself in and paddled off to help him bring home the booty. About an hour later I was back at our boat, the magnificent Grandi, trailing a rope strung through the mouths of half a dozen fine suppers, including one fat fearsome snapping beast which Soner had gone particularly deep to get, and which had only stopped struggling about 10 minutes ago.
The rest of the crew - the captain, Mehmet Ali, the tireless Nejdet, the teenage Hakan, who practised his grinning English on us from dawn till dusk - clustered at the rail above and all expressed delight at the catch, especially the proud monster, and all warned me that even though it wasn't moving it might not be dead, so I should finish there and hand the rope up to them rather than try to show off by fiddling about in the water. You've guessed the rest; just as I freed the big one, he gave one last shudder and slap of his tail, and (as they're surely still telling it now, down in the watery world of Turkish fish melodrama) with one bound he was free, to cries of anguish and disgust from above.
Later, they tried to laugh it off. Poor Soner, told what had happened on his exhausted return, unaccountably managed a smile and a friendly shrug rather than, say, going for me with a flensing knife. They paid me back, two nights later, by cheerfully robbing me blind at backgammon and pretending that they never drank whisky and were only going to try a teensy bit of my proffered Laphroaig in the spirit of friendship, glug glug - but they never quite mastered the pronunciation of my name and now I know why; they had one for me already. As for the name of the kind of fish we didn't eat, I did take notes, but I find that page rather messed with either fish-blood or tears of shame. I'm sure it would have been delicious.
I have been lucky enough in this job to wheedle my way into some of the most memorable sailing experiences you can have. I have raced on a billionaire's Wally superyacht off Sardinia, seen Jura at dawn from the deck of a Polish brigantine in the Tall Ships Race, helmed a 100-year-old converted Brixham trawler into St Malo while tiny French dinghies tooted and waved in greeting, clung like a needy child to the legs of Olympic medallist Shirley Robertson as we heeled through the Solent. But there was something terribly memorable about the week last autumn spent with Tussock Cruising, sailing off the south-west Turkish coast in a beautiful gulet - local boats traditionally used for sponge-diving and fishing, but now being built with a mix of fine old woods and Dutch-designed rigging to allow greater comfort, speed and manoeuvrability; so much so that I intend to repeat it later this year in my own time.
Sailing holidays can be fraught. In the Mediterranean or Aegean, most people will charter a boat in a flotilla; which can be idyllic, but there's something about sailing which can also bring out what psychologists refer to as the 'pompous arse' in men, espe cially a certain type of British man, especially a certain type of British man abroad. Tussock, I suspect, has the answer, for us poor, underpaid souls who don't yet possess our own yacht. You can help with the sailing, if you must, but there's nothing to prove. Your job, basically, is to enjoy yourself.
But it is really sailing; none of your spoilt Aegean motor-yacht puttering gently between tourist traps. We had the sails up for about seven hours each day and were really travelling in the open seas around Kos. In high weather, everyone soon learns their part; Hakan and Soner would race up salt-spattered masts and haul the clattering jib around with sure-footed ease and we learnt, lying on the sundeck, to lodge our beers carefully between different cushions to suit either port or starboard tack and helpfully lift our elbows to let Nejdet remove the ashtrays before we gybed.
The days begin with a whale of a breakfast; and the sea air, and the exertions of a dawn dip over the side, mean that your appetite will be up to the full groaning deckful of watermelon, apples, honey, French toast, meat and eggs and cheese and coffee. The engine begins to throb as you move out of whichever absurdly picturesque bay your captain had chosen the night before and he'll keep it going for about half an hour to warm up the water for showers. (You learn, soon, almost to enjoy the sensation of taking a shower at a 30-degree tilt; as you learn the other little things, like keeping your cabin vaguely tidy in order not to lose things in the hurly-burly of the sail, not blocking the heads with lavatory paper, never wearing the same shoes as on land, for sand is the great enemy to the deck of a wooden yacht, not doing stupid things with live fish in a kayak). Showered and replete, with book and sun lotion and fags all tucked somewhere around your shorts, you head back topsides to find the sails up, the sun hot, and Hakan busy making the first of the day's batch of strong Turkish coffee.
The beauty of the Tussock conceit is that no two trips will ever be the same. It is an Anglo-Dutch company and owners Lois and Huub, who divide their time between England, Holland and Turkey, have managed to fine-tune the operation of their fleet to ensure a perfect match of freedom and responsibility, hedonism and health. So you can, if you care to, go ashore, every day, walk for miles through the remote unexplored ruins of the Carian people which litter the Bodrum peninsula, a civilisation now forgotten even though it gave us Herodotus, the father of history, the original river Meander, and King Mausolus, whose habit of burying his people in stone tombs above the ground litters the coastline.
Or, if you prefer, you can lounge on deck all day, sipping the endless beers that come with the price; or you can all move on together and sail to another bay, another island, another peninsula. The captains are chosen not just for sailing ability but for social skills; it is their job, each night, to find out what the guests really want to do the next day and alter plans accordingly; the whole agenda can be quickly torn up in the event of an unfavourable wind or one guest's enthusiastic guidebook discovery. Lois and Huub work carefully on the guest mix, blending singles with marrieds, old with young, the aim being that all can bounce off and learn from each other, and their diligence seems to be paying off; Tussock has an astonishing repeat-booking rate of between 60 and 70 per cent.
So I won't bore you with our exact trip, because you won't be doing it. Highlights to bear in mind, however, include a visit to the little coastal town of Gumusluk where, in a tiny barber's on the waterfront, the chaps in our group had the most memorable shave. Three times, close, with an open razor and then they dip a kind of cotton-bud into meths, set fire to it and bounce it swiftly in and out of your ears to get rid of tiny hairs; the feeling, afterwards, of tight cleanliness is exhilarating, and throughout the shave, looking at the mirror, we could see behind us through the open window a stretch of sunny blue water dominated by a glorious waiting yacht, and know, for that moment anyway, that it was 'ours'.
A few days later we all wound down, after plenty of walking and swimming, with a proper Turkish massage at Rashid's famous Hammam near Bodrum. This was the day after our riotous Laphroaig night, begun with a glorious three-hour supper in which Soner surpassed himself, and was spent in a bay of such silent serenity that the dying sun seemed to linger over it for hours after it had fled the rest of Turkey; but, when I go again, I must remind myself not to go for a fierce and highly physical massage while possessed simultaneously of sunburn and a hangover. Afterwards, however, you feel horribly good, your feet seeming to walk about three inches off the ground and every pore in your body shouting about how happy it is, all sated and shiny and relaxed, like women tell you they feel after they've successfully done that thing they seem to enjoy so much, you know, shopping.
We also had a lovely evening visit, far from the tourist tread, to Bozalan (Hakan's home village), which Tussock sponsors to help pay for its roads and irrigation; and, over a fine supper, while local women dyed wool next door, learned slowly, in fitful translation, of the real problems of the village, and the changing culture of that part of Turkey, before the drinks and the band came and we could dance and be stupid Westerners again - stupid, fish-dropping Westerners who are still, incidentally, in regular contact, for the friendships made on the Grandi and Tussock's other gulets are fast and lasting - before weaving, as sailors do, back to the boat. Every night, it felt like coming home.
Factfile
Tussock Cruising offer a week's sailing holiday from £384 per person, including transfers and all food and drink on board. Specialist weeks, such as nature, yoga, painting and cookery cruises, are also available. Return flights start at £270 per person. Call 020 8510 9292 or visit www.tussockcruising.com.
