The water I displaced

I wished for it to exist, but I thought it didn’t. Whenever I went to a beach, there would be some ‘beach club’ where very loud boom boom boom music was played and there would be people on the beach with their private stereo sound system playing something else, also loud. I admit that I even take ear plugs when I go to a beach to try to make the barrage of noise less annoying. This summer, for example, I went to the beautiful island of Heybeliada, close to Istanbul, and as I walked to the beach, I became happy because it seemed so quiet and peaceful there. That is until I turned a corner and heard the boom boom boom. Ok, I thought, it seems I have to accept that my ideal beach, where all you can hear are the little waves rolling on to the sand, just doesn’t exist.

But it does exist! I found it this week! Several of them in fact! I was in the south Turkish province of Antalya for a few days with a Dutch friend and her sweet little 3 year old daughter, and we relaxed at Patara and Kekova. There is nature, sea, sand, small waves rolling on to the beach, there are turtles at night, there are donkeys, birds, flowers, there is silence (and a whole lot of mosquitoes too, but somehow they didn’t bother me too much). Even the restaurant at the beach in Patara doesn’t play music, they serve OK food, big glasses of orange juice and ice cold beers. The terraces in Kekova are quiet too, and when you rent a fishing boat, you can go to an even quieter little beach. There is an old Hellenistic arch on the beach, two trees, and that’s it. I swam in the bay, and what did I hear? Waves rolling? Engines of fishing boats? No, not even that. The only sound I heard was the water that I displaced while swimming. I swam a long way, and on the beach, next to our boat, I saw my two friends standing and waving at me. So good to discover paradise does exist!