How the "Blue Cruises" Started

This most popular of sea adventures began quite by mistake when a few years after the foundation of the Turkish Republic, a political writer, Cevat Sakir Kabaagacli, was exiled to Bodrum for publishing a story about army fugitives. 

The judges who sentenced Cevat Sakir to a number of years in the remote port knew nothing of its lifestyle, which as Cevat Sakir found out, was something like paradise. He settled down and adopted the name, the "Fisherman of Halicarnassus", writing stories about the town and its locals- in particular, the fishermen.

On his regular outings with fisher- men, he gradually got to know the various coves and bays in the Gulf of Gokova. When visiting intellectuals from Istanbul dropped in, he took the opportunity to introduce them to the fisherman’s way of life. Together they constructed a theory of culture which embraced the cultures of all the people who lived in Asia Minor. Sakir’s tours of the Gulf of Gokova became famous and were given the name, "Mavi Yolculuk" or "Blue Cruise", and at this point, we wish to pay our gratitude to the man who inspired this voyage of exploration - the source of enjoyment for many thousands of people for almost 60 years.