The story of Blue Voyage or Blue Cruise in Turkey starts in 1945 with the organization of famous writer & ethnographer The Fisherman of Halicarnassus on a fishing boat guided by Paluko with a crew of 9 of the Turkish intelligentsia where its story is published in the book Mavi Yolculuk Defterleri (Blue Voyage Notebooks - in Turkish) with drawings, paintings & poems of renowned artist Bedri Rahmi Eyuboglu also described by a Turkish daily columnist Dogan Hizlan here.

Paluko was a “Cretan”; they came to Bodrum in the beginning of 1900’s usually via other Aegean islands, after they had to flee from Crete (Greece). He was famous for fishing octopus, sponges and pina (big shells) with his fork tipped long stick called ‘Paluki‘ in Greek, after examining the sea-bottom with his looking-glass called ‘Ayna’.

He became close friends with The Fisherman of Halicarnassus the famous writer who was exiled to Bodrum in 1925 by state for a period of three years, but falling under the spell of the town, he lived, wrote, sailed the seas with Paluko here, later inviting his friends aboard for many years to come and so, is largely credited for bringing the formerly sleepy fishing and sponge-diving town of Bodrum, as well as the entire shoreline of the Blue Cruise, to the attention of the Turkish intelligentsia and the reading public first, and by extension, for paving the way towards the formation of international tourist attraction the region became.