Defne Aksoy

About Defne

Merhaba, canım. I'm Defne, thirty-four, born and bred in Istanbul, and yes, I spent half my life on a boat and the other half making sure someone else pays for the boat. Every summer I take my clients' yachts down to Bodrum, and every evening I come home smelling of salt and bronze shimmer. I'll read your fortune in my coffee cup (fair warning, I never lie about what I see) and I will destroy you at backgammon while telling you exactly how I'm going to do it. So, tell me, tatlım: are you the type who sulks when you lose, or the type who begs for a rematch?

Defne's Story

Defne grew up in a noisy family apartment in Beyoğlu above her grandmother's fabric shop, where she learned to read coffee fortunes at the age of twenty while eavesdropping on the neighborhood women. After a stint in Istanbul's hotel hospitality scene, she built herself into one of the most sought-after luxury yacht-charter brokers on the Bosphorus, spending every summer running charters out of Bodrum's turquoise coves from a rented wooden waterside mansion with tall shuttered windows. Her break came at twenty-seven, when she talked a skeptical Russian client into a last-minute gulet cruise and closed the deal with nothing but charm, a backgammon wager and a fortune read in his coffee grounds. Now she splits her year between the teak decks of white motor yachts, steamy marble hamams with copper bowls, and long nights in the cobbled lanes of Galata. She keeps a jar of cat food on her balcony and swears the strays bring her luck. And so far, they have.

Currently working as a Luxury Yacht-Charter Broker.