A journey to Istanbul

It has been such an eventful two weeks with so many stories to tell - it is hard to know where to start. We have been storm bound and as a consequence met some really interesting people, we have sailed from Greece to Istanbul and got back in touch with many of our Turkish friends who we met in very different places and circumstances but discovered that they are all related in a surprising and spookily way (and know each other), and we have had the wonderful company of many dolphins but also millions of jellyfish which was not such a good experience as I will explain later.

We waved goodbye to Fay on the over-night ferry from Myrina, Limnos - the same place that we had waved to Tom a few weeks earlier. She was not as lucky as Tom though who managed to get a cabin - Fay ended up having to sleep on the floor with hundreds of other passengers better prepared than her.

“They all had sleeping bags Mum!”

We spent time commiserating with Manny and Belinda who are still engineless but it was time for us to get moving so we decided that thew wind was in the correct direction and set sail on the 28th July for Turkey. We did not get far! After 20nm we got a gale warning so decided to anchor in Freshwater Bay - our third visit to this bay, twice in DB. In the morning we could see the gale was there to stay so we battled our way up the gulf to the quay at Moudros where we joined three other yachts sheltering, berthing alongside Bockra, a Canadian custom built yacht. Jean seemed delighted and immediately made us coffee while Andy got his windsurfer out.

We spent two happy days with French-Canadian Jean and his Egyptian wife Rejane. Andy was particularly happy as he got two days of solid windsurfing until his mast-foot broke. While exploring Moudros we made friends with several of the locals - one Aussie/Greek stopped his moped dead when he saw us. Almost the first thing he said was that we should move here,

“This place is paradise - there are no rules. You should come and join us. You can buy a stone cottage for about €80,000”.

We like Limnos very much and had been thinking about what it would be like to live there but isn’t it rules that hold communities together? We discussed this later and realised how rule bound the two of us are - Andy as an Engineer and me as an accountant are avid followers of rules. But there does seems to be quite a strong sense of community on Limnos so surely there are rules - just a different set to those in Australia that our friend rejected along with his big house and Porsche.

“I have never been happier” he concluded as he zipped off on his scooter.

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We arrived in Istanbul. at the end of a very long , and not always nice, journey - over 300nm since we left Fay - to arrive at our most Northerly destination this year, Istanbul. Since we left Split last year we have covered over 4,600nm at an average speed of 5 knots. We have sailed from Venice to Egypt to Istanbul in Deep Blue - a 10.7metre sailing yacht. We feel a real sense of achievement!

Istanbul is HUGE - we have been told that it stretches 150 km at its widest point and from where we see it - from the sea - the widest point is along the coast. Apart from a tiny peninsula that is the old city, most of Istanbul is high rise and industrial, covering in equal distance East and West of the Bosphorous. The sea of Marmaras, into which the Bosphorous empties, it turns out , is horribly polluted.

My swim one morning en-route had come to an abrupt end after six out of my usual ten laps when I felt a brush down my body and legs. I almost literally leapt out of the water onto the bathing platform of DB. Andy, who had already finished his swim was pointing,

“Look, look. BIG jellyfish - and lots of them!”

and sure enough, there were lots of them sailing past DB. Beautiful, translucent blue-white, short tentacles, gently pulsating. Later that day we sailed for hours through a “bloom” of mainly 50cm diameter Rhizostoma Pulma jellyfish. They are beautiful but when there are jellyfish for as far as the eye can see - we estimated one every 5m2 - it is disturbing. We have since learnt that these enormous blooms of a single species are being witnessed on a regular and increasing basis worldwide and scientists say that pollution, over fishing and global warming combined have caused this phenomena. It will be a while before I swim again - I think I will wait till we get back to the Med!

But we have also seen many dolphins. Sightings of dolphins always excite - even when ships are all around us as we experienced entering the Dardenelles at sunset on the last day of July. I was on the bow watching out for ships when I looked down to see some grey shapes in the water. My heart sunk - I thought it was the ground - and then, joy, I realised it was four dolphins on their sides looking at me! I called Andy and we waved at them and yelled “hello!” As we left them behind a while later they leapt in the air as if to express their excitement at seeing humans!

Tom has been our best dolphin spotter and we saw several while he was with us - including one that leapt right by our windward rail to have a look, it seemed, into our cockpit. Gee banged on our hull and managed to attract several dolphins to our bow and while we were with Fay we saw several more though only at a distance. Fay told us that while on her trans-Atlantic crossing and on watch, Windrose was surrounded by a large shoal (?) of double-decker bus sized whales - one of her most memorable experiences. But even with that under her belt she is still as excited as us when we see dolphins! We have noticed that we see more dolphins where there is lots of shipping - the entrance to the Suez and now the Dardanelles‘. Perhaps it is the currents or the pleasure of racing the ships - I am not sure which - but they do seem to like playing in the bow wave, however dangerous that is. Fay said that the many dolphins she saw in the straits of Gibraltar had lots of scars from propellers.

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The Dardanelles have a bloody recent history - this narrow stretch of water has been fought over on many occasions and is well known for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the first world war when half million men lost their lives - 50% allies and 50% Turkish. Controlling the Dardanelles means that you control Istanbul and all traffic in and out of the Black Sea where seven countries have coast - the most important of which is Russia. A large proportion of the Allies force was made up of the ANZAC platoon and their memorial is one of the first you see as you enter the Strait. Also dominant is the French and huge, bleak Turkish monument.

Once we entered the Sea of Marmaras we turned East and stopped in Karabiga. We arrived early evening, probably the first foreign yacht to go there for many years, and several young lads came to catch our lines as we moored stern-to. They then sat and watched us until we left DB to go and look around the town. No-one speaks English here and the place is obviously extremely poor. The houses are patched up and grimy, the shops empty of anything but the very basics. For instance the poorly stocked vegetable shop we found had only a few kilos each of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes and watermelon. We ate in the best restaurant in town (the only restaurant) and were surprised to find it frequented by all the trendy young people from out of town - dressed in a very western style that contrasted starkly with the long skirts and scarves of the towns women.

The next morning we were woken by a fishing boat tying up alongside us. It was a very small wooden boat driven by a kindly but care-worn faced fisherman I greeted him and watched him sort his nets. He was picking out his catch which seemed to be predominantly small crabs. He carefully untangled each crab, twisted off all its legs and then threw crab body and legs into the water. I exclaimed when I realised what he was doing and in sign language tried to ask why. He seemed to indicate that the crab would survive. I decided a different track - I asked him why he didn’t eat them. He seemed to say they were no good. I noticed that after my intervention he was saving the crabs - with their legs still intact. Soon I was to find out why, he wanted to give me one - he thought I wanted to eat them! I accepted my gift - a lively crab the size of my hand including its big pincers - and put it in a bucket of water so I could release it later, then offered my friend coffee. He accepted so I gave him coffee and 5TL to pay for the crab. At first he did not want to accept the money but when I insisted he tried to give me his entire catch, a small bag of fish. I accepted one fish - an ugly fish that on closer inspection we realised was a Scorpion Fish which, as fish soup, was delicious. Later, as I was below stowing things in preparation to leave port I heard him call “Madam, madam”. I went up and he proudly presented me a beautiful small conch shell. I was delighted and put it on display below. It was a few days later when I traced a bad smell that I realised the shell had an occupant - now dead and rotting. I was mortified but hoped that the crab survived its adventure.

When we eventually arrived in Istanbul we phoned all the Turkish people we have met on our travels who live in Istanbul. Our GreenPeace friends Banu and Deniz, Serdar who we met in a marina in Greece, Cenk who we met anchored in Tomb Bay and of course Halluk from our winter marinette who owns property in Istanbul. Banu, Deniz and Cenk are all down South but are due back later next week. Halluk and family are busy with their sailing school (150 children taking courses over the next 9 weeks that cost 5,000TL each) but Serdar was in town and came to take us to the Yacht club for lunch. What a co-incidence it turned out to be. Sadar has just returned from staying at Halluk’s (actually we did know that they knew each other) and he did a boat delivery for him last month. Halluk had also called us and asked if we could help with the boat deliveries as he had seven boats to move from France to Turkey. We had to turn him down as we had Tom with us and Fay about to arrive but had suggested Banu and Deniz (who Halluk did not know) and who had accepted the work. Deniz and Serdar, it turns out have been mates for 25 years though Serdar was unaware that Deniz had done a delivery. In other words, every person but one we know in Istanbul knows the other, not just a little, but very well. So, of course, we gossiped! We enjoyed Serdar’s company and discovered that not only is a very accomplished sailor (represented Turkey in Finns) but also a stuntman on films and his claim to fame is that he was Pierce Brosnan‘s body double on The World is Not Enough when Bond leapt 20m into the Bosphorus from Maidens Tower.

More about everyone in my next blog…