The Dardanelles: Take 2

We were looking at a good day to get up the remaining 15-20 miles of the Dardanelles and took advantage of that.  Now when I say a good day I mean there is no wind, not that there is favorable wind.  There is a big difference in this situation. 

It would’ve been terrific to have a southerly wind blowing us up the straights, but according to a plaque displayed by the horse and Troy exhibit by the marina in Canakkale, there were 14 days of southerly winds between May and September when the Greeks were trying to get there to attack.  That meant that they literally couldn’t move with the exception of the 14 days during a 4 month period.  Either that or they had to row… up a 4 knot current… with wind on their nose… I am very grateful for our engine.

We motored the entire way up the remaining 15-20 miles watching ships pass us and enjoying the ability to go 3-4 knots. 

This is me with a ship the size of a bus passing behind me.  Dad said it was probably a car mover.  Each car gets a room or cubicle and is then moved from point A to point B.  This may have been the biggest ship we saw.  We did see a ship that had cargo that rivaled this size though.  It was one of the flat cargo ships that had semi truck containers stack on top.  They were stacked 5 high and 18 long, and that was just what we could see on deck.

This is a closer view of the Morning Catherine.  The Dardanelles has 50,000 ships pass through in a year.  It is the water way that connects the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and is very important for the import export business.

It was a pleasant trip until we reached the Sea of Marmara when things began to get choppy.  Without fail we received our daily 25 knots of wind on the nose and the chop to accompany it.  We had a few anchorages in mind, but decided to go for the closest called Kemer since it looked like a 10 hour day to that point as opposed to 12 or 13.  My boyfriend Bryan asked if we were just going in circles and I crossed my fingers that we wouldn’t pull in and see the Navigator.  When we pulled in we didn’t see much of anything.  The French boat we had seen in Canakkale was anchored in the prime spot and we decided to get as close to him as we could without imposing or be in harm’s way.

We later discovered that this was also a prime fishing spot. The entire night was spent hearing the local fisherman motoring around the boat and Dad watched one of them drop a net uncomfortably close to the French boat’s anchor.  We were exposed to the end effects of the chop in the sea and it was a bumpy night, but the anchor was holding so it didn’t really matter.