Our wishes were answered again and it warmed up. With the warmth though came a serious lack of wind and the days spent on the water were pretty uneventful.
We anchored at a place called Cakikoy which showed the possibility of a quay in the book, but when we got there realized the fishing boats of the Sea of Marmara had claimed the quay and were in 5 deep at least, meaning there was one guy tied up to the dock and 4 guys tied up to him. How anyone would get out is beyond me. So we decided to anchor in the harbor which wasn’t a problem until around midnight when a row boat full of teenage boys was circling our boat and the other two boats anchored out. They considered themselves the welcome committee, but were just annoying. Dad and I were at the end of The Departed, which neither one of us had seen, and it sounded like someone had boarded our boat. Dad went up and ended up sitting on deck for about 20 minutes while they circled yelling out “Hello” and then speaking in rapid Turkish. The next day we found cigarette butts on our deck and neither one of us slept well that night. For the first bad experience with the Turkish people though this wasn’t too bad.
This is the French sailboat that has been stopping at the same spots we have. He anchored out at Cakikoy also and is headed towards Yalova, which is a port outside of Istanbul.
We had a big bay to cross with nothing between here and there so we got up early and started trucking. We motored the entire way and at one point had between 0 and 0.7 knots of wind as the average. The sun came out and it got pretty warm. Half way there and we got a call on the VHF radio which has rarely happened. I called Dad up on deck and it was the Coast Guard saying we had to move farther away from the penal colony we were passing. Imrali Adasi is an island in the Sea of Marmara and is a penal colony. Our book said we had to be 3 meters off shore when passing the island and we were, but when the Coast Guard called they said it was now 4 meters so they gave us a course and we followed.
This is the penal colony we were told to stay away from. We weren’t sure if there was an actual prison on the island or if they just dumped people there with a shovel and bag of seeds and said “See ya”. It was a hazy day which made it a little bit eerie.
We went through a shipping lane at some point and there was an empty ship that looked like it was on a collision course with us. When Dad checked AIS is was going 0.4 knots and when we looked at it with the binoculars there was no anchor chain out. It was either stalling or nap time on board.
I have learned how to tell an empty ship from a full one. The ship sits way out of the water and the water line is visible when empty, as shown. This is a big ship and not something you want to get in the way of.
We had two choices for places to stay and we choose to check out the first one since we were bored, hungry and tired of traveling. Katrili is the harbor name and is described as a small fishing harbor where a yacht can pull in alongside (side to like in the states) on one of the walls of the breakwater or can back in with an anchor. We were shooting to come in alongside since it’s easier and crossed our fingers it wasn’t full. After staring at the breakwater for 30 minutes we found the break water, took the sails down and came on in. There was a harbor master here to help and show us where to go, a handful of fisherman to catch lines, and men, women, and children walking along the promenade. We docked without any trouble at all and the harbor master introduced himself in good English, showed us where the power box was, and brought us a hose to use to fill up our tanks and for anything else we would need water for. We were in the process of filling up our water tanks, which had dried out drastically, when the harbor master came walking up with two glasses of Turkish tea and cookies to welcome us to Esenkoy (the actual town we are in). We were shocked and pleased.
Dad had to rig an electrical cord that would work in the two prong outlet on shore, but it was the only power outlet on the entire quay so we aren’t complaining and like I said there is water right here too which is wonderful. We went to check in and find out how much it would cost to have such luxury and 35TL later we went in search for dinner. There are only a few restaurants open in town so we chose one that had people in it and is apparently run by a family called Cumhur. We both got the Turkish Kebap which is ground lamb and beef grilled on a stick. It was delicious.
The town is bustling with family activity and is a very comfortable place on our first impression. There is no laundry services or Turkcell offices that offer internet dongle resources, but other than that it’s great.
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