Dinner on the Anna M

The trip from Kemer to Karabiga was yet another day of rough seas and lots of wind.  I am going to quote my Dad again because he sums it up in a nutshell:

Trying to stay warm over here.  When most people think of going sailing they are wondering what SPF to bring not which set of long johns to put on!

We made a short 20 mile jump from Kemer to Karabiga in about 8 hours.  I thought we had made it through the opposing current but managed to find another stretch of about 2 kts.  25 kt wind, on the nose 3-4 ft chop 50 degrees, all making for a very long day.

It was a long day.  I took a Dramamine to avoid being sick, but one of the major side effects is it knocks you out.  I was sitting on deck trying to stay warm in my long underwear, sweater, and jacket and my eyes kept closing.  I told Dad I couldn’t keep them open and needed to close them for a minute and I ended up passing out in a sitting up fetal position.  I was curled up trying to stay warm and my head tucked in and I was out.  When I woke up everything was stiff and hard to stretch out, but I felt 10x better.

We got to Karabiga and was trying to figure out where a yacht was supposed to go.  This is a major shipping port. The book says they load coal and marble into dry cargo carriers and that a yacht should be able to anchor in the breakwater or pull up to the wall.  Now when we pulled into the harbor area there were two big cargo ships being loaded and a car/truck ferry sitting there.  There was NO way we would be able to dock or anchor anywhere near those ships and come out unharmed.  We went to the other side where the fishing boats were docked and were going to anchor in the harbor within the breakwater.  A man on the dock started to whistle at us and told us it got shallow really quick and sure enough out depth sounder began to beep at us.  He motioned to a space on the cement dock behind a line of big fishing boats and Dad and I gritted our teeth and prepared to back in. 

Part of the crew from a big ship on the other side of the dock came out to help us dock and get everything set.  We were trying to figure out how we were going to get onto the dock since the cement dock was meant for much bigger ships than ours it is about a foot up from the top of our back railing.  We ended up rigging the wooden board we have as a backup gang plank and one of the crew members helped us do this.  We asked him where a good restaurant was and he left for a minute and came back saying if we wanted to go to an authentic Turkish restaurant his captain would like for us to dine on board with them.  We were a little hesitant since there are 9 men on board and we weren’t sure if there would be an escape route, but said why not and accepted the invitation.

This was dinner.  In a fishing town it doesn’t get much fresher than this.  The captain bought the fish off of a boat and this is how they prepare the fish in Turkey.  They literally take the fish and chop it into pieces, bones and skin and anything else in or on the fish and then cook it.

They had a small grill on the dock that the fish was being cooked on with onions.  The man putting the fish on apparently worked at a pizza place in Tampa in 1999?  That’s what I think he said at least and is the ship cook.  The man with the white hair with his face towards the camera was who invited us to dinner and the man with his back to us is the ship captain.

We ate in the officer’s dining room, but it didn’t look any different than the other dining room.  I was surprised at how nice everything was in the ship.  There was a TV where we were eating and curtains on the windows.  Dinner was the fish, which we ate with our hands to pick out the bones before actually eating it, a salad of cabbage and onions, and garlic soup which is eaten before the meal.  There was fresh bread and they even brought out a bottle of water for us.  Then we were shown into one of the sitting rooms where Turkish tea was served and we all talked about retirement and what the government does.  The man who invited us on board, seen behind me, it turns out is only 52… Dad and I thought late 60s – 70s for sure. 

We were given the grand tour and got to go up to the bridge of the boat.  It had a lot of the same things we have on our boat, radar, AIS, compass.  There was a room with a bed right by it though which makes you wonder whether or not the person on watch is watching the water or inside of his eyelids.

This is the Anna M.  It’s on the smaller size as far as dry cargo cruisers go, but it still make the Pipedream look like a dingy.  I really enjoyed getting to go onto the ship and see what it looked like inside.  The company was very nice and the dinner was good.

After we got off the ship, we ran into the French sailor who we had seen in Canakkale and Kemer.  He was anchored outside of the harbor and we asked if he wanted to get a glass of wine in town.  It turned out there were no bars or even open restaurants in town that served alcohol so we invited him on board and had a bottle in the cockpit. 

His name is Gigier, we are still having some trouble pronouncing it, and he is working his way up to Istanbul also.  He has lived on his 32ft sailboat for 13 years now and is still employed.  He works on an accommodations barge for oil workers off of the Congo in western Africa.  He is at sea as an electrician for 5 weeks and then gets 5 weeks off which he spends sailing from port to port.  Not a bad life.  He’s sailing alone and Dad is familiar with how hard it is to meet people when you are alone on the boat.  He made a comment about how I am his ticket into things like dinner on a cargo cruiser.

We aren’t plugged into power at all so running the heat isn’t an option.  It got super cold at night and the next day. Dad and I went to a local cay (tea) house and there was a great stove in the center of the building that made it cozy and pleasant.  We watched fisherman make their nets and enjoyed our hot tea.  We asked the guy running it where to get lunch and he pointed across the one road in town to a Ma and Pop restaurant that was filling up fast.

I know it’s sort of hard to see Dad but I like this photo because you can see where they are loading and unloading the cargo ships in the background. 

The lunch was delicious.  You got a tray and got whatever was made that day.  We happened to get Turkish meatballs, fried potatoes, a chicken and vegetable in red soup, white rice, and a piece of dessert which was like shredded wheat in honey and made into a dessert bar.  All of this plus a Pepsi cost us 13TL for 2. 

After lunch we went back to the boat and I was determined to make peanut butter cookies.  So I started making those and Gigier came back with fuel jugs. There is no fuel dock and Dad went asking about a truck and they didn’t have one.  Gigier had two containers to move about 25 liters of fuel and he said Dad could borrow them if he wanted.  So Dad spent the rest of the afternoon making the half mile walk to the gas station and back.  He went about 5 times and was able to make a little bit of a dent in our tanks.  I assisted by holding up a paper town to catch any of the drips that tried going into the water.  There are huge fines here for getting diesel in the water.  I don’t think they care so much in this port, but we wanted to be safe and not sorry.

I made lemon chicken for dinner and officially shucked fresh peas for the first time in my life.  We invited Gigier over for dinner and had a great time.  Two and a half cheap bottles of wine later we had a dinner party going and made a new friend. 

We ended up spending a second full day in Karabiga because of the wind which was a good idea.  It was spent catching up on blogs, returning for a home cooked meal at lunch, and Dad fixed the gang plank which split a little about two weeks ago.  We were adventurous here and I would say even though the city doesn’t have a whole lot to offer, it was will be a lasting memory that will stand above the rest.

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.

Somber History Lesson

The Gallipoli Peninsula lies to the north of the Dardanelles.  There was a major campaign in the First World War was fought there and today is known as the place where 50,000 Allies and almost twice as many Turks were killed for control of the shipping traffic of the Dardanelles.  It is also where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk rose to power and became a house hold name in Turkey.

We took the ferry across the Dardanelles to meet our tour guide. Outside of the Crowded House Hotel (which is an Australian hostel type of hotel where we were told to meet) was a fish shop and this cat seemed to know exactly where to go.

This was our tour guide at the first stop.  He has been giving Gallipoli tours for 15 years now and was very into sharing everything there was to share about the campaign.  The tour cost, 55TL per person, included and English speaking guide, ferry transportation to and from Canakkale/Gallipoli, bus transportation to all of the memorials and battlegrounds, and lunch. 

We stopped at a small museum to begin the tour and learned that the Allied forces were trying to gain control of the Dardanelles.  Winston Churchill was in charge of the plan and they highly underestimated the Turks.  The British and French troops began to enter the Dardanelles with their ships and were unsuccessful because the Turks had laid underwater mines like this one along the entrance of the straights.  After those blew up and sunk a few ships and the current and land fighting sent them back, the Allies decided to call for reinforcements.

A WWI shank!  It was actually a bayonet.  This fight was one of the bloodiest and worst hand to hand combat fights of WWI.

This is Anzac Cove.  So when the British realized they needed more help, they called in the assistance of the Australians and New Zealanders.  Now when we looked at a map, Dad and I could not figure out the geographical logic of enlisting the Anzac’s for this particular mission, but it was done.  They were supposed to land on Brighten Beach which was a flat coastal area, but because they were coming in at night and had navigational errors they landed here instead.  Looking at a nice rocky cliff face that they had to climb up and over to get to the top ridge.

This is on the mountain side of Canakkale.  May 18, 1915 is the day the Turks commemorate the war.  There was 9 months of trench warfare but only 2 main fighting dates that stand out in history, May 18^th for the Turks and April 25^th for the Anzacs.  On the 25^th the Anzacs made it to Chunk Bair (the objective highest point on the peninsula) and on May 18^th Ataturk claimed the point back.

This statue of a Turkish soldier carrying and Anzac was a nicer story that we heard that day.  The Anzac soldier was wounded and on the Turkish side of the line pleading for help, the Turkish soldier left his trench to pick up the wounded soldier and place him back on his side of the line so his people could help him get better.  The Turks were fighting for their land, but in such terrible conditions, they were both essentially fighting for someone else and had moments of humanity.

This is the Australian Memorial at Lone Pine Cemetery.  It bears the names of the Australian and New Zealand soldier with unknown graves killed during the war.  This was as far as the Anzacs got the entire war.  The single pine tree comes from the single tree left on the battlefield after the others were all cut down for fire wood.  The tree shown is actually a great great grandtree of the original tree that was standing during the battle.

This is the one American who fought during the campaign.  He had moved to Australia and was killed at age 21 during the May 15^th battle.  The youngest soldier was only 14 and had lied about his age to “Travel to exotic lands and see Europe” like the government was advertising.

There are over 50 Turkish mini-memorials scattered around the battle fields and this is on erected at Anzac Cove.  It reads, “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives!  You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace.  There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.  You, the mothers who sent their sons from far-away countries, wipe away your tears.  Your sons are now lying in our bosom, and are at peace.  After having lost their lives on this land, they have become out sons as well.” – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

This is the Turkish Memorial on Chunk Bair.  This is what the Allies wanted to occupy, but never got the chance.  Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) became a hero when he told his men, “I order you not to just fight, but to die” which is exactly what they did.  The line managed to hold and the Turks won, with over 200,000 of their men killed, wounded, or missing. 

I wore my Ataturk t-shirt since once we are out of Turkey, I won’t have many places to wear it.  This is still part of the Chunk Bair memorial, but it took a bus to get there.  Behind me is Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) who told everyone else to die and would have except when he got shot the bullet hit the pocket watch over his heart.  Dad was noticing how the highest ranking casualty listed on the Turkish side was major and then stopped. 

This is a view of the peninsula from the ferry across.  You can see another of our friends, the big ship, and a memorial on the side of the mountain.  It apparently translates to, “Stop, O passerby. This earth you tread unawares is where an age was lost.  Bow and listen, for this quiet place is where the heart of a nation throbs.”

It was a very educational and somber day of touring for us.  We learned a lot about the campaign and the guide was very thorough so it felt like we were there. 

A fun side note was that on the tour was a professional basket ball player who normally plays on one of the Turkish teams.  He is from either Australia or America (we couldn’t tell) and was about 6ft 11in maybe?  Huge guy who was injured and I guess touring with his girlfriend. 

We had Burger Turk for lunch before the tour (uncertain of what we would be served and I was happy I had the chicken sandwich when our juice box and goat cheese sandwich came out) and for dinner we found London Kebap which served the BEST chicken doner I have had yet.  The chicken was seasoned just right and there was a lot of it in the wrap.  It was delicious.

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

We had heard mixed reviews about Troy.  Fodor’s says what a person will get out it depends on his or her imagination.  I think in this case a lot also had to do with a person’s knowledge of Homer and the story he told about Troy. 

This is the horse from the movie Troy.  We have heard rumors that Brad Pitt actually donated the horse to the city of Canakkale, but have no proof of that.  There was a sign that did conform that it was the horse from the movie though.

Dad had read both the Iliad and the Odessy and this was one of the highlights of his trip.  I haven’t read either, but I still really enjoyed the site and thought it had a lot more to offer than people were giving it credit for.  We had heard it was literally a pile of rocks and to the average eyes it sort of is, but to professional ruins sniffers like Dad and myself, and with the assistance of well labeled and explained plaques that lines the tourist path, we got a lot out of it.

I did research online the night before to see where the bus stop in Canakkale was that would take us to Troy.  The directions said to go two traffic circles, take a right, and the bus station is located under the bridge.  I didn’t realize how literal these directions were. This is the bus station and as you can see it’s under a bridge.

We got the schedule mixed up and thought we had an hour to kill before the next bus so Dad and I wandered around the bridge area and were happy to discover the Friday market.

This market was twice the size of the Kemer market we had been so impressed with.  Aisles and aisles of produce, olives and olive oil, dough and pasta, clothes, and anything else you could put on a table and sell.  The produce here was displayed in bulk and in some cases sold in bulk.  We asked a lady how late the market ran and she said as late as 8:00pm so we decided to stock up on our way back from the daily trip.

This was also the clothes market.  In Kemer it was two separate days, but here it’s a one stop shop.  Dad took this photo of a clothing vender standing on a crate to see over his stand.  There were clothes on display from ceiling to table and woman pushing their way from table to table trying to get the best deal.  It reminded me of Christmas shopping at the mall.

This is the horse at the actual site of Troy!  If you look really close you can see Dad smiling at the top.  There were stairs so you could climb up to the top and invade the city.  The Iliad was written 500 years after the actual war that took place between the Trojans and the Greeks so it’s hard to tell how much was fact and how much was fiction. 

Dad didn’t have the Iliad on board, but he did have the Odyssey.  The Iliad was the war story that introduced Odysseus.  To sum up the story Helen was captured and King Menelaus, her husband, wanted her back.  A thousand ships were launched to get her back and 10 years later and with the help of a few gods, they were still fighting.  Odysseus ordered a huge wooden horse to be built and they left it at the gate of the city with men inside.  The Greeks pretended to sail away and the Trojans took the horse in as a gift.  They partied and fell asleep and the Greeks that were hidden inside the horse let themselves out, opened the city gates, and let the army in to take control of the city.  Easy as pie.

The 5000 year old city has many layers, like an onion… or Shrek.  This diagram and photo show that there were at least 4 layers to Troy and possibly up to 38 total layers of settlements in this spot.  Heinrich Schliemann poured his wealth into the excavations and is considered the person who “discovered” Troy and the other civilizations on top or underneath it.

It was very windy on top of the hill.  There was a point where we could look out at very fertile farm land and actually see the Mediterranean Sea.  Everything was very green and we got to see more cows.

This is the ceiling of a Temple of Athena.  If you look closely you will see a head of broccoli.  Dad and I were so excited to find broccoli at the market, we didn’t want to wait to purchase it and bought it before our trip to Troy.  I thought since I was carrying it around the entire day, I would at least get a photo taken with it.  So broccoli, Mow, and myself posed with the ceiling from a famous pagan temple.  (The major vegetable sold in Turkey, at least during this time of year, is the green pepper.  It’s served at every meal and there are mountains of it at the market.)

This is a sanctuary.  As you can see there is still a lot of excavating and restoration that needs to be done.  There are so many places that need help, and not enough patrons to pay for it.  We were able to use our imagination to piece the places together, but for someone who hasn’t been to as many ancient sites as us, this may see unimpressive.

I wanted a photo of Dad and I in front of the horse, so we got one.  There was a very small museum there which was sponsored but the University of Colorado or something like that and didn’t have a whole lot to show.  It reminded me of the rec room in Wisconsin and smelled like cat spray.

We made it back with more than enough time to shop at the market and walked back to the boat hauling bags of fresh produce.  This was a highlight of Dad’s trip and I really enjoyed it too.

The Dardanelles: Take 1

I think the best way to describe our initial trip into the Dardanelles is through an e-mail blog my Dad wrote.  It’s a little technical, but I will add comments as it goes.

It took us about 9 hours to go 22 miles today.(We thought it would only take us around 4-5 so we left early hoping to be tied up by around noon at the latest.  It was 3:00pm before we even saw the port)  Left Bozcaada at day brake and had a pretty uneventful trip up to the entrance of the Dardanelles other than lots of big ships all around us.  We could literally see six or seven Panamax ships at any given time comming and going.(Total I would say we saw 25-30 BIG ships.  It was interesting to see all of the shapes and sizes the ships come in)    A couple of miles outside the entrance(of the Dardanelle straights) we started to pick up the opposing current.  By the time we got to the entrance we were getting at least 3 knots and maybe 4.  We had been told to watch the eddies (This is where the current is “bumping” the ground where it gets shallower.  It actually stops the current and turns it another way.  You can see a disruption in the water and there is a big noticeable difference where it is calmer.) and try to be just outside them on the Asia shore side (We were literally sailing between Europe and Asia which was awesome) but in the narrow spots there is just no water to float the boat.

We have left spring behind.  The further north we are getting, the colder it is getting.  I understand this is how the weather works, but it was like we woke up one morning and it was cold.  Being on the water and strong winds don’t help the situation.

This is a ship heading towards the entrance.  It’s a couple of miles away from us, but you get an idea of what we were on watch for.

At the worst of it with the 25 kt head wind and the 3 kt current we were making about 1.5 kts over the ground with the engine on full.(The current was pushing us back in the water and the wind was right on our nose pushing us back above water.  With the engine on full throttle in calm we can get up to 8 knots and we were only making 1.5 like Dad said.  We were essentially going up stream and weren’t getting very far at all.)  We passed a French sail boat tacking like crazy between the ships with the engine running.  I thought the guy was Joe sailor but when he pulled into the marina he said he had the engine on full and had to sail all out to make any headway at all. (We passed him going 1.5 knots.  He said the most he could get is .5 knots.)  At one point we went by a buoy and could see the current pushing it over (like a heavy tidal flow in Florida) and could have walked by it faster.

Congo line!  The three ships shown were exiting the Dardanelles where we were entering.  There is a shipping lane that yachts are advised to stay out of.  These guys were riding the current out on the opposite side of the shipping lane.

This is the French boat tacking very near and in some cases in front of the big ships.  He has a 32ft boat and is about a mile away from the ship.  I think this is a good example of sailing yacht to cargo ship ratio.

We got to the marina and tried a crosswind landing (backing up) .   I almost lost it into the bows of a row of moored boats spun around in a circle and went in bow first.  The guys on the dock were all speaking Turkish and smiling a lot... no English speakers at the marina, a first.  Big problems
getting on and off the boat from that end (There are people who can easily get on and off their boats by bow, we aren’t those people.  The metal railing on the bow extends past the actual front of the boat by about a foot, maybe two.  It’s enough that I cannot keep one foot on the deck of the boat and climb over the very front.  We rigged a gang plank but eventually decided it was easier to just climb through the rails from the side and hold onto the stay sail shroud like a jungle gym.  We also removed the anchor to have a place to put our foot as we climbed on and off using a tire that was tied to the dock as a fender as a boost up.  It was a challenge, but we were happy to get off of the boat.) but I kissed the dock and we went out for dinner and a big Raki to celebrate and unwind from yet another safe arrival.  Are we having fun yet?

I personally still am having fun.  I know it sounds like we are encountering a lot, but that is part of the deal.  It is a true adventure and nobody can deny that.