Back on the ocean waves...to the gateway to the Orient

After a frustrating year locked down at home we are once again back on our watery adventure!

Melanie and I did manage to get to the boat for 6 weeks in the first half of the year when travelling finally opened up. We had a very pleasant float around the southern Aegian with empty seas and villages and tavernas often to ourselves. 

We headed south from Athens, down to Santorini and the Cyclades, east to Rhodes and the Dodecanes and back to Athens, shown in red on the map.

I am now back on the boat heading for Istanbul, the eastern most point of our adventure. Melanie is not that keen on Istanbul and wanted to do some stuff at home so I am being joined by my long term crew mates, Mike and Gordon and also Andy Fleet for the first time.

 Andy and I flew to Athens on 3rd October for the first leg of our journey. We were storm bound for the first 3 days as 25 knots of Meltemi blew itself out; as we were headed north east, right into the teeth of the wind, we sat it out at anchor.

We finally set sail for Lesvos, at 110 miles a very long day dropping anchor long after dark. The nights are short here now with darkness falling at 7pm.

Lesvos, one of the largest of the Greek islands, is very green on account of the olive and pine trees. It doesn't seem very touristy and going into many of the villages was a wonderful step back in time.

Andy left me on Lesvos and I was joined by Mike. After checking out of Greece we set sail for Istanbul. I have shown our track in purple on the map above. 

A long day put us at the mouth of the Dardenelles where the terrible Gallipoli campaign against the Ottoman empire took place in 1915. We sailed through the anchorage used by the British fleet and on past the two heads where half a million men were landed in the early months of 1915. Two huge monuments stand on the north shore where the bulk of the fighting took place; 50,000 young men from each side lost their lives and another quarter of a million were wounded over the 10 months of the campaign.

Churchill very unfairly took the rap for this military disaster. In fact in was Kitchener's idea, Churchill only got involved when he suggested that the Dardenelles (the channel into the Sea of Marmara and thence to Constantinople as it was known at the time) could be forced by the navy. Churchill was the first lord of the Admiralty at the time, he therefore became the fall guy when it failed.

 

 

It was a great victory for the ailing Ottomans and is much celebrated round here. This huge 'mural' cut into the hillside on the opposite side of the straights, reads 'Stop traveller - March 18, 1915, a reminder to all passing ships that that was the day when the Allied fleet was defeated'. On that day the allied fleet retired to lick their wounds and so the land campaign started

A Turkish army officer by the name of Mustafa Kemal, who rose to prominence in the Gallipoli campaign later became the leader of the new republic and was known as Ataturk, 'father of the Turks'.  Some years after the war, Kemal made an extraordinary tribute to the Allies, their enemy:- 

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 (the allies) and the Mehmets (Turks) to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

A good lesson for mankind. His picture still adorns walls everywhere nearly a century later.

On the south side of the straights is the remains of the ancient city of Troy. Warners brothers made a movie of the great battle, won, legend has it, by the Achaeans using the famous wooden horse.

The film makers gave their replica of the horse to the town where it stands proudly on the waterfront!

 

As the whole of the Black Sea empties out into the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles it isn't surprising that there are current of up to 4 knots flowing out which makes it rather slow going! Sadly the weather hasn't been good here, we have had more in in the last week that the last 2 years put together so our arrival here has been a damp affair.  However, we made it to Canakkale where we got sight of our fist minaret and checked in to Turkey. 

 

 

 

 We did plan to have a few days at Gallipoli first but unusually the winds will not be against us if we head up the Sea of Marmara now so we are taking advantage of that bit of good fortune and heading to Istanbul first; we will do Gallipoli on the way back.

 

The Dardenelles is one of the busiest shipping lane in the world, we shared the waterway with some pretty big lumps of steel!

On to Istanbul!