The sea of Marmara

 

Reaching Istanbul took us to the eastern most point of our sailing adventure. It was now time to head back south and east and begin heading out of the Med.  With Istanbul at our backs we crossed to the south side of the Sea of Marmara for the trip back to the Dardenelles.

Bike is the way to get away from the coast and see a bit of the interior of a country.

Our first ride took us to the ancient city of Bursa.  This area of turkey is much greener than I expected, a testament to the much lower temperatures and higher rainfall than we have had in the Med at this time of year. Roses, green grass and weeping willows, this could have been just about anywhere in England - the antithesis of arid Greece just a hundred miles away!

The recent rain made for some interesting riding on the little roads we seek, good job we have all terrain bikes! 


There is a fair amount of agriculture here; we passed many miles of pear orchards.

By the time we left Bursa a Meltemi was blowing, the strong north easterly wind that dominates the weather patterns here. Having fought our way up here against the prevailing winds it was now time to cash in on our efforts. We charged down the coast at 9 knots with the wind behind us.


Sadly what most characterised this side of the sea of Marmara was the filth. Rubbish everywhere. After a walk along the beach we assumed it was debris blown ashore from Istanbul but on a ride round Banderma it soon became apparent that that these folk take no care at all of their surroundings. Every road and every village was strewn with rubbish, load after load of rubbish tipped off the side of the road down the hill side; very sad.

Arriving back at the boat we discovered that a pedal had come loose on my bike and the threads had become mashed; time for some maritime emergency bike maintenance!


At some point every year something needs doing up our 20 metre high mast, this year was no exception!


From Banderma we had a sleigh ride back to the Dardanelles. With 30 knots of wind behind us we covered 50 miles in just over 5 hours reaching a top speed of 15 knots surfing down the waves; that smashes my fastest previous speed by a large margin! Exciting stuff.


The last leg of the journey back to Canakalle, the gateway to the Dardanelles, was another speedy affair. Wonderful sailing, both banks of the Dardanelles passing us by at great speed and under their new suspension bridge; it will be the longest in the world when it is finished in a year or so's time. We got an interesting view of this marvel of engineering as we passed through at 10 knots with several knots of current underneath us!



We now have a few days at Canakkale to visit the Gallipoli peninsular, the resting place of so may young men killed a hundred years ago and where the Anzacs made their name.

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