After six days in Istanbul at the awful Atakoy marina we topped up with diesel (expensive in Turkey at lire 3.37 a litre) on Saturday 19th June. When coming to settle up the marina fees we found it was not possible to pay at the marina office but we had to go to the "pay office" a mile away up the road and out of the marina. We can not recommend this marina at all.
The first stop was planned to be the island of Marmara again but this time we had seen on the chart a small bay on the northern side of the island that was in a more direct line back to the Dardenelles so despite the NE'ly blowing we thought it looked a likely bay. The 15 knot breeze and direction gave us a good genaker ride for several hours of the 60 mile passage and we were followed by what turned out to be around a 120 mile race from Istanbul to a rounding mark off the SE corner of Marmara Island. The first four boats were sailing the angles with genakers and got in front of us (all bigger race boats with black sails) as we trundled along with the wind well aft and no gybing.


Genaker ride to Marmara island
The bay turned out to be quite pleasant with a sandy beach and located so that it gave us good shelter behind a headland, one other yacht there and another arrives shortly after us. The notable feature of the bay was that above it were a series of marble mines and slabs of marble were being cut out and the huge blocks then trucked to the bay and loaded onto a ship by a container crane - one block at a time.


Marble mines on Marmara Island
The word marmara is apparently the Turkish word for marble and the island is thus marble island. It was good to be back at anchor after six days in a marina. The following day was another 60 mile run to Canakkale (pronounced Cha-nark-a-lay) and back to the quayside facility we had been at 8 or 9 days before. Unsuccessfully tried to find a restaurant recommended by the Australian couple we had met on the Gallipoli tour and ultimately ended up at what looked like a popular waterfront place where they did do good fish dishes.
A lot of tourists come to Canakkale as it serves as the departure point for Gallipoli tours as well as the ancient city of Troy on the coast to the south west. So on Monday 21st June we boarded the Hassle Free Tours bus (from their office and backpackers hotel at Anzac House) for a three hour tour of Troy. At the site there is, as expected, a big wooden horse - but not as good as the one at Canakkale which is the one from the Brad Pitt film. Troy is on quite a hill and is the site of nine cities called Troy that spanned from around 150 BC to 350 BC. As each city was destroyed by fire or earthquake it was rebuilt on the same site. As the earlier cities were built of mud-bricks the hill gradually grew. The ruins are not impressive in the sense that wonderful columns or statues have been discovered but rather that to date they have only excavated 10% of the site and in places it is possible to see the nine layers of construction. It seems very much the poor relation as compared to over archaeological sites in Turkey and the walkways etc are poorly maintained. The guides were unable to say whether the wooden horse and Helen are figments of Homer's imagination but if they are true they reckon that it must have been Troy 2 where Helen resided.


Troy archaelogocal site
We then had the afternoon at Canakkale to have a look around the town and in particular to partake of a Turkish haircut - this time around no flames were produced however the cut may have well been a complete shave. No hair to blow in the wind for several weeks I think! This exercise was completed with a shoulder and neck massage - and when Pam walked ion she got the massage treatment also. We had received an email from Rob & Jackie on Arwen (EMYR friends) who had passed through about 10 days before us and they noted the difficulties in checking out of Turkey from Canakkale which took several hours and several long taxi rides.


The Britt Pitt film version of the wooden horse

One of the guys at the "marina" office proclaimed himself as an agent so we used his services at a huge cost (EUR150) to handle the check out and then found that the Customs officers (some 15 k's away) wanted to see us also so the agent had to drive us out to the Customs office.
It was blowing hard from the NE while we were at Canakkale and we were on the inside berth, one boat back from the corner, and with a lot of local boats tied at the right angle to us I could see some challenges in actually getting out of the berth. Fortunately the Russian boat next to us left early and we were able to run a line from our bow to the next boat along (very helpful Swedish owners) and get the bow head to wind, drop all lines and then plenty of rev's. Got a reefed mainsail up in the straits outside the marina and then it was a blast at 11 knots for a few hours while we were carried by the current and strong winds for the 50 mile odd passage to the Greek island of Limnos (or Lemnos). Had a great sail and rather than go around to the town of Limnos on the western side of the island we pulled into the big bay called Ormos Moudhrou and anchored in a small bay called Freshwater Bay. This had a nice sandy beach, covered in day tripper deck chairs etc but by early evening the place was deserted. Still blowing hard but we got a good anchor down in about 8 metres on a sandy bottom. Temperatures only in low to mid 20's and quite cool in the evenings. Ormos Moudhrou was the Allies base for the launch and supply line for the Gallopoli invasion and it was hard to visualise the bay filled with destroyers, battleships and transport ships.
The following day we motored around to the town of Limnos and tied up on the town quay. Unfortunately, and still blowing hard across the quay, we were upwind of a German couple on an 11 metre boat who complained about everything we were doing - e.g. not enough fenders out, we were too big next to them, our anchor was on the wrong angle etc. We were in fact not that comfortable with the cross wind so in the end we decided to relocate and anchor in the bay 100 meters off the quay - this was much better as while windy at least we got some breeze to keep the boat cool.
There was another kiwi yacht here and Alister swam out to say g'day. He and his wife live on the yacht (an Island Packet design from the USA) and left New Zealand some years earlier and sailed to the Med.
Cheers
Pam & Keith