Returning to Turkey and Greece

Goodbye Black Sea

Hello One and All




Shipping in the Bosphorus

It is Saturday 28^th September and we are sitting in Poyraz Fishing Harbour at the top of the Bosphorus, Turkey.  It is time to up anchor and move on again towards our winter home in Lefkas Marina on the Island of Lefkada – Greece - in the Ionian Sea.  We still have a lot of miles to cover, but hopefully the autumn will be kind to us with warm days and good sailing conditions.  Also we have the Bosphorus, our “open air” museum, to share with Judith and Graham.  So that is just what we do – up anchor on a lovely sunny morning, cross over to the European side of the strait, and head off towards the heart of Istanbul.  Being my fourth trip along the Bosphorus I become quite the tour guide telling one and all, or whoever will listen, what we are passing!! I am not really a city person, but there is something about Istanbul that other cities don’t have.  Maybe it is because it stands at the crossroads between east and west divided by a stretch of water that has seen more historical events than most others.  But what Istanbul also has is a rich cultural heritage for being the capital of Rome, Byzantine and the Ottoman Empires, in days gone by.  I wanted Judith and Graham to see something of this.

Romania and Bulgaria

Hello Again

Yacht Club, Odessa

Romania and Bulgaria were two of the countries we had not done a lot of homework on.  We had just not had the time, so we really were venturing into the unknown.  First we had to get there. 

Romania has a population of 22.2 million.  Its Communist Government was over thrown in 1989, and, they joined the E.U. in 2007.  It covers an area of 238,000 square kilometres, and its coastline is 225km’s long, from the Danube Delta in the north to the Bulgarian border in the south.  Along the coastline are miles of beautiful sandy beaches which become packed in summertime with holidaymakers.  There are no natural anchorages on its coastline, and, only four ports which yachts can use.  Still each of our stops – three in all – were interesting experiences. 

Harbour Masters Office,
Odessa

Checking out of the Ukraine took a little longer than we planned, then we had some local currency we wanted to spend.  A final coffee down on the waterfront is always a nice way to say goodbye to a place and that is just what we did.  I was also able to get Alec some very yummy pastries for the trip ahead.  So it was not till mid-afternoon that we untied our lines and sailed out of Odessa Port, turned south to run down the coast towards the border with Romania.  Yes another night passage. This leg was 102nm.  It was now overcast and the temperature 19 deg. C.  At first we had to motor as once outside the port we had head winds, and that current, yet again, against us.  This part of the coastline is rather low-lying and once we had passed the large commercial port of Ilyichevsk, it becomes difficult to see much.  Just before dark we were able to raise the sails and move along a little more quickly. Then during the night it started to rain, and yes off in the distance some very active thunderstorm clouds, but this time they stayed well away.  

The Ukraine

Arriving into Yalta



The Crimea Peninsula

 

Hello Again

 

We sat in Samsun waiting for the winds to change to leave for our sail back along the coast of Turkey to Sinop.  The winds were light and variable and the seas rolly with white caps.  This seems to be the norm in the Black Sea, so we decided on a 06.00a.m. start for the 87nm run.  With some tacking, then some motor sailing ( wind and current against us ) we arrived back in Sinop just after midnight.  We anchored outside the fishing harbour as there was no room inside.  Not that we would have entered at that time of night anyway. The following day we took the tender ashore for supply shopping, coffee and to download the weather.  Not sure if the latter will really help as we have found with the three different forecasts we use, they invariably are totally different, and, so is the actual weather from what is reported anyway.  Never mind, we need some guide lines for the trip.  We then proceeded with our check out formalities from Turkey.  Once that was done it was back to SHAMAL for an early night as we will leave on daybreak the following morning.  We are now crossing to Yalta on the south eastern coast of the Crimea – Ukraine.

Fancy Dress Anyone

You may be asking why on earth would anyone want to visit the Ukraine ?  We came into the Black Sea as it is “off the beaten track”. As you will have noticed we like to visit these out of the way places, and the Black Sea is described as one of the most isolated of all the world’s great bodies of water.  We had been forewarned about the challenges of dealing with former communist bureaucracies, but we were up for the challenge.  Also Russia is still closed to cruising yachts on its Black Sea ports, and we felt its boarding countries that were part of the old Soviet Union would give us a taste of what life is like in this corner of the planet.

 

Three Pretty Ladies

Ukraine – population of 45 million.  It is the largest European country.  It still has strong ties with Russia with ethnic Russians making up 17% of the population, and Russian being spoken widely.  We still could not tell the difference between Russian and the Ukraine language.  One thing that still intrigues us is that to visit countries like this one needs a ‘letter of invitation’ to get a visa.  In our case it was our yacht agent in Yalta who wrote it out for us.  Never met the man before!!!!!