18 July, 2008

Current Cruise 7 - Sea of Marmara

The Marble sea: well it sure is not as flat as a piece of marble. We entered it via the Dardanelles and the wind and current were against us most of the way.
Sea of Marmara
We entered from the Asean side of the Dardanelles and started to sail again after motoring for two long days.
It was great. The sea was choppy but the wind direction did not make the sailing easy.
We deceided to skip the island of Avsa Adasi due to the lack of good places to stay and headed for Pasalimani Adasi.
The pilot notes that the western entrace should be negociated with care and someone on the bow because Rod Heikell put his boat on top a charted reef!
Entering the area we could see the shallows and the south cardinal mark but no dangers. The port mark was obvious but a lone black mark seemed in the wrong place until
I relised the cone on the top was a starboard mark so we soon changed course and entered a wide shallow bay lined with a few houses set in to hamlets Parsalimani and Harmanlis.
The former has a very stunted spire to the mosque. We anchoed in 9m to the west of the hamlet which turned out not to be such a great idea because
the swell enteres the bay, hits you on the beam. Not an uncoumfortable night but enough to make one move opposite the mosque the next day. We went ashore and found the bakery but no baker.
A young girl let us in and we purchased two great loaves. Hope they were not designated for one of the local families.
Marmara Adasi
We left Pasalimini the next day and shot down wind towards Port Marmara which has a narrow entrance and very little room. We anchored out next to a German boat who had returned from sailing round the world via Oz and SA. The town has a great feel about it. The harbour undertakes repairs to local vessels by dragging them up the hard on two sledges. We saw no mavna vessels just ferries, fishing boats and the odd local yacht. The Thursday market is good although small.
Saraylar
The marble quarries dominate the mountainside above the town and the bay has many empty freighters waiting to be loaded with large blocks of marble. We anchored in a bay NE of the town. It is sheltered but the swell rolls round the point and we had to put out a sterm anchor to settle the boat. The town is creating a swimming beach in the bay with a roped off area, a diving platfoem, shows and fresh water all fringed by a marble faced wall.
Images of the Sea of Marmara are at Marmara

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