From Lesvos to Istanbul

Panic is setting in. No high seas drama or dragging anchor this time. Mum and David are coming to stay and the boat is in a complete mess with six weeks worth of washing and a one inch layer of thick salt over everything! Better find a launderette double quick and get cleaning .

Entertaining the folks is always interesting because of their diverse interests. Mum came to Lesvos for the migratory birds, while David wanted to sail. Mum goes white with fear in anything above a force 2, whilst David's eyes glaze over after a morning's bird watching. What to do? A bit of both and hope for the best. We never found the rare Cinereous Bunting, but Queen Sofia of Spain saved the day by mooring her super yacht next to us. Mum contentedly ticked her off in her copy of the Field Guide to the European Royalty.

Every cruising boat boasts of having dolphins playing on their bow but for 4 long year they have stayed well away from us. Now something magical has happened and Alexina has become a dolphin magnet: they play on our bow, under our hull and all around us. So what has changed? Tiger, at the grand age of 8, has finally discovered that squealing with delight and yelling at the top of her voice“dolphins, dolphins” just frightens them away. Silent, awe-filled observation works so much better.


Tiger has had her ups and downs this month. On the plus side she had not one, but two parties to celebrate her 8th Birthday with lots of children at the first and Grandparents at the second. Grandma and Granddad were overweight on the flight to Lesvos bringing piles of presents! On the down side, our spring cruise of family boats was over. RM1200 headed west at the beginning of May. Maritea stayed another 2 weeks, visiting Evstratios Island and Limnos with us, but then our plans diverged. We will re-join them in two months. Tiger has taken a few weeks to acclimatise to just being with Mum and Dad (and that's putting it politely!)


Here ıs Alexina and Maritea anchored at Lımnos. We would head our dıfferent ways at dawn the next day.

Our next destination, the Dardanelles, needed a great deal of planning. A high level chart was purchased from the UK and we spent hours discussing what would be the perfect weather for the trip. Alexina is a slow boat by modern standards and we would have a current of up to 4 knots against us. So Plan A was to sail overnight to the foot of the Dardanelles, then use a rare southerly wind to help push us up the channel. I was a bit nervous at the thought of a night passage towards one of the busiest waterways in the world, so a few days before the trip I decided to switch on the radar and refresh my skills. The screen lit up but showed nothing at all, despite being in a harbour. Drat! With no radar, our overnight trip was abandoned in favour of 2 day long passages. The winds turned light and southerly and we motor-sailed over glassy waters with big ships to our port and dolphins to our starboard. The photo ıs taken from Alexina as we turn the corner ınto the Dardanelles and pass the Allied Gallipoli War Memorıals.

“Please Mum, can we go to Troy”, said 4 year old Tiger after reading her Greek Myths for the first time. Troy and the Dardanelles are inextricably linked. In ancient times, with no motors to help them, boats could be stuck for months on end waiting for the predominantly North winds to turn Southerly and allow them to sail up the channel. At the foot of the Dardanelles was a large bay to wait in and Troy was right by it, ideally positioned to look after those stranded sailors and profit from them. Situated in a large fertile plateau, it had everything going for it. Nine times Troy was destroyed and nine times it was rebuilt. This leads to a pretty confusing archaeological site that needs a bit of homework before visiting. The setting was exquisite with fields of corn and spring flowers all around, bee eaters flying in the air and well written explanations of the site. And what did Tiger enjoy the most? The climb inside the imitation Trojan Horse, of course!

The Sea of Marmara, separating the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is some 120 miles wide and 40 miles long. We would need to cross it diagonally. Plenty of space for little Alexina, you would have thought. On the chart was marked a large exclusion zone around a Penal Colony to the South of the sea and the shipping channel dominates the North, complete with it's own roundabout. By the time we had marked, slap bang in the middle of chart, two areas of live firing exercise by the Turkish Navy, this left little Alexina with a 500 metre channel to go through.

The end of May finds us at in an anchorage at the south of Heybeliada, one of the Princes Islands. Heybeliada Island is an pine covered oasis of peace and calm where storks soar overhead and cars are banned. However, look from the North of the Island and the spreading metropolis of Istanbul stretches as far as the eye can see. It's presence is felt as Stamboulites bring their city habits to the island and cover it with an astounding amount of litter. Ever so often a large wake rolls in from cargo ships heading towards the Bosphorus. And what of our quiet anchorage today? We woke this morning to four cruising boats gently bobbing. This afternoon, a Saturday, there are 50 boats of every conceivable shape and size. Welcome to Istanbul.