The exit of the harbour of Sevastopol is facing west and thus you sail east while going in. With the sun rising in the East it means that you have the sun in the face and that makes it difficult for scenic viewing. We had to wait until we were past the first land on the starboard side before we could view the surroundings by looking aft instead of forward. The pilot boarded right on time and we then continued at slow speed towards the entrance. There is a speed limit of 6 knots all the way in, so it takes time to get to the dock, whether we like it or not. But as it was a beautiful morning, we did not mind and binoculars were applied frequently by the deck officers while I kept conning the ship to the dock. The pilot came on board with a VHF and two cell phones and was fully occupied with receiving calls and talking to other people. I did not know that it was so complicated to get into the port, that the whole world had to be called, but he kept at it. In between he smoked bad quality cigarettes on the bridge wing. Continue reading

Sinop is a small resort like town, with a promenade and little café’s tucked away behind a small peninsula. This Peninsula is basically a hill sticking out of the water and it provides shelter from Northerly winds. Those blow quite often in the summer hence the reason why the town is built on the south side and not on the north side of the hill although there is a nice bay as well. They must have built a two finger pier there in the recent past as it looked fairly new; with the North finger being reserved for larger ships, mainly ferries and the longer South finger for use by fishermen and other small craft. That pier also acts as a breakwater so at the inside a sort of Marina was created. Apart from a Harbor masters office there is no port infrastructure what so ever, so we just did our thing and kept approaching until somebody started squawking on the VHF. Continue reading

This was an interesting experience. I had been advised that the pier was 300 meters long and I knew that I had to be careful because of cranes on the dock. Cranes that could not moved away and were extending over the edge of the dock as well. So with an extra officer near the lifeboats (as they stick out from the side of the ship, I thought that everything had been taken care of. Wrong. When the pilot came onboard, he happily told me that there were ferries at the North end of the dock and that there was a coal ship at the south end of the dock. But, the good news was also that there was 240 meters reserved for us so we fitted in. The Prinsendam is 204 meters long and yes that is sufficiently space but it was calculated without taking into account that the width of the coal ship would take another 20 meters away from the 240 during the swing. The 240 meters was only there, when the stern would be past the coal ship. Oi, and also he forgot to mention that the ferry ahead of us had its lines running from the bow over the water to the dock, taking another 10 meters away. Continue reading

After our midnight exit from the Bosporus we entered the Black Sea on an easterly course. We hugged the Turkish coast for the whole day as our next port of call Trabzon is located in Turkey in the South East corner of the black sea. Thus we followed the coast in a more or less straight line and depending on the contours of the coast it was sometimes closer and some times further away. It also gave us the chance to find out if the Black Sea was really black. Well it is not, it is more brownish. However the people who named it found the waters black so they called it the Black Sea. The Romans spoke about the friendly sea because of its fertile waters. Continue reading

In most cities things quiet down during the night, but Istanbul, together with New York and Hong Kong never seems to slow down. I was expected that the traffic on the river would come to a standstill during the night, apart from the thru traffic in the Bosporus but not at all. Maybe the total count of the local ferries went down but the river looked as busy at 11 pm in the evening as it had been at 3 pm. yesterday when we arrived. The big-a-boate- mentioned yesterday arrived indeed and thus there were three cruise ships in port today. Ranging from the very big Costa liner with 2500 via the Prinsendam of 800 to the very small Minerva with less than 300 guests on board. Continue reading

The Dardanelles are of course in Turkey but to get there you have to sail through the Greek islands. Some of those islands are much closer to Turkey than they are to Greece. On the west of an island it might be 10 miles away from the nearest other Greek island but less then a mile away from the Turkish mainland coast. As there is sometimes a bit of friction between Greece and Turkey, just think about the Cyprus issue, it is amazing to see how much the two countries are intertwined as far as their border is concerned and how well it all works. At least for us. Thus we made our way towards the Dardanelles by sailing around several Greek islands to get here. Continue reading

Today we visited the first Turkish port of our cruise. After Kusadasi; Istanbul, Trabzon and Sinop will follow. Kusadasi is the port of entry for the tours to Ephesus; known from the Biblical days of the apostle Paul. Apart from that main attraction, the area has several other things on offer, not the least the good shopping that is available in the town, with the emphasis on leather. A number of years ago they built two new finger piers here and since then the calls by cruise ships have more than quadrupled. There are days when all piers are full and occasionally a ship might even have to anchor. The town it takes its name from is a little island to the West of the port. Translated Kusadasi means Bird Island. Nowadays this island is connected by a causeway with the main land so that the castle on it is much easier to get to, so it is not really an island anymore. Since last year the promenade in front of the port even boosts a Dutch Restaurant, with real Dutch coffee so Kusadasi is really getting there. Continue reading

When I approach Santorini with the ship I always have to remind myself that, no we are not crazy and yes in this case it is normal to sail into a Volcano crater. It is big enough and there is plenty of water but still it is a bit strange to do so. However it is an impressive experience when you sail around the central volcano cone towards the East shore where the most important villages are located. There are two entrances to the area, one from the South West and one from the North West. As we were coming from the Lower West we used the SW entrance as it was the shorter route. Continue reading

It was busy during the night when sailed around the south point of the Peloponnesus. I counted 75 ships on the radar at one given time in a radius of 24 miles. They all behaved as they should but we had a little excitement when 3 miles ahead of us a little German coaster suddenly flipped on all his red lights. Five seconds later a very German accent came on the VHF announcing that he was not under command (e.g. could not control his ship) as there was air in the fuel lines to the main engine. Main engines do not like that very much so his engine had stopped operating. While they were solving that issue, the little coaster was drifting help less right in the middle of the shipping lane. Continue reading

With a flat calm sea and the sun rising over the horizon we arrived at 07.00 at the pilot station of Katakolon. Ahead of us was the MSC Musica which was scheduled to dock at the outer breakwater. This is a 90.000 ton ship and carries 2500 lower beds and over 3000 when full. That spoiled it a little bit, as Katakolon is a little bit too small to take such an invasion. However she was only going to stay to until 2 pm. and thus our guests had the town all to themselves during the afternoon. The good news was that we, being the smaller ship, could dock at the downtown pier and that meant less then a 1000 feet to walk to the town with it’s shops and tavernas. Katakolon is a very nice place to go to. Continue reading