Lapseki, Dardanelles - Çanakkale, Dardanelles

Pyxis
Karen & Richard
Sat 16 Jul 2011 22:58

Saturday 16th July – Lapseki, Dardanelles – Çanakkale, Dardanelles

40:09.135N 26:24.258E

 

Over night there was no wind and the harbour was still.  We slept really well in a totally quiet anchorage, awoke fairly early to a glassy sea and set off for the 20 mile trip to Çanakkale.

 

We decided to cross the shipping lanes and sail down the European (north) side of the Dardanelles so we motored across at a narrow section, going for a gap in the traffic.  As we did so we saw a yacht sailing down the Dardanelles, flying a spinnaker and also crossing the shipping lane but from the north to the south side, straight through the traffic, right in front of a large ship – rather courageous we thought.

 

Once across, we pulled out our genoa and made steady progress with wind and current behind us, obviously overtaken by the guy flying the spinnaker.  Taking his lead, we decided it was time to get out our cruising chute – it doesn’t get used much – but today was perfect with light wind just off the starboard stern quarter and no swell to risk a broach.

 

Once up this gave us an extra knot of speed and we happily cruised along, just at the side the shipping lane so we picked up some current.  After half an hour or so we noticed an entire flotilla of yachts on the horizon behind us, all flying spinnakers, and realised that the yacht we had seen earlier was simply the vanguard of some massive yacht race.

 

These yachts were not the polite, keep out of the shipping lanes, type.  These were the macho racing types, sailing straight down the middle to get the best of the current, taking on the big ships.  Each yacht had about 6 gorillas on board, manipulating the spinnakers for best speed and needless to say we could only look on with envy as they went past at warp 9, though they did incur the frustrated blasts of the big ships at times.

 

Eventually the wind came dead astern and since we can’t gybe the chute easily, we pulled it down and went back to the genoa.  As I motored along waiting for Richard to sort the chute out before pulling out the genoa, it was rather embarrassing to have the guys under sail overtaking us as we were on motor!  We soon had the genoa up and sailed along with the fleet, keeping up surprisingly well as the wind increased.

 

Thankfully they didn’t stop at Çanakkale and have carried on down so we were able to find a berth here at Çanakkale just after lunch.  Needless to say the wind really got up as we came into berth making it suitably challenging as you need to park nose to wind on a downwind berth here. 

 

We have relaxed for a bit this afternoon and were then joined for a drink by the German couple we met in Erdek as they are in the marina too; they had come in before us this morning and had spent the afternoon going around the various authorities to get checked out of Turkey.

 

Lapseki, Dardanelles

 

Lapseki, Dardanelles – Çanakkale, Dardanelles

© Pyxis 2011