Limnos to Cannakale
Minka of Southampton - Cruising Log
Edmund Wigan
Fri 23 May 2014 06:59
I spent a couple of days in Limnos as the wind wasn't helpful and it is a very friendly place. I wrote quite a bit about it when I visited last year.
The trip to Cannakale which is on the Dardanelles is about 75nm. At an average 5kts this is about 15 hours which is a bit long to do in daylight hours. In addition there are currents flowing out of the Dardanelles of up to 3.5 kts and you find these working against you up to 20nm off the Turkish Coast.
I left Limnos at 0200 to ensure that I got to Cannakale in daylight.
We had a really good sail to the Dardanelles which was just as well because the opposing current was a lot stronger than documented.
Entering the Dardanelles there are a few memorials.......
......and some ruined fortifications,
The amount of shipping to avoid is not as bad as I expected with something like this coming up every half hour.
Another memorial.
This shows the speed of the boat. The top figure is the speed we are going through the water measured ultrasonically and the other is the speed over the ground measured by GPS. The difference is the tide or current working against is. So 5.7 less 3.6 means that we had an adverse current of 2.1 kts. The worst difference figure I saw was 3.2 kts.
The only ship which came really close was this one which overtook us passing within 100mts.
There were some more fortifications just before Cannakale. I am going to have a closer look today.
This photo is just to show we did make it just before sunset.
To give an idea of the amount of current against us on this trip the distance was 75nm but we travelled nearly 100 through the water.