We were now getting near to the end of our Black Sea trip.  We left Amasra and headed to a fishing harbour at Kilimli.  The locals rushed to help us with our lines.  A little later a guy arrived with a bag of fish, freshly caught and he insisted we take it.  I had two on the bbq and made fish cakes with the remaining four.  We discovered that they were Palamut (Bonito) which is a mackerel type fish. 

We next arrived at Akçakoca which has a mosque that looks quite impressive from the sea.  It was different to the usual mosques you see, it was a white modern building with a roof that is inspired by the Seljuk Bristle Tent rather than the usual single roof system.  Construction started in 1989 and it was opened in 2004. 

The town was named after a 14^th century, Akçakoca Bey, a Turkish chieftain who captured the area for the Ottoman Empire during the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. 

Along the seafront was a long row of head busts which there is no information about.  However, with some research on one of the busts we believe the head busts relate to people who founded Turkish states, not necessarily within Turkey and for how long that state existed. 

We next went to one of the two anchorages in the Black Sea, Kefken Island, which is in fact a safe refuge for boats.  We stayed here for a couple of nights taking in the tranquillity before we headed off to Sile where our good friend John was meeting us so he could take the journey down the Bosporus with us.

We were visiting Istanbul for the third time this year.  Everywhere was, very very busy lots of queues, not like when we visited in 2020 where we walked straight into places.  Much better for the local economy but not so good for visiting.  We did venture into the Blue Mosque but it was still being renovated although the roof has now been completed.  It was difficult to see as there is so much scaffolding in the building. 

We took John to the only bar in Istanbul we could find previously that sold a beer.  This is where you need to keep your hands in as the tram is touching distance. We also had a cay in the Grand Bazaar.

We’re headed back to another place we’d already been to, West Istanbul Marina, this was so that Ian could replace the fixed prop for a new folding prop replacing the one we, that’s the Royal we, managed to loose.  So up Cuffysark goes again but this time stayed in the slings for a changeover and then dropped back down again.  We saw some ducks have a meeting on the quay. 

There were some strong winds forecast and so we headed to our safe haven on Avasi Island.  The wind was between 18 and 25 knots, thankfully down wind and we were surfing on waves getting up to a maximum speed of 13.4 knots.  You can see how much of the sails are reefed, so those who know Ian, will realise it must have been very windy for him to reef this much! We saw a big group of dolphins.  One of the things we noticed in the Black sea was it was rare not to see dolphins on any trip.

The following morning the wind was so strong we were being pushed on the wall more than we liked so there was nothing for it but to move the boat to the other side of the harbour, which was no mean feat.  With the help of some locals we manged to tie up Cuffysark on the other side which was much calmer. 

The sun hadn’t been out much so Ian decided he would put the generator on which hadn’t been used in nearly two years so as a result he had to do a bit of maintenance.  I was cleaning the side of the boat as the other side of the harbour had lovely new black tyres which leave a big black mark on the boat.  I suddenly heard those immortal words “ oh f**k”.  Next things Ian’s stripping off and jumped into the water to retrieve the cover of the generator.  Panic over!  You’ll be pleased to know he got the generator working. 

We took a taxi into Avasi town and had a nice lunch along the sea front.  Still very windy but hot.  One of the local dogs dug himself a hole in the sand under a table to keep cool and out of the sun. 

September 2022