Dave and Brian's Excellent Adventures

The last of my day off included a trip to Cheroseneses. Cheroseneses (Which is spelled incorrectly, I'm sure, is pronounced "Care-Oh-Sen-Nieces") is a village that has been around for several thousand years. But no one has ever excavated it, because most of the Archeologists couldn't get to it, until AFTER the Cold War ended. So, in 1992 Dr. Joe Carter left the United States and was the first one in the city, and what he found was startling. He found thousand year old tombstones that still had the original paint on them, sitting in a warehouse somewhere, wasting away. He started a fund for a museum and is working to turn the city into a worldly recognized historically place (Top picture).

Today, on the other hand, we're on our way to Istanbul, Turkey. Where we will be picking up water, diesel fuel, groceries and more people. Istanbul is the only city in the world that is on two different continents: Europe and Asia. To get out of the Black Sea, towards the Mediterranean, you have to pass through the Bosphorous Straight. This is a bottle neck. If you get there when the boat traffic is moving the direction you want, you're fine. If not, you have to wait somewhere between 12 minutes and 12 hours for the direction of the shipping lanes to change. When we got there the ships were going the wrong way. Oh, my Goodness.

The Captain got on the radio and talked with the "Straight Pilot" (The guy that gives directions to ships as they pass through tricky waters, typically when coming in and out of a harbour. Those guys are Harbour Pilots. I don't know what this pilot would be called, so I gave him a name). The pilot showed up 20 minutes later. It seems that since we're a little ship, he could get us in there. Otherwise we'd have to wait in the parking lot outside the Straight (Middle picture. All of the bumps on the water are all of the shipping containers waiting to get through the Straight). It's supposed to take 3 hours to get to Istanbul. It took 2. When we asked the question of how it took so little time, the captain shrugged, and said, "That's the first time the Pilot has come on board and said, 'Full steam ahead'. So we did." I like that guy!

When we were in Yalta, to get through Customs, the officials came on board, looked at our paperwork and passports, ran out passports through their computer, made us go to our rooms so they could match our faces with the pictures on our passports. It typically took two hours. Everyone that had been on the ship earlier, when they came through Istanbul, said it would be quick. They come on board, check our paperwork and passports, and give us Landing Cards, which are what we're supposed to show the officials when we leave and come back to the dock. Well, the customs guys forgot the sheets. They took forever to come back with our Landing Cards. It took three hours. Oh, well. (Bottom picture is of the sky line)