A Four Story series Sailing Turkey and Greece.
Click The Photo to Sail With Star Clippers.
https://www.starclippers.com/

 

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Cyclades Tall Ship Odyssey — Our seahorse — the Star Clipper s— flew on 17 winged sails, with Zephyrus commanding which way the spring Zephyrs blew from Athens to Rhodes and the Asia Minor and back on our seven nights Odyssey of the southern Cyclades and Dodecanese Islands. The winds were so important to the ancient mariners that the black figured wind gods were often artistically portrayed and baked into Mediterranean pottery.  Zephyrus is known as the messenger of spring and of flowers and humidity.  The Romans knew Zephyrus as Favonius — the favored wind — the proper wind for our happy sailing on the world’s largest “tall ship” four-masted barkentine — The Star Clipper which can carry 170 passengers.

 

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Windjammin’ To The Island of Roses — The Star Clippers wind-jammed past the southern Cyclades Islands like an ancient Greek trireme and with the power and benevolence of the west winds of the god Zephyrus. Homer mentioned the island of Rhodes in the Iliad as the staging ground for the Greek armada’s D-day assault on the towers of Troy, in Anatolia, now Turkey, which was within a day’s sailing if the winds were favorable.  It was a blissful day and a half at sea from Athens to Rhodes on the world’s largest passenger tall ship — The Star Clipper.  All passengers lined the rail as the harbor master boat came out to greet us and lead us into the inner harbor of the fortified city.

 

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High Notos Winds to Halicarnassus — The southern high winds of the Greek god Notos were blowing favorable for The Star Clipper, following the ancient trade routes from Rhodes to Halicarnassus.  If you were a Classical Greek mariner or philosopher or historian you would have known Bodrum, Turkey as the port of Halicarnassus, on the Ceramic Coast, now the Turquoise Coast, in the region of Caria, but now the Gulf of Gokova, in Asia Minor. Halicarnassus had a long and rich history, with each wave of invaders leaving their mark on the fishing village that the Carians originally founded after the Trojan War (at the time Troy was a Greek city).  Achilles and his Pythian fleet no doubt provisioned here before bobbing farther up the coast to their fate near the Dardanelles, named after the Greek king of the same name. The Dorian Greeks occupied the port and peninsula around 7th century B.C.

 

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Saililng the Caldera — Santorini — There is only one caldera in the world that boats can sail into – the volcanic lagoon of Santorini, Greece. The penultimate way to get there is on the tall ship Star Clipper. We had been experiencing recalcitrant weather along the ancient Anatolian (Turkey) coast for some time; we were logged to make a stop at the Dalyan River for the mud baths and old Lycian ruins and temples, but the motor launches from shore could not get out to the ship lying in deeper water.  We berthed farther down theTurquoise Coast and some passengers were able to take motor coaches to the Caria-era beauty mud bath treatments, and the clear sulphur water was invigorating at 40 degrees Celsius. This end of the Mediterranean was Minoan culture country, so I am certain they found the anti-rheumatoid baths a pleasure.

 

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