This Bodrum Cup winner is an oak-framed, chestnut-hulled,
staysail schooner
Accommodations for guests
A Smaller Crewed Charter Yacht Sailing Turkey And Greece A Smaller Bareboat Charter Yacht Sailing Turkey And Greece An Even Smaller Bareboat Charter Yacht Sailing Turkey And Greece A Sister Charter Yacht Sailing Turkey And Greece This page last updated on 02/01/2012 Dear Homo Sapiens, There is no need to continue reading this page.
What follows is intended for search engine robots and spiders and not necessarily for human beings.
Further information concerning charter yachts sailing Turkey and Greece may be obtained by clicking
on the blue links immediately above. Thank You. You must be searching for a charter yacht
sailing holiday in Greece, or for a charter yacht sailing Turkey, for a charter yacht sailing holiday
cruising the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. You may be dreaming of a Blue Cruise along the coast of Turkey
with visits to Greek Aegean islands. Or you may be dreaming of a sail at the crossroads of history.
Well, you have found an oak-framed, teak-decked, mahogany-appointed charter yacht doing all of these
things in comfort. A charter yacht on Blue Cruise in the eastern Mediterranean. Cruising among Aegean
islands of Greece. Cruising along the pine-clad coast of Turkey. Sailing through history at the
crossroads of history. And in the event you weren't thinking before of a charter yacht sailing Turkey
and Greece, think about it now. Think about a crewed sailing yacht with accommodations for five couples.
Think about the charter sailing yacht Levent Kaptan. One of the first Levent kaptans to sail the Aegean
and eastern Mediterranean was an Ottoman corsair with Greek antecedents. Aruj was his name, son of Yakub,
and he was eldest of six children born to Yakub on the Aegean island of Lesbos. The father was a
Christian-born Greek or Albanian conscripted as a child into the Ottoman standing army of janissaries.
The mother Katerina was a native of Lesbos Greek through and through. Four of the six children were boys,
two later known as Barbarossa, Aruj the first. Born about 1473, Aruj got his sea legs fishing the waters
off Lesbos and roaming afield aboard his father's lateen-rigged caique, and he came of age at a time of
Greek Orthodox angst with Latins of Rome, a time recalling the 1204 Latin rape of Constantinople and the
continuing Latin occupation of Greek Aegean islands. Motivated by a wish to improve his circumstances at
the expense of Latins, he migrated at an early age to Alexandria where the Mamluk sultans of Egypt were
supporting corsair activity in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. It was in Mamluk service that he
became an accomplished sea captain and scourge of the Latin Aegean, his victims Venetians and Genovese,
seafarers and stay-at-homes. Commissioned and financed by Mamluk Sultans Janbalat and al-Ghawri, Aruj
went from Lesbos caique to command of a galliot with 18 oars to a side, and from command of a galliot to
command of several galliots. Operating out of Alexandria, he rested his crews between forays among the
small islands just south of Naxos in the Cyclades, and from these islands preyed on everything Venetian
including Naxos and neighboring Paros, nearby Ios and Santorini, and the larger Venetian island of Crete
among others, doing so much damage and growing so much bolder that he came to the attention of and was
employed by the Ottoman poet-prince Korkud, son of Sultan Beyazid II. It was aboard a galliot in 1498
service to Korkud that Aruj and two of his brothers, Ilyas and Khizr, ran afoul of Our Lady of the
Conception, a huge red-hulled, black-prowed, two-masted |
galley of the Latin Hospitaller Knights of Rhodes, Pierre d'Aubusson's
flagship. Ilyas did not survive the encounter. Khizr was imprisoned in a tower of the Knight's castle at
Petronium (Bodrum). And on his 25th birthday Aruj found himself chained to a Hospitaller galley bench, a
circumstance substantially aggravating his life-long discomfort with things Latin. Ransomed by Korkud in
the Spring of 1503 and outfitted with two more galliots, Aruj was soon exacting vengeance in the Latin
Aegean, raiding Latin islands and waylaying Latin merchant shipping. But by 1503 Latin pickings in the
Aegean had become less attractive than those in the western Mediterranean. And so Aruj Barbarossa moved
on to even greater reward, that year seizing the island of Djerba in Tunisia. From Djerba and later Tunis
he and brother Khizr raided the Amalfi Coast and Italy's offshore islands as well as the coast of Spain
and shipping in between, in 1504 taking near Elba two large Papal galleys similar to that depicted above
commanded by Paolo Vettori of the Florence family of state and churchmen now famous for their violins.
The ransom demanded was 200,000 gold ducats. Each year it was more of the same. By 1510 Aruj Barbarossa
and his brother commanded ten fast galliots and had achieved a remarkable presence from Djerba to Algiers.
Six years and at least one return to Lesbos later Aruj founded the kingdom of Algiers and became its
ruler in service to Ottoman Sultan Selim I, brother of the poet-prince. The Ottoman Empire was on its way
to century-long rule of the Middle Sea. So come sail the crossroads of history with another Levent
Kaptan. Holiday in style and comfort aboard a prestigious yacht also a fast sailer. Sail from
pine-encircled blue-water cove to remote Aegean island. Proceed leisurely from fascinating locale to
historical locale. Cruise among Venetian Cyclades as did the early Levent kaptans. Starting in Bodrum.
Are you searching for Bodrum, Petronium, in Turkey? Well, it and its castle are eleven nautical miles NE
of Greek Kos Town on the north shore of the Ceramic Gulf. There or elsewhere we can put you aboard a
charter yacht with an experienced crew able to show you tracks left by Aruj Barbarossa as well as
tracks left by other Levent kaptans all over the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Levent Kaptan, a
superb charter yacht sailing Greece and Turkey in comfort. And knowledgeable, as well, of local history.
Contact Blue Cruise Yacht Charters today at