A Four-Cabin Charter Gulet Sailing The Turkish Coast Another Five-Cabin Charter Gulet Sailing The Turkish Coast Return to Motor-Sailer Summary This page last updated on 01/03/2010 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 gulets sailing the Turkish coast may be obtained by clicking on the blue links immediately above. Thank You. You must be searching for a charter gulet sailing the Turkish coast. Or for a charter gulet sailing Turkey. You may be dreaming of a Blue Cruise. On a gaff-rigged schooner like Surgun d. Should you know gaff-rigs from other rigs, you might imagine a gaff-rigged schooner to be a real beauty. And you would be correct: an old-fashioned beauty, one with gaffs (booms) at the top of the fore and main sails as well as at the foot. They don't make them like that any more!!! So if you were looking for a beauty sailing the Turkish coast, or for a beauty sailing among Greek Aegean islands, you have come to the right place. Surgun d offers seafood and sunshine and azure seas as well as a gaff-rig. Surgun d can also put you in touch with history. You might begin by taking your charter schooner along Turkey's western coast and among Aegean islands of Greece cruising as did Sinan Reis 500 years earlier. Born about 1480 in Smyrna, he was later called Sinan of Smyrna or Sinan the Jew to distinguish him from a slightly younger Sinan Reis who was the brother of Grand Vizir Rustem Pasha. Smyrna is famous for a local wind blowing into its gulf. Called the Imbat, this wind was in Sinan's day and is today a stern sailing tutorial. Rough and ready and Imbat-trained, Sinan had by 1504 lost an eye in an unrecorded contest and had covered his wound with the proverbial eye patch. Black, of course. Raiding the Aegean from Alexandria, Egypt, he was that year or the next corsair tutor to Turgut Reis, later known to the west as Dragut. Aboard Sinan's galliot (small galley) they together raided shipping along the coast of Crete and among other Venetian-held islands of the Aegean. It was during these years that Sinan taught Turgut how to measure elevation of the sun with the butt of a crossbow. And it may have been then that Sinan also imparted his abiding distaste for Latins. Together they owned equal interests in a merchant brigantine, until, that is, those interests financed construction of additional galliots. And so both Sinan and Turgut grew and prospered and eventually went their separate ways. Sometime in the middle of the next decade Sinan took his galliot flotilla to the western Mediterranean where he allied himself with the Barbarossa brothers. Not long afterward, back in the Aegean, he married a Barbarossa sister at her Mytilene home on the island of Lesbos. For most of the next three decades Sinan was to prove a valuable lieutenant to the Barbarossa's, first to Aruj the elder, and upon Aruj's death in 1518, then to Khizr the youngest. In the Spring of 1519 he was to command 25 Barbarossa galliots and fustas (small galliots) in a raid on French and Spanish shipping in the vicinity of Marseilles. In the next year he captured the Venetian galley conveying Thomas More to the court of Charles V, recently elected Holy Roman Emperor, the Thomas More then ambassador, earlier author of Utopia, and later Saint Thomas More. More was permitted to continue on his ambassadorial errand. That same year Sinan was at sea with his first son, and the new Sultan Suleiman confirmed his status as ambassador, too, ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa. In 1522 he was to participate in Suleiman's successful six-month siege of Aegean Rhodes from whence the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem were permanently evicted. Sinan's career was too long to recount here, but its distinguishing characteristic was prosecution of the guerra di corsa at sea as contrasted with the relentless persecution by other corsairs of innocent inhabitants of the Mediterranean litoral. In July of 1535 Sinan participated in Barbarossa's defense of Tunis, then under assault by Charles V with the Genovese captain-general Andrea Doria in command of nearly 300 vessels. Tunis was lost, both Barbarossa and Sinan escaping to fight another day. Not so Sinan's second son then 10 years of age. He was kidnapped and taken to Genoa. Nine years later in 1544 Barbarossa was to besiege Andrea Doria in Genoa. Among his terms for lifting the siege was release of Turgut Reis from a Genovese galley bench. Three months later he obtained release of Sinan's second son, his own nephew, from Jacopo V Appiano, Signore of Elba. Turgut came out of his four years of captivity permanently scarred, his back and mind welted by the galley lash; it was during the years just to come that Turgut earned the sobriquet Drawn Sword of Islam. Sinan's son, on the other hand, came out of his nine years of captivity in perfect health with a Renaissance education. Tragically, Sinan, then commanding the Ottoman Indian Ocean fleet at Suez, was so thrilled to regain his son that he suffered a fatal heart attack during the return embrace. And so ended a small chapter at the crossroads of history. Come join us to learn more of Sinan Reis and to learn of Andrea Doria and of Turgut Reis and of other legends of the Mediterranean. Do you already plan to holiday in Greece or Turkey? With your family? And/or with a group of friends? Would you like to holiday aboard a sailing yacht chartered in Turkey? Would you like to charter a crewed sailing gulet to cruise the Aegean from Bodrum? Or from Izmir? Once called Smyrna? Near ancient Ephesus? Ephesus the premier tourist attraction in Turkey? Do you have an interest in history? The eastern Mediterranean is the birthplace of history. Come learn for yourself. Charter a crewed gulet sailing the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey. Begin your holiday in Bodrum. Sail to Rhodes. Come aboard Surgun d, a charter sailing gulet offering unforgettable holidays. Come aboard a charter gulet with an experienced crew able to show you the Dodecanese islands of Greece, and able to show you tracks up and down the Turkish coast left by the Sinans, Turguts, and Barbarossas of history. There's more. Much more. Come learn for yourself. Come learn aboard Surgun d, a popular charter gulet sailing the Turkish coast. Contact Blue Cruise Yacht Charters today at bcycharter@aol.com |
