Those heroes that shed their blood And lost their lives…You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.Therefore rest in peace,There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours… You, the mothers,Who sent their sons from far away countries,Wipe away your tears;Your sons are now lying in our bosom And are at peace.After having lost their lives on this land They have become our sons as well.

 Each side had about 500,000 troops involved in the 10 month campaign. The casualty rates were about equal with the Turks suffering more. The Turks losses were: Killed – 55,127, died of disease - 21,298, missing – 10,067, wounded – 100,000, evacuated sick – 64,440. The allied losses were: Killed - 52,249, wounded – 156,040, and evacuated sick 12, 293.

The Dardanelles is fantastically busy. Ten to twelve ships per hour will pass any given point on the channel. When we turned around this morning to come back to Gelibolu we had already crossed the channel into the up-bound lane, and now had to go back across the down-bound. When we turned, we had to watch out for an up-bound ship. To cross well ahead of him we unfurled the genoa as we were now going downwind with a 25 knot “breeze”. Once clear of his bow we then had to anticipate the movement of five down-bound ships entering the channel. A group of three of them was slowly overtaking our downwind course, and I did not want to try to cross ahead of or between them, as there was less than 500 metres between each. To make my intentions clear, we hardened on, altering our course upwind to point close hauled on a reciprocal course to them. Then as the third ship was passing abeam, we altered course downwind again to get across well ahead of the last two.

It was great sailing downwind for a change. Upwind under engine we were pounding into 25 to 30 knot winds and 1½ metre waves at 3.0 knots, whereas downwind we were bombing along at over 7.0 knots! After getting clear of that gaggle of ships, we were outside the down-bound lanes and didn’t have to worry about them any more.

The bay just north of Gelibolu, recommended as an anchorage in the pilot, was not well sheltered, as a military pier and buoyed area in the northern part is now in place and the rest of the bay was exposed to wind and swells. Rather than go alongside the restaurant in town, we elected to anchor in the southern bay, a wide exposed bay, but sheltered by the town.

It was a quiet afternoon and evening at anchor. I took Sprite a mile or so down the wide bay to a partially submerged wreck. It had just its after superstructure, a couple of masts and the bow section above water. Had it been a quieter day and warmer, I would have tied Sprite off and snorkeled around it. The weather calmed down overnight causing us to venture out by 0600 in the morning, against the wind, but smaller waves and only 15 knots against us. We had another intriguing time crossing the traffic separation lanes, reminding me of my navy cadet days with rel vel (relative velocity) problems to overtake or intercept ships, except this time it was to avoid them. It was --- interesting.

By 0845 we were again slogging into force 6 (25 knot) winds and one metre seas; however the sight of a school of dolphins compensated for the heavy weather as we watched them frolic in the tumbling waves. Because of the upwind slog again today, we decided to alter our destination to another community called Kemer, but this one on the Sea of Marmara. We anchored north of the fishing harbour which was full of local boats and larger trawlers in the lee of the headland. At the headland we saw a fisherman tending his nets, but out to sea from him we could see seagulls circling around the calm waters. Then we noticed ripples on the surface as several dolphins surfaced, feeding, and the gulls looking for the leftovers. We watched this spectacle for a half hour as we too had our lunch.

In the early afternoon we took Sprite up the local stream under the bridge where several fishing boats were docked alongside. However we continued upstream a mile or so into an idyllic marshland area, high reeds and wildflowers adorning the banks, hundreds of turtles scurrying from the sun-dried shores into the water as we passed by, fish darting at fantastic speeds to escape our slow progress. We turned the engine off and silently drifted back downstream, stealthily paddling to observe the many turtles and frogs in the mossy sea green shallows, and taking several pictures of the more adventuresome who stayed on or near the surface to watch our silent passing. We saw a couple of graceful white egrets flying calmly above the marsh, but we were startled by a sudden fluttering, as a brown, speckled, crow-sized bird with white patches on the undersides of its wings took flight out of the reeds across the stream to disappear in another dense patch of reeds. When we went over to investigate we saw no sign of it, and it did not take flight from its new hiding place. Looking it up in our bird book later we discovered it was a least bittern, a member of the heron family. Back in Canada we would expect to have seen redwing black birds in a marsh area such as this, but not here apparently.

After stopping off at the sleepy town for a few supplies we returned to Veleda. The winds outside seemed to have subsided and I suggested that we consider going on, with the promise if it was still heavy out there, we would return. The winds were light and no sea was opposing us for a change, so we continued on another 20 miles to our original destination of Karabiga (40 24.1N, 027 18.4E) further into the Sea of Marmara for a total distance of 40 miles that day.