May 22, 2024 Sea Day heading to Istanbul

As most sea days, we are moving more slowly than a port day. Lazy breakfast before a lovely day of relaxation

It is a beautiful sunny day. We are tasting some of the Maragarita’s offered at the Dome Bar on the ship. The Dome Bar is the area circled in the photo below. It is at the front of the ship and mostly enclosed in glass. The wind can be greatly reduced in this area. I have a traditional Margarita and Lindsey orders a jalapeno Margarita. Too spicy for me. We send a photo to Adam as he loves hot and spicy things. He did not join us however.

We are cruising toward Istanbul. Decide to have a Mom & kids photo. I am a shorty!! Right 🤪🤣

We are seeing land quite close by on both sides of the ship. We are leaving the Aegean Sea and entering the Dardanelles Strait. It is one of the world’s narrowest straits used for international navigation, the Dardanelles at 61 kilometres long, connects the Aegean and Mediterranean seas with the Sea of Marmara. It forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe and separates Asian Turkey from Eurpean Turkey. I am certain that the local pilot is already on board guiding us through.

We are seeing some structures on the shore. I have taken some very bad photos of them, but they give me something to research later to find our more about them. The first one is the Helles Memorial. In antiquity the Dardanelles was known as the Hellespont. The memorial is the main Commonwealth battle memorial for the whole Gallipoli campaign, and also commemorates the 20,956 Commonwealth servicemen with no known grave who died in the campaign. My photo is very bad, so I added a better photo I found online. 🤪🤣

This second one is called Canakkale Martyrs Monument. It is a war memorial commemorating the service of about 253,000 Turkish soldiers who participated at the Battle of Gallipoli, which took place from April 1915 to December 1915 during the First World War.

The other passengers are enjoying a day off from touring as well the pool decks are very busy with people taking advantage amenities the Sun Princess has to offer.