Boats On The Bosphorous: September 2015

Welcome

We'll periodically post images of vessels that drift past our perch on the Bosphorous. If you are a new arrival, the Bosphorous is the waterway (straits) that divides Europe from Asia and cuts right through the middle of Istanbul. You could swim from Europe to Asia (or vice versa) in about 30 minutes - if you could survive the boat traffic and/or the pollution.

The blog's perch is about half way up (or down) the Bosphorous - not the city's most supreme view. Yet, it's not too high, not too low - good enough to afford a decent view. Then again, anything better in terms of view will cost you upward of a million. Dollars. No... more. Much more. This view is free.

The aim here is to provide regular images and - where possible - further details regarding boat traffic between the Black Sea, the Marmara and points beyond.

It's not CIA - although they used to maintain a prominent viewing location (and probably still do) - The transit through the Bosphorous is Russia's traditional outlet to the world's oceans - most other Russian outlets ice over in the winter. But, there is no hidden blog agenda, no intent to spy. This is just our view and publicly available data related to those views: Boats on the Water. Passing by. Happened to catch them ....

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

When it rains

When the weather turns, the boat traffic falls off. It falls off even more when the weather gets really bad. Today, it's just "normal" bad, but traffic is really low. And, as usual, the color of the water has changed from blue to kind-of-green.

We have, here, an un-named vessel. Seems to be primarily a passenger thing, headed North to the Black Sea.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Apollon

Name: Apollon
Heading: South/Sea of Marmara
Type: carrier
Flags: Greek
Date: 26 Sept 2015

Atalandi

Name:Atalandi
Heading: South/Sea of Marmara
Type:tanker
Flags: Greek
Date: 26 Sept 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Sabahat Telli

Name: Sabahat Telli
Country: Turkey
Heading: North/Black Sea
Type: likely tanker
Flags: not known
Date: 24 Sept 2015

VolgoBalt 206?

Name: VolgoBalt 206 (?) Looks like #193 to me
Country:Sierra Leone
Heading: North/Black Sea
Type: says General cargo
Flags: not known
Date: 24 Sept 2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Un-named ship

Name: un indentified
Country: not known
Heading: South/Sea of Marmara
Type: likely tanker
Flags: not known
Date: 21 Sept 2015

Typical of a majority of the traffic on the water, this appears to be a loaded tanker.

We are working to replace the capture camera with one wiht a zoom. It has quickly become apparent that this task will require some multi-tasking: capture the image, ID the ship, do some research. Hopefully the next post will live up to this expectation.