LeePsycho's Life: The Weird Storm

A storm came down upon Istanbul yesterday. This was one of those 24-hour storms, the weird kind that causes damage, but you don't really understand why. The storm did not seem too bad because of the gradual increase in its strength.

Yesterday we woke up to news that the Karaköy İskele (ferry boat station) had sunk overnight while it was closed. This seemed strange to everyone because all of the ferries were still working except the car ferries, and the sea did not seem all that rough, just choppy. Jale had no problems crossing on a ferry early in the morning and I had no problems later in the afternoon.

Then came the news in the evening that the Kadiköy İskele had also capsized and sunk, but this time there were people hurt. We also heard that all the ferryboats were stopped.

While Jale and I were eating dinner just above the Beşiktaş İskele we found that some of the boats were running but they were very limited to a specific type of boat. and we could se the boats driving sideways in order to get in to the station. We finished eating and went out, got on the boat, came across, no problems. It was a little rough but nobody got knocked over or anything. We caught a ride up to the house from our friend Tuğrul and found out that there were a couple ships in danger just below our house at the mouth of the Bosphorous Straight to the Marmara Sea.

Then the storm seemed to take on a whole new dimention. The power of the storm came more into focus at least for me. The wind was very strong and it came from the Marmara Sea. The surface current for the Bosphorous Straight was reversed (normally the current flows into the Marmara Sea) and the ships were not able to power through the current and the wind. Yea it was that hard.

Anyway the result was three ships did not make it out into the Marmara and ended up stuck in the rocky shoreline just below our house. The first one to hit the shore was absolutely pummeled into the shore lastnight. then another came into the rocks behind it and later a third much larger ship came to reso on top of the first one .