July 6

We docked at Sinop Turkey.  There's not much here, but it's a clean and safe town.  There was an American radar base here during the Cold War and they love Americans.  It's very rare for a cruise shipo to visit here so the town was ecstatic over our visit and police were stopping traffic so we could cross the busy streets.   The town has been in existence since the 17th century BC under different ethnicities and rulers.  There was only one tour available which went to a museum that was a typical house in the 19th century, an archaeological museum and a mosque.  The museum had a lot of interesting artifacts and the mosque was in an oriental style, plainer and much different from standard mosques in Turkey.  We walked from the mosque back to the harbor looking at the different shops & restaurants.  The harbor front was lined with restaurants filled with men eating and playing cards.  Fishing boats were docked and emptying their catch of fish and mussels.  Our camera chargers had been stolen from our suitcase at the Athens airport and a friend had been charging our point & shoot battery but nobody had the same Canon camera.  We found a camera shop on our walk back to the ship and they sold us a charger at a price I expected to pay in the US so we are happy.  After lunch we walked around the far side of the harbor looking at the local vendors and young kids would walk up to us and say "hello" to practice their English.  As we sailed away our trivia team finally won.  We had a late dinner reservation so we used up some of our shipboard credit with massages.  Dinner was in Prime 7, an American steakhouse venue where they serve portions that are too large.  After dinner a small group of us met in the lounge where Jerry Wolf & I each had a snifter of Louis XIII cognac, just to see what it is like.