Tuğrul Atlığ is a sailor. A sailor who graduated from university. He works as a mooring guy at Setur Kalamış & Fenerbahçe Marina. Talking to him reminds one of the wisdom of the sea and the coolness of the onshore wind.

 

Tuğrul's adventure as a sailor starts the day he graduated from Kocaeli University Maritime High School. After school, he did an internship at Kalamış & Fenerbahçe marina for four months. Then the open sea. Three years as an officer on dry cargo ships, traveling from one sea to another: Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America. One moment he enjoys solidarity and brotherhood on board, the next he is caught in the middle of 13-meter waves and comes close to death. At the end of three years, he decides to return to land, without seeing the Far East, which will always remain in his heart!

 

 

"Every time I returned from the ship, I realized that my surroundings had changed. My ties with my friends were weakening, I was getting lonelier and lonelier," he says, "I am not that man!" The captains and sailors he met on the ships also made him think like this. Many of them were so used to the sea that they forgot the months and then the years. Strangers to land, they are too old to go back and start again. Away from their families, they have become someone else. One day, an incident with the ship's skipper summarized everything for Tugrul. "I had a skipper, a retired major. He always talked about having a son my age. But I had never seen the boy. One day the ship received a phone call, I answered the phone, a young voice was asking for the captain. I was with him, I couldn't run away, I overheard. The boy needed money, and my skipper said, "OK, son!" and hung up the phone. The conversation was very short. Then he turned to me and said: If you continue to do this job, in the future your child will see you as money, not as a father, Tugrul." Tugrul couldn't take that chance.

 

He returned to land but continued sailing. As a mooring guy (most of us mistakenly call it moors (palamar). However, moors is a type of rope and mooring is a profession. Call it a sailor or a seaman if you like, but not a moors), he started working at the marina and has been doing so for 12 years.

 

So what exactly does mooring crew do? "The job of a mooring guy is exactly this: The boat enters the marina, if necessary, we escort it to the berth. We take the boat's hull from the pier and give it to the boat owner or sailor. We throw the mooring lines from the pier to the boat. We tie the mooring lines from the boat to the pier and our work is completed. Of course, depending on the state of the wind, we also intervene with a boat. That's actually all."

 

 

But of course it doesn't stop there. Some boaters may ask the mooring guy to come on board, to tie the seat ropes or the vault. "I'll be back in half an hour, just close the awning in five minutes", or they want the mooring guy to attach their antenna. It seems that we are a bit confused about this issue too. It is a common mistake to consider the mooring crew as boat personnel. "Of course we help them anyway. Especially when asked nicely. Even if it is not our duty! Because we are good people," says Tuğrul.

 

Another problem is that only the amateur sailor certificate is sufficient to become a captain. However, as the name suggests, the amateur sailor certificate only makes you an amateur sailor, and being a skipper is a completely different level. Otherwise, we will come across more and more people who try for hours and hours but can't get to shore, people who still don't give up and even burst into tears because of this, people who try to tie up a boat that has caught fire, people who suddenly sink. Tugrul has a simple solution to all this: "There are really good captains, of course. But my suggestion to boat owners is that if they are not really experienced, they should definitely take a sailor with them. And never, ever, no matter what happens, always stay calm."

 

Like every sailor, Tuğrul collects stories. He cannot help mentioning one of those stories: "One day we got a call that a boat was taking on water. We went off the coast of Burgazada and saw that the boat had completely sunk. A mother, father and a child were waiting in the water. They said, "We have another child. A 12-year-old girl. We started searching around the boat and the shores of the island, but we couldn't find her. Finally, we noticed someone swimming in the other direction, towards the Maltepe coast. The child thought, decided, and started swimming to the opposite shore to save her life. We admired the girl's courage, and we couldn't help but envy her family who gave her this confidence."

 

The sea takes a lot from people, but it also gives a lot. There are such stories that can inspire you for a lifetime.