The strait's name is taken from ancient mythology. Bosphorus roughly translates from ancient Greek as "the place where the cow crossed."

The cow was Io, a beautiful lady with whom Zeus, king of the gods, had an affair. When his wife, Hera, found out about his infidelity, Zeus tried to atone by turning his erstwhile lover into a cow. Hera, for good measure, provided a horsefly to sting Io on the rump and drive her across the strait.

Proving that there was no justice in Olympus, Zeus got off scot-free.

From New York, you sail toward Spain. When you get near Spain head south and go between Europe and Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar and enter the Mediterranean Sea heading west

Obviously, you have to head east to go from Gibralter to Athens. I'm good at reading maps, but I have to actually turn the map in the direction I am going to know whether to turn left or right at the next junction.

No problem in a car or a sailboat, but it does present problems reading the map on the wall in a Paris Metro.

Mullfoto of the Day

This is a photo from the Ritz Carlton across the Bosphorus. I was on the Europe side. The other side is Asia also known as Anatolia.

Catchy Caption of the Day

Actual Caption:

A pair of common shelducks in the wild. In the middle of mating season, a couple of male ducks returned to a park in southern Sweden, for the third consecutive year, ignoring the siren calls of all the lady ducks around them.

Coming soon to a theater near you: Duckback Mountain

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