Thoughts on the Karakoy Iskelesi

The pier in Karakoy floats on the water. It moves. The most disconcerting is when you step off the boat onto what really looks like it should be a solid cobble sidewalk, and yet that too is shifting under you. I had vertigo for a week because of this sensation in September when I first started riding the ferry twice a day.

When you sit near the middle, though, the rocking is only perceptible if you look out the window to see the horizon or waterline rising and falling. If you try to listen very hard to your body, sometimes you can sense the slightly nuanced pressure as inertia pushes your back against the chair, but for the most part it seems as if you are stationary and stable and it's the world outside that can't seem to get a grip. A pleasant illusion, yet unsettling when one realizes its utter improbability.

When you look out the window and can see yet more things on the water, the seemingly causeless shifting of objects relative to one another becomes even more disconcerting. Two identical ferries visible through two seperate panes, rocking, swaying and swelling at two different amplitudes and tempos is like watching a split-screen reality. Things that seem as though they ought to be connected, in fact, when examined through their respective portals, really have nothing to do with one another.