Big Surprise! The weather forecast was wrong again. The morning started as expected: no winds and glassy seas. As beautiful as you could imagine except we had to motor. Our trip was 82 nm, and we had just under 12 hours of daylight for travel. At 7 knots average speed we would just make it.
We both got up before dawn and left 10 minutes after first light. It is amazing how fast the sun rises above the horizon. You see so many pictures of sunsets and sunrises because the colours are infinite (infinite shades from red to blue?) and always changing. A picture never captures the real thing.
I had not slept well the night before. I had mosquitos in the room and I was bitten all night. Greek mosquitoes are much smaller than Canadian mosquitos. They don’t inject as much anticoagulant (the stuff that itches) but they still leave itchy bites. Also because they are so small you can’t hear the little bastards unless they are very close to your head…..and they are harder to see. In Canada I can hear a mosquito from across the room and go hunting for it. Here you have no chance. Mosquito gorilla warfare.
In Greece they have little plug-in vapour dispensers to keep the mosquitos away. I decided I liked my breathing air free of contaminants and I suffered for my prissiness.
We spent the day racing the sun. We didn’t want to sail at night or anchor in the dark. The beautiful easy motoring of the morning turned into a significant headwind and waves on our nose…..I had to run the engine harder than normal to keep up boat speed so we would make our spot before sunset. We ended up making it just before sunset in a beautiful bay right beside an ancient castle on a small island called Spinalonga. Once a fortress to defend against pirates and invaders, then a leper colony and now a tourist attraction for hundreds of guests a day.
I love these fortresses by the water. With a dozen cannons mounted on top, how crazy would you need to be to try to attack these things? The Maltese fortresses were the most impressive. The entire island of Malta was once a giant fortress.
The bay was quite shallow, less than 5m and when I went diving to check on the anchor the next morning I discovered 1) a small coral head….not sure I had seen one in the Med before 2) a small octopus hiding in a shell. I’m convinced the octopus was scared to see me…..here they grab them and smash them and eat them! 3) a black sea cucumber and 4) a small school of squids! When Victoria and I were leaning over the bow to watch the squids they came closer to the surface and tipped up to look back at us! It’s possible that if squids and octopus lived longer than 2 years they would be smart enough to vote.
Once again, we had anchored in ‘my favorite spot ever’. I have said it a dozen times in the summer. Right beside us we had the island castle, we were sitting in crystal clear water and on the other side we had the rugged mountainous beauty of Crete.
We were going to hang out here for a week or so and then motor around the corner to our winter berth in Agios Nicholaos.
While we were anchored Crete had a Richter 6.3 magnitude earthquake extremely close to where we were anchored! This is big! I was napping and didn’t notice it. However that night around midnight I felt the boat vibrating in a weird way. It was windy and I thought the anchor was dragging. It turns out that it wasn’t the anchor I think an aftershock woke me up! It would have been neat to see the water in the bay vibrating from the earthquake.
After 5 or 6 days in the beautiful bay we could see storms in the forecast and decided to go to the marina. We are Med moored to our dock spot and have nice neighbours. Lots of Amel boats here too so I’m sure to get help with any boat technical questions or issues.
I’m not sure why I like Crete so much. I didn’t love Chania, which was literally packed with tourists but the big mountainous island intrigues me. Maybe because it is the largest Greek island and where the oldest European civilization started….the Minoans. People have been here a long time.
Now in the marina, instead of jumping in the ocean every morning we can have a regular hot shower on shore. (In the summer here it is so hot I don’t even bother having hot water! The water is already warm enough!) Last night we saw No Time to Die at the local movie theater (I always loved James Bond and am glad I got to see it) and then had a nice dinner afterwards in a local place. Agios Nicholaos is a much bigger town than the one we were close to last winter in Sicily, and Victoria just showed me a bike map of places to bike here. I’m looking forward to spending time here surrounded by the ocean on one side and Crete’s low mountains on the other.
This summer we sailed over 3000 km. We have been on the boat almost continuously since December (minus a few weeks in Volos). We have had a few exciting times and have been in countless postcard perfect spots. Next year I’m hoping we sail as north as we can in the Agean and then slowly make our way back south. We were rushing a bit (my fault) to get to Turkey before September for our arch but next year we won’t have that schedule pressure.
I should also mention that the average temperature here in Crete over the winter is 15 degrees…..so we won’t be that cold! Winter here mostly means rain and not as hot. We just had one of the best thunderstorms (incredible lightning with perfect surround-sound thunder) I’ve had the pleasure to experience. Over the summer we have had 2 light sprinkles and suddenly we get a few centimetres of rain.
Adventures on Spruzzo 