ChaliGram10-4 To Chania, Crete
19 June 2010 | Chania, Crete, Turkey
Alison
Gosh, how time flies when you're having fun. I just looked back through my emails and realize it's been over 6 weeks since my last ChaliGram. And.... Cappadoccia seems like such a long time ago, now.
After one false start leaving Marmaris (sprang an oil leak 5 miles into our departure.... had to be towed back!), we finally left Marmaris and Turkey on May 7th and arrived in Kos, one of the Greek Dodecanese Islands close to Turkey (that we enjoyed so much last Fall). We wanted to be all settled and secure before I was to fly back to New York for our daughter Alex's Master's Thesis Art Show at SUNY-New Paltz. We did. I did, and as many of you already know, it was a wonderful, successful event. The opening reception (which IMHO Alex's large and brilliantly colored birds stole the show) was topped off by Alex's boyfriend proposing marriage (after first asking my permission) and Alex accepting. Schweh! big night! For those of you who haven't already seen the photos, here is the link to the opening night: http://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/AlexSMAsterSThesisArtShowBirdface?authkey=Gv1sRgCIaRr6OdycOIMw&feat=directlink
Upon my return to Kos -- fortunately, I wasn't affected by any of the strikes happening in Greece -- we got laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning done; and then got under way. Chuck had been in Kos for almost 3 weeks, and was just a little anxious to leave. Kos got increasingly congested with tourists. It seemed the only Greeks there were the shopkeepers and restaurant workers.
Our next island was Kalymnos, and we were delighted to be in a town that was less touristy. Imagine! We patronized some restaurants that actually had other Greeks eating there! Good WIFI, electricity, water and free dockage. What more could a cruiser want???? I thought that was rather curious though, considering Greece's financial crisis....why would they fire a guy who generated/collected income??? As we made our way southwest, we had a couple of nights in remote anchorages, before arriving in Ios. Here was another town harbour where no one was there to collect any fees. However, there WAS an enterprising old guy who had figured out how to put a padlock on the water hose, so we had to pay him 3 euros to fill up our water tank. There was no electricity, and a free wifi disappeared. But all in all, it wasn't too bad..... except for the horrible surge that occurred whenever a ferry came in (about 6x/day). We had to keep ChaliVentures about 10 feet off the wall, lest our bowsprit got smashed. The only way to get from the boat to land was to use our dinghy ! Ios is the island just to the north of famous Santorini/Thira, which EVERYONE who's ever been there said we simply MUST GO. (janet, sammy, cathy&jim....) So we took a ferry there since we had heard mixed reports that the marina in Santorini was silted up and we wouldn't be able to get in. Indeed, Santorini is a spectacular place. The island's current form was created when the largest volcanic explosion in history occurred in about 1650BC, and the then-mostly solid island, blew up, creating the islets that currently exist in the circular shape of, well, a volcano. The main town of Thira is built into the top ridge. It's a great walk along the top of the caldera. Hard to describe. You'll have to see the pictures. Of course, any place that is as beautiful as Santorini is going to be jam-packed with people. There were 5 cruise ships in the harbor. And, unless you want to eat or buy stuff all day, about the only thing to do is walk along the top and marvel at the scenery. We DID have a meal; and we DID walk and marvel at the scenery and cogitate its creation. We rarely shop for tourist trinkets. So, our 4 hour ferry visit to Santorini was just about right.
Our next challenge was to go about 95 miles/20 hours southwest to the west end of Crete. We waited about 5 days for a decent weather window, and finally left Ios last week, arriving in Chania, Crete on Wednesday, June 9th. Our passage was pretty smooth. No storms or big unexpected winds, and we actually got to SAIL about 1/2 of the time. The only problem was the choppy waves the farther southwest we went. We probably should have waited another day before leaving, so the seas would have had a little more time to calm down from the previous high winds. It's the first time since 2008 that we'd done an overnight passage, and happily, we remembered how!
Chania features a Venetian harbor from the pre-Ottoman empire days.... built around 15th century. It's a lovely and ancient town. As you probably know, Crete was the center of the Minoan culture from 3000 BC til about 1100 BC There is some speculation that the massive volcanic eruption in Santorini was a major contributor to the decline of the Minoan civilization. Anyway, we were anxious to see Knossos, the site of a magnificent Minoan palace and town which was discovered and excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in the early 1900's. *sigh*, Well, what can i say...... after seeing SO MANY ancient ruins, well..... it wasn't as wonderful as we hoped it would be. Evans not only excavated the site but he RE-constructed and RE-painted, so we really felt that it was more of a replica than the real thing. The fact that it was such a bloody hot that day (102 degrees F) didn't help either. We went from one shady spot to the next, and finally gave up after an hour. I was as worried about Chuck suffering from heatstroke as Zoey! thanktheCOOLgods that the air conditioner on our rented car worked! It's been unseasonably hot for this time of year, and we're most anxious for it to get more seasonable, please! We do our chores before 11AM, and frequently don't leave the boat again until 8pm. Sometimes there's a little breeze which makes sitting out in the cockpit the most pleasant place to be; other times we just sit below with the fans running, and read or write. On the wall with us are 2 British boats and 2 Dutch boats who've been here for several days; last night a charter boat came in with a group of Russians. They didn't have a CLUE about how to moor the boat, and of course it was blowing about 20 kts when they arrived. This is not an atypical situation. We live in dread of charter-boaters. It's not always the case, but FREQUENTLY maybe 1 person out of 8 has any idea how to handle a boat. It's pretty scary; and I can tell you, we would NEVER invest in a charter boat. After the way we've seen people abuse the boats, it's miracle they make it back in one piece. Chania is a very pleasant town, albeit pretty touristy. And it's also VERY OLD. On the way to the market or petshop or grocery store, we have passed several holes in the ground with enclosures where some building got torn down, and lo and behold there were a whole bunch of ancient walls and stuff. You have to wonder.... at what point does a municipality say "enough is enough," otherwise, their whole town could turn into one big archeological dig! Chania was also the site of the ancient Minoan town of Kydonia. It's been a town for a LONG time.
From Crete we'll head northwest to Kythira, then the Peloponnese and Zakinthos in the Ionian before leaving Greece and sailing west to mainland Italy and/or Sicily, which will be a passage of at least 36 hours i think. Hopefully we'll have a rendezvous with our Scottish/English buddies, Ian & Maggie whom we met in 2005 when we arrived in Portugal. They shared our first European Thanksgiving with us in Rota, Spain. Also, we've learned that we canNOT land in Malta. Although Zoey is micro-chipped and has all her shots and papers, the problem is that she's been in Turkey, which is not one of the "approved countries". We'd have to wait til November to go there (6 months from when we left Turkey), and well, that just isn't going to happen. So, after Sicily, we'll go to Tunisia withOUT stopping in Malta first. As I say this, I realize that we must have rocks in our head to be spending July and August in Sicily and Tunisia. I mean, it's going to be hotter than hell! These are the 2 months when most northern Europeans leave their boats and fly home to enjoy cooler weather before returning in September for some lovely Fall sailing. It's a little cost prohibitive for us to do that, AND come back over the winter holidays, too. So we'll just sweat it out... and fire up the old air conditioner when it gets TOO bad...if it still works. Now..... if one of these years we have a little property in France, then we too could escape during the hottest months to an air conditioned apartment and resume sailing in the fall.....
I have to admit that there is ONE THING that we really enjoy about being in Greece versus Turkey: the scrumptious ICE CREAM and SORBET. During our evening walks to take Zoey for her nightly constitutional, we frequently manage to walk by an ice cream shop. yummmmmmy. There's one place that has sorbet as good as it was in Sicily! MMMMMM.
We have been able to stay on top of the awful news and have been most chagrined by how most of the US Press is ready to slam-dunk Turkey over this whole Gaza mess. Frankly, we APPLAUD them for having the courage to actually organize and DO something about this abominable human rights crisis. And it looks like the pressure is finally beginning to create some positive change. As some of you know, Chuck has been writing a great deal about that lately. As for Greece and its crisis..... it seems as if all the bad stuff is happening in Athens. As long as the ferries continue to bring the tourists to the islands, they'll be okay. Most of the Greek Islands -- if not all --depend on tourism as their #1 source of income.
Well, my hands have gotten too sweaty to continue typing, so it seems like a good time to close.
Don't EVER take your air conditioning for granted!
And since the time I started this email, the plug that connects our boat to electric shore power just blew up.... or rather shorted out. Regardless, it's kaput. Fortunately, there's a good chandlery here, and we can actually buy a new 30 AMP outlet and plug. Then, Chuck the electrician will replace it. It's always SOMEthing on a boat!! At least it's not plumbing this time.
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/Chaligram104Pictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCN_MtazfmpHUgQE&feat=directlink
XOXOXO Alison, Chuck and the little Hot Dog