GHOST

We sailed East along the North coast of Crete to Iraklion, we had heard the mooring facilities were poor but we were keen to visit the Palace of Knosses which was nearby. On the way we noticed that there was some flapping on the side of the foresail and inspection via binoculars revealed that the forestay had come apart and ripped the lovely new foresail - we couldn't believe it and hurridly furled the foresail and carried on under engine. Will things ever stop breaking???

Well the guide book was right, the mooring in Iraklion was terrible and with no help from anyone on the shore I had to make a suicide leap onto a very rough wall about 6 foot above the boat in winds gusting 25knots - not fun! With the strong winds the boat was moving around a lot so getting on and off was tricky but at least there was some protection from the swell.

We then decided to cycle to Knosses as the guide book described it as a 2.5 mile walk... but after a couple of kilometers we saw a sign saying 6km to the Palace! The guidebook also didn't mention that it was all uphill and the old Jetty Express bikes with only 3 gears found it tough going (or their riders did at least!).

We joined a small group for a guided tour around the Palace. 100 years ago an English archeologist had recreated parts of the ruins which definitely made it more interesting to visit and understand what it would have looked like - though our guide was very disparaging about his attempts and said that he had done it all in only 37 years by using concrete rather than traditional materials... clearly if it had been left to the Greeks nothing would have been done so we all found the guide a bit annoying!

The winds died down briefly at 10pm so we took down the foresail and Brad inspected the forestay. Despite the fact that just before we left the whole forestay was dismantled and serviced it had managed to lose 4 screws and come apart towards the top - unbelievable. Brad moved some screws to secure it for now but it means motoring until we can get both it and the foresail fixed.

On the whole though Iraklion (the capital of Crete) was pretty awful and it was a rough night as the winds kept up. We were definitely at a low point on the trip and were glad to leave and set sail for Ayios Nikalaou via a quick visit to Spinalonga lagoon.

Spinalonga was very picturesque and until 1953 was home to a leper colony! Then we reached A.Nikalaou and found to our relief a fantastic marina with a very helpful marina guy who helped us moor up again in 25 knots of wind!

The marina here is great and we have done washing, got the boat fuelled and filled with food & beer and are off to head overnight to Rhodes to meet Steve.