Hi Folks,

We have had gale force winds, never below 25 knots, ever since arriving here on Sept. 1st. There was no room in the inner harbour and we are on the outer wall, but well protected by the main breakwater, about 25 feet high. The wind blows us away from the dock, which is good, but the surge set up causes us to swing fore and aft. There are no cleats on this concrete wall, only large ship bollards every 100 feet or so. As a result we have only two lines extended aft about 30 feet and two lines extended forward another 30 feet, and surge back and forth causing some heavy snapping of the lines as they alternately take the strain. Our masthead windspeed indicator sticks above the height of the breakwater and has constantly read 25 to 35 knot winds over the past six days.

Tomorrow I will be going through the Samaria Gorge with a tour group from 0600 to 2130, and upon my return we may head off to Sicily directly, as the weather is supposed to calm down a bit by tomorrow night. We have to get clear of Crete before the next blow comes, and hope it is from a good direction (N or NE). The gales on this west/central part of Crete are unfortunately from the NW, just the direction we have to go to get clear of the deep bay in which Iraklion is located. Thus I may not be able to send any E-mail until we reach Catania in Sicily, if then. Catania is just below Mount Etna, the volcano, which was erupting when we were here a few years ago. The distance from Iraklion to Catania is about 500 miles of open sea, our longest passage since crossing the Atlantic in 1999.

We will appreciate having Doug as extra crew, the first time since Lake Ontario we have had an experienced crew member for a passage. He is supposed to arrive tomorrow afternoon. Judy will send this off from an internet café tomorrow when she is on line checking the weather web sites to see what we are in for. If it has not let up by then, we will stay put. Hopefully we will be off tomorrow night for Sicily. We were stuck in the lovely anchorage in Log #33f, Spinalonga, for several days.

The weather has been very windy this past month, causing us to stay put several times rather than venture out into force 6 and 7 winds. However, we are still enjoying our travels and are glad we have the time to wait for better weather. I enjoyed exploring Nisos Spinalonga and the abandoned leper colony.

All the best, Aubrey ********************************************************************************
 Ayios Nikolaos & a Leper Colony

There was no problem in mooring unassisted at Ayios Nikolaos (35° 11.19’ N, 025° 43.07’ E) in Crete, as it was a quiet morning and there were laid lines which I was able to pick up to hold our stern off while Judy secured our bow lines.

We met a couple of British boats who gave us some local information, and with whom we exchanged some books. Keith and Jean on N’Oubliez Jamais (Never Forget) took a jerry can up along with theirs to fill with diesel, and we had Jeff and Sally from Mr. Orion over one evening to give them information on Aegean ports and anchorages. The marina is a “laid back” operation, with the office in a porta-cabin, as are the toilets and showers. There were power and water stations on the concrete-surfaced pontoons, with many empty spaces and only a half dozen foreign boats. At one time we had considered wintering here, but now are glad we didn’t, as there would not be much for liveaboards to do here in the winter. It might be OK to leave the boat here on the hard and go home for five months of the winter, as they have a large boatyard and hard standing area.

The main part of town was close by and we wandered over a few times to resupply, send E-mail and go to the local archeological museum. We would rate it as only OK, and not worth a stop here at Ayios Nikolaos. In retrospect, we should have gone directly to Iraklion. However, Keith and Jean made a very good recommendation of a secure scenic anchorage 10 miles up the coast at Spinalonga (long spine?), where they were going next.

The marina office allowed us to plug our laptop into their phone line for E-mail; however the local access number for AOL was unserviceable, and I went to a local hotel to use its internet site with a floppy disc and cut and paste procedure.

We picked up some wines and liquor at reasonable prices. Judy liked a sweet Cretan white wine referred to as a “soft” wine. I got a 2 litre bottle of dry white wine for only 3.00 Euros (about $5.00 Canadian) that was quite acceptable. We are not wine connoisseurs, and try the cheap wines of each country instead. So far we liked the cheap wines of Bulgaria and Romania best. Cheap wines of Greece and Turkey are OK, but the cheap wines of Ukraine were awful. We don’t really stock up on any wines, as we don’t have storage space, and we like to try the local wines (and beers) of wherever we are. Buying wines when we are checking out of a country we have found is a good way of getting rid of the last bits of the country’s currency.

We were ready to leave next afternoon, but the winds were force 6 from the north, the direction we had to go. N’Oubliez Jamais left, but it was a big Jeanneau 44, more able to handle the weather. It was the same kind of boat I helped sail last year from Halifax to Norfolk, and Keith confirmed he has the same problem as I noted then, that the Jeanneau pounds badly in head seas. We didn’t need the aggravation, although Veleda is much more sea-kindly, doesn’t pound into head seas, and is a dry boat, very seldom burying her bow into oncoming waves. However, the smaller propeller we have since losing our large one on the Danube does not push us into head seas as well. We will probably replace the lost one when we get to Rome. It is nice to have a more powerful propeller in heavy seas, when maneuvering in close quarters in a marina, or in river or tidal currents.

By 1700, the wind seemed to have eased off, and so we checked out (21.00 Euros for one night!), and headed up to Spinalonga. Once clear of the harbour we were into heavy seas and 25 knots of wind. We closed the shoreline hoping for a bit of a lee and lesser waves. It worked, and we snuck up the coast, around the headland of Spinalonga, outside of Nisos Spinalonga, an interesting, intriguing deserted island with heavy Venetian fortifications, a derelict Ottoman village, and a former leper colony. I knew I would have to explore that island next day!

The island guarded a long bay or lagoon, with the Spinalonga peninsula to the east side, an isthmus at the south end joining the peninsula to the mainland, and the tourist town of Elouda in the SW corner.

We anchored in the first bay south of the island, known as Meso Vathy, in 15 feet of water with sand over mud bottom, very good holding (35° 16.83’ N, 025° 44.51’ E). N’Oubliez Jamais was already there, as was another local sailboat. There was a large pontoon raft secured to the north shore, with a canopy, wooden flooring and a bar, used by some day trippers for parties. However it was unused the four days while we were there, although several other small day trip boats landed ashore for afternoon swims and barbecues on the sandy beach and small cleared area nearby.

Next day we visited N’Oubliez Jamais and exchanged some books. When I indicated I wanted to take Sprite up to explore the island at the entrance, Judy declined as she wanted to do some tasks on Veleda, and similarly Keith had some work to do on N’Oubliez Jamais. So Jean and I took off in Sprite the 2 miles up to Nisos Spinalonga. Although the island is deserted, it is being maintained and upgraded for historical and tourist purposes. We landed at the main dock, and paid our 2.00 Euros for entry, then had the whole afternoon to explore this fascinating island.

This area has an extensive history. Artifacts have been found dating from Neolithic times (7000 to 3000 BC) through Crete’s main historical Minoan period (3000 to 1100 BC). The Hellenic and Roman eras have left their traces including the ancient port of Lato, its ruins submerged but visible when snorkeling on a calm day just off the isthmus. The island comes into the historical record during the Byzantine era, and later when under the influence of Venice. The massive Venetian fort was built to protect the lagoon and Elouda, primarily from pirates, and was in use until the area was finally conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th century AD. It had several bastions at the summit and on the strategic corners of the island to deter ship-borne attacks. When the Ottomans took over they established a community on the island, complete with traditional residences, flagstone walks and streets, a large community cistern providing running water, and a sewage system. After the Ottoman Empire disintegrated Crete suffered the upheavals common to the rest of Greece and had the additional fight of ENOSIS, Union with Greece, which did not take place until 1913.

Things settled down in this area in the 1920’s. In the 1930’s the lagoon was used as a stopover for large seaplanes from Britain en route to India and Australia, and the island had some small industry, including salt production. As the industry declined the island was converted to a leper colony with new (in the 1930’s) buildings and the fortifications and Ottoman residences were allowed to crumble. The leper colony was closed in 1953 and the island has been deserted since, except for recent historical and tourist interests.

In exploring the island we first hiked up to the summit and upper bastions for a breath-taking 360 degree panorama, out to sea, over the mountains, and down the bay and the peninsula. On the peninsula could be seen the miles of stone walls built by local farmers hundreds of years ago, the fields now barren of olive trees and even of the goats and sheep once pastured there. Between the island and the northern tip of the peninsula the clear waters showed that a keel boat could navigate that small channel, staying closer to the island as most of the shoals were at the end of the peninsula. Across the channel were the remains of the long-abandoned salt works. We could see the massive lower bastions, their semi-circular battlements empty of cannon but located on three strategic corners of the roughly triangular shaped island, still commanding the entrances to the lagoon. As well as the leper cemetery, we could see the leper colony’s derelict buildings contrasting in their relatively modern rectangular stuccoed flat roofs with the battlements and the derelict Ottoman residences.

Downhill, I enjoyed wandering through the stone remains of the Ottoman buildings, piecing together what they may have looked like when inhabited. I could see or imagine their small shaded courtyards, the fireplaces for heat or for cooking, the absent stairs no longer ascending to the floorless upper stories, the old wooden beams that at one time supported a small enclosed balcony overhanging the street, so characteristic of the Ottoman era houses, and the fluted, squared and arched casements of doorways and windows indicative of architectural flourishes. The massive barrel-vaulted cistern which stretched for over 100 metres was a mystery, with one section having dozens of stone or concrete washing receptacles, possibly still in use for the leper colony. Mingled in the Ottoman remains were the newer deserted leper colony buildings, long rectangular single-story remains, several with a central corridor, doorless rooms gaping on either side. Light and plumbing fixtures had been torn out of the walls.

A few buildings had the remains of attractive stone patios at the ends, with lovely views across the channel. There were no explanatory signs, and so I didn’t know which buildings were residences, kitchens, administrative or medical. Surprisingly, the floors were swept and clear of debris. There were no large dormitory rooms. They seemed to be small apartments with toilet facilities, judging from the holes in the walls where pipes and drains would have been. I think there were a couple of communal kitchens and dining areas. These buildings were built alongside and above the remains of the Ottoman residences, so as I walked the centuries old street, I would see on one side the early 20th century leper colony buildings and on the other side the stone foundations of Ottoman residences. There was one domed building, just inside a pillared Venetian entrance-way opening to a small unused dock, which had a few explanatory photographs of some of the small industry and the seaplane base of the island in the early 20th century.

 I would have liked to have seen information on the Venetian and Ottoman periods as well as about the leper colony closed in 1953. Such material would help make the place come alive for people as they wander about the intriguing remains of Nisos Spinalonga.

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