Chania to Gramvousa – is today a religious holiday?

At Remezzo, our favourite breakfast place before departure. 

We were off like a herd of turtles out of Chania, finally leaving the dock around 11:00 and hoping to get to Nisos Elafanisos on the south coast of the Peloponnese. The day started early enough with us going to breakfast around 08:00. The girls were going to do some marketing (we were out of Rum!!!) and I needed to get some gasoline for the dinghy motor and to have my paperwork stamped at Port Police with my new crew-list. Our breakfast place was Remezzo and Marina particularly liked the waiter Kostas -- 25 year old Greek guy who was quite attentive -- though I think was in-fact more interested in Jess and Chloe truth be told.

After a great breakfast I set off looking for a gas station -- made much easier by the maps on my iPad ... that at that moment decided to go brain-dead so I rebooted it only to find it ask me for the SIM Pin ... argh -- I put the Pins for all the phones in my phone, which is back on the boat. So, undeterred, I went "old school" and picked a busy street and started walking until I found a Shell station about a km down the road. I then went back to Port Police and had a nice chat with the officer. She remembered our conversation about my Dad working for Canadair and helping build the water bombers that were fighting fires in Greece. I finished my paperwork and walked back to Tara. The girls were arriving back from groceries at the exact same time. How serendipitous. We asked the mega-yacht next door to let out their lines so we could back up and off we went.

We're planning to make it to Elafanisos, a magic place with sandy beaches and a number of good anchorages. We’re hoping the girls like the beaches and that we can spend a day or two just swimming and hanging out.  It is really nice here in the Peloponnese. The only downside is that the distances are quite large – like 70-100 miles which means a long day’s traveling between locations. We are doing the really big one today (~80 miles). We have two more 50 milers and then we’re back to the Northern Ionian and the 10 anchorages within 20 miles routine.

We diverted to Gramvousa at the tip of AK Spathi – the northern tip of Crete and headed to Gramvousa. It was a pretty easy decision really. Jess hit it when she said “I haven’t even been swimming yet” and our choices were 7 more hours or 1.5 hours to a nice anchorage.

We pulled into Gramvousa just as a tripper boat was coming in and he honked at us when we went right, then honked when we went left. I threw my hands up in a WTF gesture, did a button-hook and moved 200 meters to another small bay. He disgorged his 100 or so passengers and we had lunch and a swim. The water here is crystal clear, we're anchored in 6 meter deep water and you can see your anchor clear as a bell through the water from the surface.

Ninety minutes later the day-trippers were gone and we hopped in the dinghy and went to shore. There is a big Venetian fort at the top of the island that is about 200 meters high so we started on the switchback trail, climbed it and took in the view.

The Greek version of the Grouse Grind

Heading towards the trail up to the fort. 

The kids insisted on getting very close to the edge and successfully got me to freak out a couple of times. Ross in particular has a habit of getting very close to you and grabbing you, “saved your life” Hahahaha. Funny. I had visions of Jessie flinching, pulling away from him and tumbling 200 meters down to the water.

Ross, Chloe and Jessie listening for the splash of
the rock they just threw over. 

Ross!  Get away from the Edge!

After a few photo ops and some ooh-ing and aah-ing we started down the path back to the boat. Another cruising yacht decided to enter the bay and were in the process of anchoring as this very large ferry came barreling into the bay and started honking like mad at them. He ended up coming within about 30 feet of this 50 foot sailboat with a 300 foot ferry. The ferry was full of passengers on some sort of pilgrimage. He dropped an anchor, pulled up to shore, dropped his landing ramp and out they went, some climbing to the top, others to the beach to light fires. There were goats and rabbits on the island, I wonder whether any of them ended up being rotisseried?

We decided to move back to our original bay and watch them leave. It took them until around 00:30 to get everyone back to the boat. It took three sets of ‘Whistle blows” until the last stragglers arrived. At around 11:30 I took a light up on the deck and warned off a couple of guys in a small boat that seemed to be driving right at us at speed from the other direction. I would guess that seeing our single mast-head light was difficult when there was a background of a big ferry with all of its lights on. 

Our resident night-owl Ross stayed up and made sure the ferry didn’t run us down, which since I am writing this, it didn’t.

The Big Ferry that nearly ran over the poor guy in the charter boat in the foreground
and Tara in the background about to disgorge about 1,000 passengers ... YIKES

Chania, what a great Tourist Town

While I am generally not a fan of tourist towns, I will admit to being a big fan of Chania. I guess one of the reasons is the low cost of staying there. At about 8 Euros a night to tie up to the quay with another 3Euros for water and electricity, it’s the bargain of the century. Add to that a very lively waterfront with great restaurants, an excellent chandlery, lots of local attractions, a very nice beach, spectacular Venetian architecture and pretty good shelter from wind and sea.

You get to see things in Greece that you don't get to
see other places around the Western World. Hey pup,
how are you doing?

Ross and I arrived on a Sunday in quite a bit of wind, like pushing 35-40 on the way into the bay and a solid 20-25 when we were preparing to anchor. A nice couple of guys from nearby boats suggested that we go side-to on the quay and that worked out quite nicely given the 25 knot side-wind. Man, when you lose the bow in that breeze there is no getting it back. Anyway tied up to the quay I went off to Port Police and got us registered with Spiros, the local harbor master. While it costs 25% more to be side-to I think I can afford the extra 2 Euros a day so we didn’t move.

The view from the cockpit of Tara into town

I rented a car to pickup the girls at the airport and used the extra time I had to go the the Tera Crete olive oil factory we visited last year and picked up 7 liters of olive oil, some balsamic vinegar and some olives. Then off to the airport and waited for three pretty weary girls to come out of the baggage claim with 50# of boat parts, and 10 bathing suits each. Jess and Chloe came out first as they only had carry-on luggage, and then Marina followed in about 10 minutes. They flew to Crete for about 40 Euros each on RyanAir. The bag probably costs another 100 Euros – and if you don’t check-in online it costs 55Euros for each to check in at the gate. Thankfully the gate agent told them in advance and they found an internet kiosk … “Yes ma’am it is 40 Euros for the flight and 55 Euros to check in”. I can imagine how that conversation must go. I doubt that they have any irate customers over that cash grab. Probably goes a bit like my discussion with Canadian mobile phone carriers:

Matt: “so let me get this straight, it’s 10 gigs is $100. OK, I need eleven gigs, how much is it, $110, $109?

Mobile Phone Company: No sir it is $1,100. Each megabyte over 10G is $1.

Matt: WTF??”

A cruise ship came in and lit off fireworks near the entry marker
which is a piece of art in itself

Anyway, back in Chania there is a street that just sells leather, there are lots of art galleries, many restaurants and bars, and lots of places that sell clothing … sounds like a teen-age girl’s holiday resort. We ended up staying an extra day because I needed to install the new alternator Marina brought and I thought the girls would enjoy the experience of Chania. In reality we probably would have been happier to leave a day earlier but we have between 35 and 75 miles to go so we need to give ourselves enough time to enjoy the touristy bits but get ourselves into the sailing/cruising mode.

So you're pretty successful eh?

In the words of Qui-Gon Jinn (Jedi Master and trainer of ObiWan Kenobi) "There's always a bigger fish" and that can be seen all around the med.

We pulled into Chania and were side-to the mole feeling pretty good about ourselves after besting the 35 knots of breeze on the way in ... and then this happens

Tied up during the day

Nice family sized yacht pulls in beside us

And then you encounter things like Abramovich's Luna -- 115 meter long $545M USD superyacht. Makes the poor buggers in the 40 meter long boats feel a bit ... inadequate.

Luna anchored in Zakinthos Bay. They sent a tender in to pickup dozens of bouquets of fresh flowers while we were at dinner

Like Qui-Gon says: "There's always a bigger fish"

On the Road

Two weeks from now Marina and the girls arrive in Chania Crete – about 300 miles away from Preveza, so it’s time to get a move on. But there are things to do, like go to Lefkas to get stove parts and we decided to do a motorcycle ride on Lefkas to use Ross’ new motorcycle license.

Ross on his Yamaha 650 with the twitchy throttle

Matt riding his Honda Transalp 650

We ended up needing to stay in Lefkas a little longer due to a slight stove difficulty (previously blogged about) and waiting for a part from Athens. During this layover we rented a couple of 650cc motorcycles. The pavement was slick and we had minimal safety equipment (basically a crappy old helmet, not likely Snell certified). We rode about 60kms around Lefkas with minimal issues other than Ross dropping his bike on the pavement at 1kph by locking up the front wheel at zero speed. I was looking in my rear-view mirror and saw him straddling the bike on its side … bit of a heart in the mouth moment. He picked up the bike, walked it to the side of the road and put it on its stand, took a few breaths and we rode away.

Ross having dinner at a pretty good Italian restaurant in Nidri

We did one night in Elia bay on Meganisi and then onto Vathy for fuel and provisions – the store had a bigger sign saying “Boat Provisions” than the store that actually had  boat provisions. They did have toothpaste and beer though, two of the things that we were missing.

Nice to see Tomskii on our AIS display

From Vathy we had a long day to Kallithea on the Peloponnese coast and then into Pilos. Whe we were at Kallithea I emailed my friend Marcel and he said they were in the Navarinou Sea … wait a minute that’s Pilos – our next port of call … so we had a terrific reunion with Marcel and Lena our Dutch friends.

At anchor in Methoni

The ancient Venetian ruins in Methoni

Ross looking very stressed in heavy weather

For the next couple of days we hung out together in Pilos, then Methoni, Elafanisos and then we parted ways with us going south to Kithera and into Chania Crete, and them heading north towards Corfu where Lena is flying to Holland on the 11^th.

With this tiny amount of jib up we were consistently doing more than 9 knots boatspeed on our way into Chania on a beam reach. Hold on ......

Ross and I had a very fast trip into Chania – mostly 10-15 knot beam reaching (translates to 7-8 knots of boatspeed) until we got close to Crete when it became about a 35 knot close reach. We hit 11.2 knots in flat water which is like going 160Kph on the Coquihalla in a Winnebago. We pulled in most of our sails and kept going 9-10 knots for the last 20 miles into Chania. When we got there we thought about going stern-to but with a 20+ knot cross wind, not a chance. We pulled in side-to and that’s where we ended up for the next three days

Tara tied up in Chania

.