35 31.1N 24 01.2E

Sunday 14th April Chania Marina Crete

We finally left the marina of Agios Nikolaos on Wednesday having said our fond farewells to all our friends. We motored up to Spinnalonga testing everything was working and had a quiet night on the anchor. We had to get the dinghy inflated to go ashore as one of our new fenders bought the day before had deflated! A bit annoying as we had not planned to do this - however it did prove the dinghy and outboard were in good working order! we duly arrived at the chandlery for opening time 0800 and got a replacement. We set off from the bay at 0900 and arrived on the island of Dhia opposite Heraklion around 1500. A pleasant motor sail with the sun shining and the snow glistening on the mountains behind Heraklion!

We anchored for the night ate a good supper and turned in early as we planned to be up before dawn to set out for Chania. Our passage to Chania was lovely though again we had to motor sail all the way. The sea was flat and a beautiful deep blue which meant when a school of dolphins arrived we got some lovely clear pictures. We saw two ferries coming in to Heraklion and one fishing boat on our 68 mile passage! So all very quiet on the seas as yet.

We motored into the harbour of Chania and decided to try for a space inside the marina rather than the town quay which was empty! We finally tied up to the hammerhead on the end of the first pontoon. Later when we visited the chandlery it transpired that the owner also owned the berth we were on so all was settled that we could make use of this for a few days! The town is lovely and we did a quick explore around yesterday including eating out at a super taverna called Tamam. It is set inside an old Hammam - the food was a bit different to the usual Greek with a hint of Arabic/Turkish to the menu. We had a lovely meal at reasonable price! We also went to the Naval museum which was very interesting.

Our plans are to stay here for a few more days to explore further and wait for a more settled window in the weather for our next passage across the Kithera Sea to the Peloponnissos.

Pictures for the first few days will be on the blogger web page soon.