Something's never change. We are on the move again and have realised we have not done a blog over Winter.

This winter we were in Ag Nikolaos, Crete, affectionally known as Ag Nic. It made a nice change being somewhere new. The marina is right in town, so everything we needed was on our doorstep. In fact a 10 minute round trip from Wanda's berth and we could visit 3 supermarkets and a number of bakeries. Great for speed, not so good for our waistlines.

Unfortunately the first berth we had was very uncomfortable, due to the surge entering the marina. After we sustained some damage the marina moved us to a much better space. This did mean the first couple of months we were rocking and rolling a lot and unable to get on with boat jobs.

Wandas damage  - scratches on the paintwork and a very bent stanchion

Once we were happy Wanda was in a safe space we hired a car for a week with Liz and Kevin (Black Velvet) to explore Crete.

Our first excursion was up into the hills to make a snow man. We could see the snow covered peaks from Wanda. The locals were building snowmen on the bonnet of the car and driving back down the hill. So we decided we should follow the local tradition. Our snowman almost made it all the way down the hill, but once on the main road Stephen sped up and our snowman could not keep it together. We did have some snowy remains on the bonnet when we got back to the marina.

Snowman ready for his descent down the hill ……

….. still hanging on and enjoying the ride – although he has lost an arm ….

…. not looking so good when he arrived in the marina.

The next day we went to Chania, where we stayed for a couple of nights. We stopped at Rethymno on our trip back.

Chania old town

Chania Museum

Our favorite restaurant in Chania – well actually it was the only one we went to is was so good we went back the 2^nd night.

Old door way in Rethymno

Murial in Rethymno

We then went back to Ag Nic and went out for day trips from there. Unfortunately the weather for the latter part of our week was not that great.

Caught in a hail storm – they were very big painful hailstones

There were plenty of social activities in the marina. Tuesday was Crafty Cruisers in the morning, beginners guitar group met in the afternoon. Wednesday afternoon we played Mexican Trains, Friday was advanced music group and Happy Hour in a local bar and the ever popular Sunday BBQ. Stephen started playing his guitar again and Anne started singing with the beginners guitar group. In mid March the guitar group performed 5 songs with Anne as the vocalist at an open Mike night. We also performed one song with just the two of us.

Music took over our winter and boat jobs got a bit forgotten. Once we had recovered from the open mic night and Anne had recovered from a chest infection, we got onto getting Wanda ready for the summer season.

We had hoped to leave in April, but with one thing and another we didn't leave until June. It did mean we were in Ag Nic for Easter. At Easter everyone congregates around the lake at midnight on the Saturday and  lights a candle from one that was lit in Athens.  It was a fantastic sight to see and a the fireworks afterwards were amazing.

I am sure there are lots of things we have missed from this blog, but you get a taste of our winter in Crete.