Diary entry number seventeen - Suez to Crete. Postition 35.16:80N, 25.44:43E
California of London
Allan and Ruth Dooley
Tue 1 Sep 2009 08:23
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Departed Egypt on Monday 17 August. Very
shallow a long way off coast and at first motored directly towards Crete.
However, the headwind and the seas built up and we changed to motor sailing
tacking to the north-west. The seas and wind did not let up until we were
just south of Crete. A hard and tiring three days for all three of us on
board.
We came into the south east coast and
decided to try and get to the north coast. However, we were met by large
seas and very strong headwinds off the east coast and we also ran out of
fuel Our bolthole was a delightful anchorage called Kato
Zakros. Having got diesel in cans
from the local garage we tried again to go around the north-east corner of the
island the next day but with a F8 wind gusting F9 (up to 43 knots) we turned
around and ran back again into Zakros - which luckily has an extremely good
taverna!
Stayed put in Zakros on Saturday 23 August as
the Meltemi was still blowing. We were joined by my brother Ian and neice
Kate who came by bus from Iraklion. On Sunday we went for a walk up 'Dead
Gorge' - so called due to the burial caves in its sides. Our third
attempt to get around the corner that afternoon was sucessfully and we sailed to
Sitia port where we got fuel and water. Kate settled
into sailing very well.
A pleasant sail the following day took us
to the marina at Aghios Nikolaos. A day trip to Spinalonga
island (which has a deserted village that used to be a leper
colony) on Tuesday was very enjoyable. Michael, Ian and Kate departed
for UK on the Wednesday as Ian needed to be back for his school's GCSE
results which were very good. Elliot (Ian's son) also had his
results and achieved a brilliant 7 A* and 4 A grades.
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