Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga

At 13:13 on the 21st August, we cast off and motored for 42 Nautical Miles in nil wind on calm seas all the way to Agios Nilolaos.

More comfortable than Heraklion, this was to be our base while Sal made her second and hopefully final trip to London to pick up the tools she'll need to fix her foot.





The marina at Nikolaos has to be the most organised yet. We had a chat with the harbour master on the way in, were directed to a berth. He was there when we were ready to throw our lines. Two slime lines, appropriately coloured, green for Starboard and red for Port, power and water at each berth.


The town itself read well, but I agree with the Author of 'The Book' that it has sold its soul to tourism.


For me it is a bit like Bali (in Indonesia). You are left wishing you had got there 30 years before.

It is nicely laid out, but not good for bikes. Narrow busy streets and the pavements are crammed with tourists. There is a beach within swimming distance from the Marina entrance and another, the other side of town.

The cool feature of the town is the 'lake'. This is what is left of the core of the volcano and it is smack in the centre of town.

Naturally it is semi surrounded by restaurants and bars and tiny fishing boats, but this enhances rather than detracts.

I took the kids there to eat and surprisingly the meal was right up there with one of the best meals we'd all had to date.

We had a couple of days to burn before Sal's flight and Agios Nikolaos is very close to Spinalonga. This is a large, protected enclosed bay only 3-4 meters deep, with "azure waters and white sand." At the entrance to the bay is Spinalonga, a leper colony until 1966.

So... Overweight? getting old? losing your hair? having to wear orthotics? needing a knee replacement? or... dying in this place of Leprosy?

Now that my friends would be the short straw!

The day was young when we anchored, but the touted Azure sea on white sand was also 30 years old. The water was slimy and full of flotsam, churned up by so many tourist boats from Nikolaos and Elounda but we had noticed a large new hotel development which looked like it had a pool..... read also pool bar.

Looks great right?... The water was 32 degrees and very salty, the pool bar had just shut "signomi" as we arrived and there was nothing at all to eat....

At the other end of the bay is the town of Elounda. A little surprise package given what we'd see so far.

It was a longish dingy ride but we decided to leave the boat anchored where it was and bop on in. Always heaps of fun for the whole family bopping along in the dingy.

We were greeted by a very cute little harbour At its entrance was our lunch spot (left) and not far away was a beach to cool off at... festi as we knew it would be, we were melting.

Unfortunately, the service had that 'end of a long hot season of painful tourists' about it. I'd have to say though that thanks to Trip Adviser most outlets have really picked up their game. No longer do you get the 'we'll never see them again so serve them swill and charge them heaps' attitude.

We hired a car for three days so that I could drive Sal to Heraklion to catch her flight and pick her up two days later. Also so that the kids and I could take a look at the south coast of Crete while Sal was away.

This is 6am on the 26th August... "red sky in the morning...!" and the start of a Meltimi blow which we are still enduring as I type from elsewhere 5 days later!



The drive to the south coast was spectacular and because the Meltimi comes from the north, we thought that the south coast would be nicely protected.... wrong!

We arrived into a largish town, the name of which escapes me now but wind blown and uninviting. We decided to head along the coast, find a beach, an hotel with a pool, anything to make this drive worthwhile...

Another day and another hotel with a pool. Admittedly, it was a nice pool, Summer made a french friend but as you can see by the palm tree and the cabanas, it was blowing a boomer and once again, the bar was closed and there was nothing to eat??



Sal managed the whole London diversion in two days flat. No problems with Greek customs in Athens and replete with new, high fashion yachting attire....

We had planned to sail from Agios Nikolaos the 60 plus nautical miles directly to Fry on Paxos but the wind had rather jaded our enthusiasm for that. The plan was to island hop to Rhodes. Crete/Kasos/Karpathos/Rhodes.

We had for some strange reason, completely missed Siteia. A town almost at the very eastern end of Crete, well protected from the Meltimi, power and water on the quay and only a 20K sail. This would make Fry a much more manageable 40K the following day.


And so at 11:35 on Sally's birthday we cast off and set sail in biggish but very enjoyable wind and water