Heraklion and Knossos

A quote from ‘the book’….

"On the first day, one knows beyond contradiction that Heraklion is one of the least pleasant cities of the Mediterranean…..” Hopkins Crete: its past and people.

OK, it is the capital of Crete, it is big, but I disagree with this synopsis. Although we had a torrid time there, it is a beautiful city, with a pleasant entry from the ancient Venetian harbour into wide cobbled streets with everything.

The short 16 Nautical Mile trip to get there was awful. The Meltimi had kicked up a rough, confused, rolling swell on the stern

port quarter causing the boat to loll side to side and rock front to back for four long hours until we finally entered the settled waters of the largest port so far.

We poked our nose into the Venetian harbour at the very western end of the port, found a nice spot, managed, in wind coming over the substantial port walls, to get her into a difficult spot where we could see a slime line hanging from the wall into the water. 

No help around, although there were yachties sitting on their boats just watching on. (bad manners boys) William jumped ashore off the dingy, took a line from Sally, put it through a cleat and tossed it back. He then went to pick up the slime line which he found was attached to nothing…. Untied, back on board, no other spaces inside the Venetian harbour so back out into the main port. We found a space on a very high wharf, dropped the anchor and reversed in big swell, thankfully into some very competent helping hands.

Once all the lines were on it became clear that:

a. We’d need to stay well off the wall. The swell was moving the boat backwards at least a meter and a half with each surge.

b. The surges would increase with the arrival of these gargantuan ferries

c. We would need to drop the dingy simply in order to get ashore.

This was far from ideal because we had planned to stay here while Sally popped back to London to finalise the treatment on her foot.

Moral not at its highest Sal and I took the kids ashore for a feed and a little recce while Kerry slept off the sea sick tabs. Once they were fed we put them in front of a movie, picked up Kerry and walked into town for a very pleasant, not your typical Greek meal... for a change.

The next morning I managed to get all the bikes off by ferrying them into the Venetian harbour in the dingy and whilst in there I spotted a likely place on a floating pontoon to moor the boat. 

When everybody was up I took Sal in for a look…. "No brainer, lets move!"

The only way off the wharf was to untie at the boat and leave the lines attached to the wharf for collection later. I had used special lines to handle the surge so we still had our usual mooring lines on board.

There was still a nasty cross wind in the Venetian harbour so backing in was tricky. There were two slime lines attached to buoys out in the water rather than to the pontoon which was going to make things much easier….. That is until one of them, the most important one on the windward side, got caught in the port prop! Luckily it severed the lines and I still had reverse thrust but it meant we'd lost one mooring….. Well, reverse thrust until the mooring rope thrown by Sal was dropped by the on shore help and it went straight into the same prop, fouled it and automatically tripped it so as not to wreck the motor!! Fouled in the prop, it held the boat in place while we got another line ashore and I dived into dirty water to un-foul the line. Finally, minus one slime line and mooring, we were in…..

That is until I was handed a mobile phone by a guy looking really agitated. The guy on the other end of the line was really agitated. It seems that we had taken the spot that he had paid for the entire year for the charter yacht that was on its way into the harbour as he spoke… well yelled actually.

I have a saying… “once you lose it, you've lost”. This comes from much personal experience I have to admit, but on this occasion, my friend Arris on the other end of the line had in fact lost it.

The look on Sally’s face meant that we were not moving! I explained through the torrent of abuse that there was no sign to say the mooring was private, nowhere in the 63 ports we’d visited had this been the case, sure he had paid for a mooring, but that was any mooring not specifically this mooring and besides my port prop had tripped when it got fouled and we had to figure out how to un-trip it before we were going anywhere…

You’ll need to calm down Arris…. As the charter boat carrying a very nice English bloke and two of his nine daughters approached.

I noticed another buoy off the end of the pontoon indicating another slime line and pointed him to that. After some prevarication, we managed to get him snugly in and all was hunky dory with a cold glass of white on our boat when Arris arrived….. and OMG!

After much shouting which culminated in me ejecting him from our boat he stormed off down the pontoon threatening to do something nasty to our boat while we slept….. Not one to react kindly to threats and against firm protestation from all aboard I bounded after him and caught up with him at the end of the quay.

Just before we went at it I mentioned that in four months in his beautiful country I had never met an angry Greek person. He was the only one, his boat was safely moored, we would be out of there as soon as the Meltimi died down and the charter guests were not only happy, they were drinking all my wine!

Slowly the steam went out of it and by the next afternoon, me and my mate Arris, we were besties.

When in Heraklion, you should not miss Knossos. Just 5kms from the city is the largest palace of the Minoan civilisation built around 1900BC. It was destroyed by earthquake around 1700BC, rebuilt and then it and most of the Minoan civilisation were wiped out, it is assumed by a tsunami from the volcanic eruption of Santorini.  

We decided to hire a car and go take a look. 

It is fascinating and well worth a visit. We got talked into a guided tour which we all agreed was a good idea in the end but the thing that struck me most about the place was that unlike everywhere else in Greece, this place had no outer wall to protect it. Apparently, the Minoans were a peaceful people and for that reason were left alone to flourish.... 

There's a lesson in there somewhere??

The following day we took the kids to a water park to get out of the heat and stay away from the port all day to avoid any more blow ups. 

Kerry had grabbed a flight back to Italy to continue her sojourn as we decided we’d not stay in Heraklion but go to Agios Nikolaos instead.

Back at the boat, the Meltimi had died, the evening was balmy, we were a family again for the first time in ages and the sail to Agios Nikolaos in the morning promised to be a pleasant one.