Further impressions of Crete

Crete is a large island measuring some 260km from west to east and 50km from north to south, with three mountain ranges rising over 2,000m. The topography is extremely rugged, and there are very few major inland roads. With the many rocky ravines and caves it’s easy to see how in WW2 the Cretan partisans were able to resist the Germans so effectively. On every spare piece of land there are olive trees – over 21 million of them in fact. It’s hard to imagine how all of these trees are harvested due to their sheer number, and in many cases poor accessibility. We were told that large nets are placed under the trees, and then the branches are mechanically shaken to bring the olives down. This provides employment during the harvesting time of October to February, when the tourist numbers are down. Crete is very windy, and windmills are still used extensively to pump water from bores. There are many remains of ancient stone windmills. A modern variation of this is windfarms to generate electricity – there are many hundreds of these tall, silent wind towers around the island. The Cretan villages are exactly as you picture them – narrow winding streets, where a car has to pull over to let an oncoming car through, ancient, rustic buildings, mostly in a poor state of repair and some derelict, peeling paint in white and blue, old men with waistcoats and moustaches sitting outside small tavernas, elderly hunched-over women dressed totally in black.
There are very few tourists here – a matter of great concern to the many taverna and café owners who still hope that August will bring the numbers to fill the arrays of empty café seats. It appears to us there are far too many tavernas, car & bike renters, and tour operators for the numbers of people.
There is not much traffic on the roads outside the main towns, but the driving is atrocious – much like Turkey. It seems that nobody is content to sit behind you, and drivers overtake on blind corners, double white lines or anywhere, forcing oncoming traffic to move over to the verge. Speed limit signs are a waste of space and there seems to be no traffic law enforcement.
They have small supermarkets and we’ve been able to buy everything we need. We found a good quaffing dry white wine called Kpaei Aeyko which is sold in bulk for Euro
1.80/litre. Better quality white and red wines cost about Euro 5-9 per 750ml bottle.
Here they have VAT, like our GST bt the level varies according to the product. Due to the tough economic times the top rate has just been increased to 23%.
We’ve now been in Agios Nikolaos since 22 June and plan to leave next Tuesday 13 July and head west along the northern coast. Sorry to hear of the bleak weather back home – must say the weather here is great; sunny, not humid, temps in high 20s to low 30s, sea is 26d. Yesterday there were a few clouds about, which we thought was a bit poor! It is windy here though – every day about 15-25kn from the NW kicking up a 1.5-2m sea in open waters – but the wind and sea should reduce as we head west.
Log
Days aboard this trip: 97
Engine hours and distance this trip: 70 hrs / 345 nm
Technical
Last Tuesday Panagiotis, the engineer from Piraeus, came back with the reconditioned pressure plate. Quite amazing that within 4 days, including a weekend, it had been sent to Piraeus (an overnight ferry trip), reconditioned and returned here. Panagiotis is a really knowledgeable guy – he was an engineer in the Royal Greek Navy for 29 years, and he’s also a real toiler. The gearbox weighs about 60kg, and when the local engineer Steve and I removed it we struggled together to carry it off Envoy to the shore. Panagiotis picked it up and carried it back on board by himself! After installation he spent some time aligning the prop shaft with the gearbox (which is attached to the engine) and found that the rear of the engine needed to drop down on it mounts quite a bit. He says this was the cause of the gearbox problem. Also three out of the four engine mounting bolts were loose. On Wednesday Di & I went for a cruise of a few hours duration and all seems OK – there is no vibration, no oil leaks and no other challenges (until the next one, but that’s boating!)