Saturday, March 17, 2018
I don’t know much about Crete, but so far I am fascinated.
As I mentioned in my last post I arrived here last night to beat the wind. A short walk and a lot of sleep completed my day. Today has been pretty full already and it’s only mid afternoon.
That wind storm is ripping through the port, and almost led me to not ride. But I decided to brave the winds and I am glad I did. Outside of the port things aren’t so bad. Here is a picture of the wind from a wind finder app. Red is really windy. I am in the red bit on the right side. Agios Nikolaos.
Here’s what it does to boat covers. Maris, with the brown hull and blue cover was completely covered this morning. That’s the boat just across from me. I am getting the wind on my stern and it’s still pushing me around quite violently.
But I think people here are kinda used to it. Here’s a picture from earlier, and these youngsters didn’t even seem upset. They were handling their boats like champs! In Toronto we would have pulled them off the water to protect them. There were more of these kids outside the break wall! The waves were much worse out there.
So I decided to go riding and at least do some discovery. The roads here are smooth, anything but flat and there aren’t many cars, at least where I was riding. The hills are definitely varied and scenic. I only rode 45km but it took me two hours with all the climbing.
I stopped multiple times today to take pictures. I have heard loud and clear that my reader(s) want me to shut up and put pretty pictures on the blog (kidding), and for the last few days it has been mostly prose. I don’t want to lose all of you! So pictures . . .
This is just outside of town. The beaches here look pretty nice and my boat systems tell me the water is 18C. That’s warmer than Lake Ontario in August!
As a cyclist, one of the more interesting things is s-turns on descents. Made more fun when you can see around the corners, and this qualifies as awesome. I went pretty slow because of the winds , but it was very scenic just the same.
This is a valley up in the mountains. You can almost get a sense that it is an oasis in the brown rocky hills, but it was an unusual area.
This was at the top of the first climb out of town. Beautiful views really.
And this is just a perfect, scenic roadway. I rode through it before I realized that it was a tree tunnel, but I made sure to stop and get a picture.
So my bike ride was appropriately difficult. But I was inundated with wildlife! There were goats on the roads in many places and I scared the crap out of a few. I was worried that a billy goat would chase me down, but in reality they were all just scared. And trying to get away from me.
In a few of the pictures you may be able to see the bee hives/boxes. There were bees in everywhere, and I got hit in the face with them a few times, but the worst was the one that got in my mouth. As I spit him out, he stung my tongue. It wasn’t a wasp with a huge sting it was a very light sting, but it’s going to hurt for a few days.
I spent two hours washing parts of the boat. I’m still not done, the boat is pretty dirty, but it looks better and much of the salt is washed off. I did that while the winds continue to howl around me. They are going still. The forecast says to expect more of the same until tomorrow afternoon.
In any case this is my introduction to Crete, and I will spend a couple of weeks exploring and pass on my experiences where appropriate.