Sail Crete

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Monday, October 18
Transcription. I am having the best day yet, though writing by cloud obscured moonlight is a little difficult. I woke up at fourish this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I think I did my math wrong and thought that it was near sunrise. Plus I’m obviously more jetlagged than I had thought. Karleen was also up, so we played cards for a while, probably until about six, and then I sat down to read and slept until eleven, when Kar woke me so I could join them for breakfast. We had a strange breakfast of flattened eggs, grilled ham and cheese, and jam on “rusks”. We didn’t know what that was either, it’s ok. After eating we wandered up into town. Karleen was looking for the school, so we tagged along and continued past when she got there. The village, really, is on the south side of a ridge, which seems to be all these islands are made up of; ridges and mountains. On the other side was another lovely little bay, so we dropped down over the edge. By this time the intermittent drizzle became proper rain and we took shelter in a beachy kind of café. The proprietor was really sweet. As we were leaving he showed us a spot where the Italians had uncovered 20 or so ancient graves while building something or other during the war, and then as he was walking off he said that he knew all of this because his son is an archaeologist. Apparently the state is such a mess right now that all the archaeologists can afford to do at the moment is attempt to protect the sites they are aware of. Sounds like a prime place to come and do a little volunteering… We walked back over the ridge, and instead of heading back to the boat I walked along the ridge to where Jon (the archeologist’s father) had pointed out three old mills towards the tip of the ridge. I passed the only mule I’ve seen this trip, a military fort, and a field that smelled strongly of sheep. Walking up there reminded me of a mystery I read once where a poor innocent little tourist girl went to explore some windmills in Greece, discovered a nest of murderers and kidnappers, and spent the rest of her trip unraveling crimes and avoiding murder attempts. My explorations were much less eventful. The mills were quite cool, but the doors were locked, so I got to do circles around them and then head back down. There were several collapsed stone structures on the hillside, and it appeared partially terraced. That field that smelled like sheep? That was because half of the rocks in there were actually really still, filthy sheep. One of them moved. I took a quick detour to a graveyard we had seen from the other side and then returned to the boat. Mike and Chris had figured out the water problem we had discovered the night before: the shower at the back had been on for the entire day before and drained the front fresh water tank. So they filled that again. The swells were getting quite large by this time, but no one seemed to be concerned, except for one fisherman who yelled at us a bit in Greek. Our battery quit charging sometime during the night, so we fiddled around with that for a bit before we read the instructions, of course. Turns out you have to pay! Weird :/ Kar went over to find out how to get more than five minutes of charge for our battery and the men in the store all told her that we had to leave immediately because there was huge storm blowing in. So we threw off the lines (this involved some leaping from deck to dock and back as we got knots in the lines) and hauling the anchor up (it got stuck on the ferry’s anchor rope). Then we motored out into four-five foot swells, which was surprising, and crossed a half hour East to a really sheltered cove on Alimia Island. I, of course, was having the time of my life, sitting at the bow with my feet hanging over the edge into the top of the swells as we bounced around. Meanwhile everyone else is back under the cover white knuckling the railing. I think they have realized I’m nuts. It is GORGEOUS here! The cove is really calm, there is a GIANT cave in the opposite side, a castle at the far end, and three German bunkers right in front of our anchor spot. As soon as we got here I made them help me throw off the dinghy, which had been on deck, and sped over to shore to explore the buildings. I got half way up the ridge before there was a great clap of thunder and a strike of lightning, so I turned around and hopped down to the inflatable. It started to rain as soon as I got back. There are small groups of goats all over the island that have taken shelter in what’s left of the buildings. All there is of one is a half covered basement. Right next to the upper building was a round stone structure with really thick walls. I’ll have to go back and check it out. There are black sea urchins all over the rocks at the shore. However, that is the ONLY sign of life I’ve seen in the water so far, and the dearth of sea birds is REALLY starting to creep me out. I put on water for spaghetti as soon as I got back, and we soon had really yummy pasta to eat as the rain hammered the boat and an extreme lightening show lit up the sky. We went up on deck with coffee after the rain quit and watched the lightning play over the other islands. It calmed down a lot and I took my blanket and pillow out onto the deck in front. The clouds broke apart and the moonlight shone through the curdling clouds and flowed across the ridge on the other side of the cove. It was probably the most classically ghostly looking moment I have ever experienced. There is something about moonlight…
Stars overhead appear to be drifting on the far off surface of an ocean, and I feel like I’m miles below the surface. Little snippets of foreign language and laughter float across the water from the other boats that sought refuge here. I watch the inconstant tick tock of the mast as rebound swells come into the cove. We are swinging wide arcs around the anchor. A sudden gust of wind snaps the flag straight and ruffles my blanket. The moon breaks out of the clouds closing in and my shadow is distinct and sharp edged for a moment. There is a large cloudbank flowing East, Cassiopeia playing peek-a-boo on the North edge and the moon gleaming through the ragged gossamer of the southern fringe.
I moved in shortly after the wind picked up because we were drifting a little, so we muddled around with the anchor some, fighting with the battery that will NOT keep a charge, and then we stayed up for quite some time making sure that we had been playing with too much chain out, and not dragging anchor. We had been. It rained very heavily again around one in the morning.

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