Sail Crete

---

Tuesday, October 19
Scattered rain showers all day, but the temperature is so warm, and the wind isn’t cutting like it can be at home, so it’s really nice to be out. I had kiwi yoghurt this morning for breakfast, which is delicious. Kar and I headed over to do some more intensive exploration on the island at about ten thirty. The rocky shore is covered in black sea urchins that are apparently harvested. We found piles of empty shells behind one of the buildings. The buildings are definitely WWII German military. The coast pilot book thing here describes a cartoon written by one of the soldiers that was stationed here. I’d like to see if I can find it. There is a much older structure right besides one of the bunker/ buildings. It is circular and set into the ground. I got some good pics. There wasn’t much to be found on the surface inside, other than modern junk. And pottery. There are shards of red ceramics ALL OVER the ground surface everywhere. And, even cooler, the junipers growing on the hillsides mask the extensive terracing that was done here. I mean, the whole hillside is terraced! It was really cool finding that out. We hiked up to the ridge top just in time to see a dark grey storm headed our way so we booked it to the trees, which provided less shelter than a juniper would have. I left Kar there and jogged down to where we had left our jackets and got there two minutes after the rain started beating down. Ah well. It was really really nice to get even a teeny bit of decent cardio in. When the rain quit we almost immediately started drying off. From the ridge where we had been I had seen a possible structure, so I drug Kar back up the ridge and found another, very similar circular structure. This one still had discernible rings in the wall construction. They built three rings of stone and filled the spaces with debris. I couldn’t get a scale shot because Kar didn’t want to beat through the juniper to climb up there, but it must have been six or seven feet from the floor to the top of the crumbled wall. It was certainly taller than I am. We took goat paths down. I found a third ruin thing. I wish I knew more about this place. Zero research on it done. Fail. We got back to the boat around three and I whipped up a snacky lunch. Man, the tuna here is AWESOME. Instead of being smushed into a can we had chunks of fillets preserved in oil. Tasty. Turns out we don’t even have to move to knock the shower thing down and we have pumped all of the water out of the aft tank now. Good thing we filled up in Khalki. I studied for the rest of the afternoon, as it was raining nearly the whole time. Mike took off in the mini Zodiak during a brief pause in rain to check out the far side of the bay, but the motor ran out of gas just when he got there and he had to row all the way back! It’s a good thing he had the oars. I don’t think any of us had even started worrying about it, although a good thunderhead had built up. Five minutes after he got back it let loose a bunch of rain and lightning. We certainly laugh a lot on this boat. Our supplies are getting a tad short, though I had no trouble figuring out dinner. The rest of them think it’s a minor miracle that I could cook anything more than jelly sandwiches. The nights out here are stunning, away from all the lights of habitation.
There is just a teeny tiny bit of phosphorescence in the water, if you wiggle your toes just right. It still kinda creeps me out how little life I’ve seen out here. Sea urchins notwithstanding, I think I can count seven birds and… yeah. That’s it.

---