We took off on a side adventure from our counterclockwise circumnavigation of the Peloponnese to sail down to Crete!
I’ve been interested in Agios Nicholaus and the surrounding area in North-Eastern Crete for a long time. It rained virtually all of last winter in Lefkada and Crete is reportedly much dryer, warmer and sunnier in winters than the Ionian. The town of Agios Nicholaus has a marina and a beach. About 5 miles to the North there is a large, shallow and sheltered lagoon called the Spinalonga Lagoon. It is named after the small island at the N.E. Entrance to the lagoon, on which the Venetians built a fort – now a museum.
Spinalonga Lagoon offers natural shelter from the open sea and is marked as a storm shelter in NoForeignLand. There are two bays on the Eastern side of the lagoon, a Northern one and another one further to the South, slightly closer to Eloundas. Eloundas is only village on the bay and it is about 1 nm away on the Western side of the Lagoon. One of the things I’m contemplating is spending the winter here at anchor, rather than in the marina, assuming the lagoon offers enough protection from winter storms.
So, with this interest as the motivation, and having some left over time from not needing to stay as long in Nafplio as originally anticipated, we set off on a side trip to Crete. Starting from Epidavros on the Peloponnese, we completed the ~210 nautical mile overnight passage down to S.E. Crete the day before yesterday.
It was a clam, slow passage in light winds, mostly in the range of 3 – 8 kts, and gently rolling seas. We did overnight overnight to Milos Island, rested a day and night there and the set off for another overnight down to Spinalonga Lagoon.
We had to motor-sail the last 15 miles or so, doing about 6.2 knots at 1400 RPM with all three sails out, to get into the protection of Spinalonga Lagoon before the forecast Meltemi arrived.
We dropped the hook in the lagoon’s S.W. Anchorage in 6 meters of water – just about 10 min before the sun disappeared over the large mountain to West of the lagoon. With about 38 meters of chain out and our 45 kg Ultramarine anchor in a sandy bottom I felt prepared for the 4 days of high Meltemi winds that were forecast. We also deployed our massive Mantus chain hook on a 3 meter bridle, tied off to each bow cleat so as to shift Nakee’s 25 ton load off the windlass and to increase the scope.
It turns out that all this was a good move as the Meltemi that has been battering us for the last 36 hours arrived much stronger than forecast! The wind in here is gusting up to 40 kts and is forecast to increase over the next few days. Nakee is sailing back and forth on the bridle and chain like crazy, but we are holding fast, with the anchor drag alarm showing a very tight swing pattern well inside a 60 meter radius. Importantly we are the only yacht in the anchorage so only have to worry about our anchor and not about charter boats with “toy” anchors dragging into us.
The boom tent is flapping furiously, hope it does not flog itself to pieces, but we put it away at night. In sunlight hours we however need it out as the sun exposure is very fierce.
Ship’s cat Leya, however, does not appear concerned!
