A windy night in Elounda (Crete)

 

27th Oct 2019 (Crete)

Well not the usual report of sunshine, idyllic bays and the occasional goats bleating today...

That said, it is still sunny here in Elounda, we are in an idyllic bay, and the goats do still occasionally bleat! 

Thought I’d share with you some of our night last night:

We headed off to bed at 11ish, after watching a couple of episodes of something called ‘Money Heist’ on the laptop - it’s a Spanish crime caper series which Martin recommended. Watchable, but not great. (Edit: now on to season 3... still enjoying)

The day had been calm with little wind, but as we retired a gentle breeze picked up, this grew..

By 1am the wind is angrily howling through the rigging and the waves are slamming against the hull. 

We’re anchored (as opposed to tied to a mooring buoy or an a quay), so our safety is reliant upon how well the anchor is dug in to the bottom, and what sort of mud/sand/rock it’s holding onto.

At 3am - neither of us having slept much, if at all, the howling and groaning from the anchor chain becomes unbearable, so being of English decent, we decide on a cup of tea. 

The winds gusts intensify again and again until the strained screams coming from the bridle rope as it rubs through the fairlead seems to be invisibly connected to our teeth and guts. Both of which sickeningly clench in unison with each and every new groan from above.

Nights like this are few and far between, and generally the worst that can happen is that our anchor will ‘drag’ - meaning we’ll need to turn the motor on and raise then re-drop the anchor until it’s properly set. Not fun in dark windy and rolly conditions.

Anyway, we didn’t drag, and after our teas, at some stage must have dropped off, as I am now sitting here at 10am the next day writing this.

Today here in Greece is ‘Oxi Day’ - Oxi meaning ‘no’ - this is a celebration of this day in WW2 when Mussolini demanded from Greece an unconditional surrender. Greece (as you’d probably guessed) said ‘Oxi’

This is celebrated by ALL the schoolchildren marching the streets shouting suitably patriotic chants as they go. It’s a good spectacle to see, but something we’ll miss out on this year, as I’m taking a ‘sod that’ attitude to trying to get the tender to shore in these conditions.

Oh well, perhaps Spain, Italy, Tunisia, or wherever the wind and Brexit legislation takes us next year will have similarly impressive festivals we can watch.

I’m spending the day starting on a big 1300 pager history of London, while Chez learns Spanish - she has just informed me in that tongue that: ‘I am a man’ and ‘I eat an apple’ 

Having now read this to Chez - I understand that Oxi day is in fact tomorrow, and apples are ‘manzano’ :)