In all, we spent 13 days in Rethymno, with the last four being spent waiting for a good weather window. From Crete, our next �must see� island was Malta. As this encountered two different weather systems, that of both the Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea, our intended route was to first head northwest to Pylos, a Greek town on the Peloponnese peninsula, to acquire more favorable wind conditions before heading across the Ionian. We departed Rethymno on Monday, July 28, anchoring in a small cove 18 miles further west along Crete�s coastline for the night. Early Tuesday we started our sail northwest. We had a great sail to Kithira with winds NE 20 knots. However, we took quite a few waves over the deck during the sail as we still experienced 6 foot seas caused from gale force winds in the central Aegean Sea. Originally, our plan had been to break the sail up into two days, but upon reaching Kithira we decided to continue on overnight to Pylos. At Kithira we also lost our wind, due to our being in the lee of the Peloponnese, and so motored the rest of the way. With our arrival in Pylos Wednesday morning, we had traveled 161 nautical miles from Crete to Pylos in 28 hours.
Pylos, a Greek town of 2000 inhabitants, was idyllic. This small town was situated at the southern end of the Bay of Navarinon, an immense natural harbor, where in 1830 during Greek�s War of Independence, the decisive battle was fought against the Turkish-Egyptian fleet. Originally, our plan was to rest here a couple of days before starting our three day sail to Malta. Instead, our weatherman informed us that our weather window was closing on Monday near Malta. So the following morning, July 31, we checked out of Greece, turned in our transit log, and headed out the bay. |
