Cruising - 7 April

Crete was the first port of call for the ship this morning, docking at the town of Agios Nicolaos. We had decided, having stayed up to watch the Magic Show and Chocolate Extravaganza the night before, to take it very easy, sleep in and wonder onshore at a leisurely pace.

We had nothing planned once we hit the pavember so it was easy to be tempted to purchase tickets on the Blue Tourist Train for a 30 minute driving tour of the town. This would prove to be one of the funniest experiences we had. The tour started with a technical problem when the microphone just wouldn't work, so we were privileged to have "Big George" (BG) the tour guide sit next to me in our carriage. BG have a very strong Greek accent taking our brains that little longer to work out what he had said but it was not to be interesting facts about the town or the island. Instead BG pointed out a beach that was so polluted that you could not swim there, an "old house", an "old house that was lived in", the town water supply that no longer provided water, a river that was dry and a sculpture of a "Sea Hoare" (we think he meant Sea Horse). Of course, we had Americans sitting in front of us who were actively discussing how Australians loved to travel but had such poor wages that they could not afford to travel like Americans. Later when BG asked where we had come from I took great pleasure in announcing in my loudest Australian accent my nationality. The Americans were duly shocked and embarrassed. Further, said Americans took it upon themselves to correct BG's english announciation. BG took it in his stride and when asked whether he thought the weather would get better he responded with, "I do not care, I'm at work". By the time the vehicle had stopped Ron and I were in stitches of laughter. We were happy to pay BG 5 Euro extra and have a photo taken.

Big George and Ron

We soon sailed away from Crete and traveled to the spectacular island of Santarini. Satarini has two active volcanos within close proximatey. One errupted a few hundred years ago resulting in half the original island sinking into the sea. The island today is in a crescent shape with 400 metre cliff faces. The islanders have built along the cliff edges and from a distance the island looks like it is topped with snow as the houses are all painted white. It is well worth a visit for those Australians that can "afford to travel with such low wages". It will be on my return list should I come back this way in the future.

Hairy Satarini Island hound.