Spirit of Discovery blog

A misty morning found us encroaching the north coast of Greece’s largest island of Crete. Fortunately, the sun rose enough to burn off this low-lying nuisance to visibility so that we could find Heraklion harbour just in time to slide in for our 08:00 arrival.

Whilst interesting to wander and poke noses into local markets, many of our guests chose to embark on excursions offered by Judi and her team. I note, for example, that one such trip took off to visit an excavation site created by a certain gentleman who must have been knighted for his patience among other things, for Sir Arthur Evans spent 35 years of his life painstakingly unearthing the legendary site of Knossos. Other trips whisked guests away to monasteries, old towns and even a glimpse of Europe’s oldest recorded civilisation of the Minoans dating back to 5000BC.

It was another fine sunny day and, as such, I took a brief wander ashore with my dining companion Mark our chief engineer, for a what I hoped to be a traditional Greek lunch of significant expense – for today was his turn to pay. The quality of the lunch did not disappoint and neither did the views over the harbour, however when the bill came I was disappointed to note a nominal fee reflecting an establishment clearly tailored towards locals as opposed to tourists.

Alas, late afternoon came around and it was time to head off to our next Greek island. Alastair our safety officer manoeuvred the ship out of the harbour as part of his training for his next step to Staff Captain, and once out of the entrance we tracked north to sniff out Santorini, just about 70 miles away.

Kind Regards
Captain Kim Tanner