kateandjohnsail.boats

We have just said goodbye to Quintessa’s first guests of the season. Johanna and Paul are Pacific Northwest friends who were bitten by the sailing bug in the last decade and got serious quickly, taking classes and entering into boat ownership through San Juan Sailing Club in Bellingham. A formative experience for John and me as sailors was when Johanna and Paul invited us for a week of sailing together in the San Juans on Kipper Kite, their lovely Beneteau First. Now they have downsized and carved out a happy rhythm sailing from Lopez Island on Night Owl, a classic Shannon 28, all the while cheering us on in our Mediterranean adventures.

Here is where it gets interesting: Paul is a Dakapolos, only the second generation in the US, meaning he still has close relatives in Greece. For the four of us, it had been a dream that one day we would sail together in Greece and Paul could visit and share the land of his heritage. This spring Quintessa’s route took us to Crete, and the two D’s signed on to sail with us from Rhodes to Chania, the Cretan port near the village of the Dakapolos clan. Rhodes to Chania is a good 275 miles; happily, our friends brought great sailing conditions with them. If I believed in Greek weather gods, I would suspect that Paul, being practically local, had the inside track with them. We were treated to several sailing days with 22 knots of wind on the beam, which means playtime for Quintessa at 7-8 knots. All this in bright sunshine, with Johanna busting out in sea shanties as we sprinted along. In the evening we were able to take refuge from the wind on the lee sides of Rhodes, Karpathos, the east end of Crete, and Dia, an island opposite Herkalion on Crete. Each time we dropped the hook in a quiet bay with the birds as our only company, we enjoyed peaceful happy hour, good sleep, piercing stars, and a beautiful sunrise. When we visited the harbors of Agios Nikilaus, Rethymno, and Chania, our guests provided help with docking, sometimes in wind. Johanna and I proved to be kindred spirits in the galley, cooking up creative fare, but more often we ate out in Greek tavernas with lovely staff devoted to serving up delicious traditional food. When the food got the better of John (and me too, to a lesser extent), Johanna and Paul were patient and took up the slack in the boat chores.

We rented a car and drove up, up into the interior to visit the town of Kretsa, known as a weaving community.

We stopped to wonder at the frescoes in Panagia Kera, an 11^th-century Byzantine church.

When we arrived at Rethymno, we were surprised to look up and see that even in March, Crete has beautiful snow-covered mountains. Rising above church spires, the mountains could be mistaken for Alps, if it weren’t for the palm trees in the foreground!

From Rethymnon we visited the excavated palace of Knossos, learning a bit about the mysterious but sophisticated first Minoans.

To appreciate a more modern period, we went to the Arkadi monastery, the site of a tragic stand-off and slaughter in 1866 that was important in the Greek resistance from the Ottomans. As well as being a UNESCO European Monument of Liberty, the monastery is to this day the site of an active faith community.  

To conclude their trip with a cherry on top, Paul and Johanna visited the village of the Dakapolos clan, where they were welcomed by a warm cluster of relatives. There was sharing of stories, impromptu traditional dancing, and a sumptuous feast, presided over by the patriarch, 92-year-old Uncle Sophocles. 

As they prepared to depart, Johanna gave us this little art rendering of the Venetian harbor at Chania that she found in a gift shop; it is very dear because it shows exactly where we stayed in the harbor.