Holidays in Chania

29 December 2023 – Chania, Crete, Greece

We spent a lovely holiday season in Chania, arriving without incident. We hadn’t planned to stay long after Christmas but it was so nice there that we ended up staying for a few more days. It was great to have a bit of time to relax and catch up on boat and school work.

Chania is a great place to spend Christmas. It has a pleasantly festive atmosphere, with concerts in the town square and many parties. I did a lot of Christmas baking and spent a day making a Yule log, which turned out surprisingly well.

Christmas baking – Chania, Crete, Greece

On Christmas Eve, my mom made a roast chicken but when we got ready to serve it, my dad and Jonas started running around looking stressed and saying that there was a hole in the boat. It turned out that the hose of one of the deck drains that is supposed to drain water overboard wasn’t actually connected at all, meaning that the water was instead draining into the electrical compartment inside. They properly attached it so hopefully not too much damage was done.

My dad and Jonas also repaired and waxed some of the gel coat, went up the mast to replace the loud hailer, added a spinlock for the boom preventer, greased a winch, and took apart the alternator to see if there was anything wrong with it (there wasn’t).

During the time that we were in town, Jonas and my dad went to the boat store around seven times. There are two great street markets, one on Thursday and one on Saturday, full of stalls selling fruit, vegetables, and other local products. It was packed with people and spanned several blocks. Each time my mom and I went we ended up carrying back huge bags of produce.

We are finally leaving Chania this morning. Even though we were there for over a week, it felt like barely any time at all and it was a bit sad to leave. I think Sirius forgot that he lived on a boat because he was looking pretty concerned as we left the dock.

Heading East on Crete

Crete

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