EDITOR'S NOTE: Today, we offer Part Six of a seven-day series on boat-related vacations that leave the steering, cooking and maintenance to somebody else. For more about this series and why we did it, please see the Room 13 blog.
As I paddle my kayak along the mountainous edge of Crete's southwest coast, I hear a strange sound on the water and slow to a glide. Resting my paddle across my lap, I try to place the sound. Is it a wind-chime? The clank of cooking pot? For a moment, I hear nothing and carefully scan the sheer, pale cliffs of the shore for signs of activity.
Normally, a lone sound does not fascinate me so, but any sign of onshore life is a novelty on this empty edge of Crete. Yesterday, for example, I was entranced by a boatload of Greek women dressed in black, lined up outside a lonesome shrine to St. Paul. This morning, I was startled to spy two-dozen elderly German nudists spread out along a narrow cove.
After awhile, I recognize the strange sound as the tinkling of goat bells, and I spot a shepherd and his flock negotiating the steep slopes of the shore. I bob on the waves and watch the pastoral spectacle for several minutes before dipping my paddle into the water and moving on.
DESTINATION ISOLATION
There are many ways to get on the water, and not all of them involve sitting in the captain's chair. While we all love our boats, planning a vacation as a passenger this winter will allow you to travel to exotic waters while leaving the hassles to someone else. To lend some inspiration to your planning, Mad Mariner is publishing a story every day this week that highlights vacations both exotic and aquatic, vacations like touring Crete–by kayak.
Finding fascination in a lone shepherd underscores the remote feel of this corner of Crete, known as Sfakia, where deep canyons slice through the mountainous landscape, roads are few, and electricity has yet to arrive in many villages. To mainland Greeks, it is said, Crete feels far-flung and isolated. To Cretans themselves, Sfakia feels far-flung and isolated. The people who live here have a reputation as the most fierce–yet hospitable–folks in all of Greece. Come as a guest, and you'll meet warm and zealous hosts. Come as an invader, and you'll meet a vicious enemy. Even in the years when the Roman, Venetian and Ottoman empires lay claim to Crete, local insurgents thrived in the remote mountains and gorges of Sfakia, and the region was never fully colonized.
Such rugged isolation–a world away from the tourist throngs that populate the northeast coast of the island–is what brought me to this part of Crete. That, and the chance to sharpen my kayaking skills in a region where goats outnumber people, and rounding each new headland promises a new vista of dramatic cliffs, caves, and brilliant blue waters.
For the past several days, 11 of us have paddled our way along the Cretan coast. Our guide in this adventure is Rick Sweitzer, a fit, silver-haired Chicagoan whose outfitting company, Northwest Passage, has been leading kayaking and bicycling adventures in Crete for 25 years. After two days of kayak training at the 1960's hippie haunt of Matala, where Roman-era cave-mausoleums honeycomb the cliffs, we took a shuttle van west into the White Mountains of Sfakia and hiked 15 miles through the forested national park in Samarian Gorge, down to the deep turquoise waters of the Libyan sea.
Rick met us there with a support van and a trailer full of kayaks. From the coastal village of Agia Roumeli, our goal is to paddle the coast of Sfakia, sleeping in the coastal village of Loutro and visiting the regional capital of Hora Sfakion. Beyond Sfakia, we plan to paddle to the more traveled beach communities of Plakias and Agia Galini before negotiating an open-water crossing back to Matala–75 miles by sea.
