More of this Feature • Part 1: Quick Look at the Tour • Part 2: The Destinations - Coastal Villages of Crete • Part 3: The Sightseeing - Beaches, Fortresses, and Minoan Palaces • Part 4: Crete Photo Gallery • Part 5: My Sea Kayaking Journal

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What Your Guide actually did on this trip: I kayaked over a hundred miles of coastal Crete, ending up one of three out of our group of eleven to cover every bit of the kayaking route, including an eight mile journey across the open ocean. Who knew that I had an inner sea kayaker yearning to be liberated?
I scrambled up treacherous (to me, anyway) Cretan cliffs, first with abundant expert help, then with nothing but my walking stick. I saw beautiful scenery, enhanced by a wet May that brought the famous Cretan wildflowers out in an incredible display that had even native Cretans stunned by the color and variety, and explored Minoan archaeological sites.

And, in what we decided to call the "exercise" in the surf off the coast at Frangocastello, I learned why they call this "adventure travel".

Day by Day on the Tour:

Day One: Due to flight conflicts I joined the tour a few hours late and was met at Iraklion Airport by Adam Walsh, the new director for Northwest Passage. From the first step on Grecian soil, I feel elated. This holds even as he tells me that the rest of the group, with one exception, has gone on to tour Knossos and drive to Matala, our first destination. However, a combination of noxious fumes from an idling public bus and an unexpectedly warm day has overcome one of the participants, who collapsed at the airport and has been taken to the emergency room. So my first destination on this trip was to go along to Iraklion Hospital, where our fallen participant was receiving emergency room treatment, X-rays, an EKG, intravenous saline solution, a complete neurological exam, and other multiple tests in order to declare him perfectly well. His out of pocket medical costs? 70 Euro, or about $85 US. Things really are different in Crete. While the facilities were a bit frayed around the edges, especially as part of the hospital was undergoing renovations, the doctors spoke excellent English and were all extremely pleasant and helpful.

After this detour, we continued across the island of Crete to the coastal town of Matala, where I met the rest of the group and Shelley, who would be my amazingly well-matched roommate for the tour. Then it was on to the Lions Taverna for welcome drinks while the sun set over the ocean. I take my moment of introductions to mention to everybody that I can't really swim and that if I ever appear to be drowning, I am. An abundant dinner of various mezes (appetizers), then swordfish, calamari, souvlaki, and other specialties followed at the Hotel Zafiria's own excellent taverna.
Hotel tavernas can be risky as they tend to have captive audiences of diners, but this one at the Hotel Zafiria was a true gem. The potential for gorging was the only drawback.

Day Two: Fate intervenes in my life when I inexplicably believe that the initial kayaking orientation in the bay will end with all of us quickly returning to the nice, safe beach. From a research point of view, I decide it would be interesting to participate. The boats look attractive, in playful bright colors against the soft tan sand of the beach. It seems only fair to give these pretty little boats a few minutes of my time before retreating back into lassitude.

My willingness to participate is greeted with enthusiasm by staffer Mike Agostinelli, who has mastered the art of being perpetually encouraging without ever being annoying about it. After some general instruction on the shore, pretty soon I'm managing to climb into the front position of a two-person "pouch", the most stable of the kayaks. My partner is Josh Gormley, who is traveling with his wife Vicki, now zooming alongside in her own kayak; they both seem reassuringly sea-worthy though I later learn they've never done this before, either. Around us are Michael and Therese, who have some kayaking experience; the "Alaskan Ladies" Susan, Karen, and Coleen, three experienced kayaking women from the far north; my New Yorker roommate Shelley, also a kayaking novice like me; Don, a repeat kayaking traveler with The Northwest Passage; and Jim, another newbie like myself.

Josh starts paddling and I am particularly impressed with the way he immediately complies with my desperate plea to please keep the kayak facing the shore rather than aiming out toward the open sea.

We all practice a few strokes and I'm calculating that the initial session must be about over. Then I'm distracted by my eyes vigorously watering. Memo: don't put suntan lotion on your forehead. Finally, I clear my eyes well enough to realize that Mike and Adam are herding us out of the bay. Moment of truth: do I plead for mercy and delay the whole group to return to dump me back on shore, or carry on? So far it isn't too bad, though the water is unnervingly close as the kayak rides low against the surface. But I decide to stay quiet even though I feel like I've discovered I'm on the wrong train just as it pulls out of the station.

Josh, unaware that any of this is coming as a shock to me, cheerfully corrects my hand position on the paddle shaft for the first of about forty times, gallantly insisting that correcting me so many times is also helping him realize when his own hand position has shifted away from perfect; he gently advises that I might be more effective if not holding the paddle blades backwards; suggests that I don't need to grip the paddle so hard that my knuckles turn white; points out that I have my left blade on my right side; comments that I perhaps would wish to try to remember to twist the shaft - "cock the blade" is the technical term - so my paddle will enter the water at the right angle; when this utterly fails to make an impression, he suggests that perhaps unfeathering the blades - turning the paddles so they both are flat, rather than at an angle to each other - might help me get the hang of it, but I refuse the idea of adapting equipment to my frailties just yet.

Hm. That's odd. Usually, I'll take any advantage I can get to make a physical task easier. This is my first inkling that some inner athletic spirit may be rising to this occasion. Horrors.

We glide through the water, which is relatively calm. Since I'm in the front position, Josh is supposed to match his strokes to mine, so I decide I really should try to make some, and, for his sake, try to keep them in some sort of rhythm. Splish. Splash. Left side, right side. This is ... kind of nice. It has its own reassuring logic. I stick in the paddle, pull it toward me, and the boat moves ahead. Fascinating. We slide through a passage between cliffs and rocks, but the water is gentle and this is interesting rather than alarming. Splish, splash, back and forth, twist the shaft, blade into the deep blue water, pull back.... We seem to be moving along even more smoothly, and logically, that probably means that Josh is somehow picking up the pace and working harder, but could it mean that I'm starting to get the hang of this? Nah.

The group pauses around a point to approach a sea cave carved into high cliffs. I'm not a big fan of enclosed spaces, but that is a fear that I've always tried to confront head-on, so this will be no different. We'll just be doing it in a frail little boat that could get crushed by a suddenly collapsing tunnel, Crete is a land of earthquakes, after all.... On the plus side, there are rumors of bats - and while I have plenty of fears, real and imaginary, fear of bats is not one of them. I like bats.

But what is one of my fears is being in a vigorously shaking boat that someone is actively trying to tip over, as Josh uses the waiting time while the first group goes into the cave as an opportunity to test out the kayak's stability. He rocks it back and forth vigorously, saying supposedly reassuring things like "See? It's not going to go over. Even if I shake it this much, it's not going over. Or even this much! Or THIS MUCH!"

Will I make it into -and out of- the Batcave? Will I whack Josh on the head with my paddle to make him stop shaking the boat? Read on...

Next page > Matala to the Samaria Gorge > Page 2 > Agia Roumeli to Loutro > Page 3 > An "Exercise" off Frangocastello > Page 4 > To Agia Galini and Beyond > Page 5