The Cretan sea is at its best in the early hours, when light still settles softly on the water and the wind has not yet picked up across the bay. We start most boat days at sunrise, walking down to a small wooden caïque with bread, fruit, cheese and a vacuum flask of strong coffee.
For an hour or two the engine murmurs along the cliffs, past goats grazing on rocks the colour of bone. The water turns through several blues — ink, sapphire, glass — and the limestone walls hold the heat from the night before. There are coves with names only fishermen still use, and others with no name at all.
The point of a small boat is not to cover distance. It is to choose where you stop.
Some bays are best for swimming. Others have a flat stone where you can lay down a towel and read. A handful are sheltered enough to drop anchor and sleep through the heaviest hours of the afternoon.
We rarely return before dusk. The wind drops again, the sun lowers, and the sea comes back to a kind of stillness. On the way home there is sometimes music, sometimes silence. Either feels right.