Crete Sunset Cruise

A Crete sunset cruise sails along the coast of the island in the last hours of daylight and returns after dark. The cruise is one of the Greece Tours on Greece Ville, listed with the other Crete tours.

This post covers twilight, sunset and moonrise, islets, catamarans, boat lights, passing ships, sea life at dusk, lamp fishing, evening winds, myths, sound over water, haze, the best months and common questions.

What is a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise is a trip on the sea around Crete as the day ends. The 35th parallel north crosses the island from 24°45′E to 25°34′E. This line is at times used to mark the northern edge of the subtropics.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the island’s place on the globe sets the scene. The subtropics stretch from the tropics to about 35 to 40 degrees north and south of the equator.

Earth’s axis is tilted 23.44°. Because of this tilt, the length of daytime changes with the seasons and with latitude. At the Equator, daytime lasts about 12 hours in every season.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the season sets the length of daylight. At Heraklion, daylight lasts 11 hours 25 minutes on 1 March. By 1 April, it grows to 12 hours 34 minutes.

Later in the year, the change runs the other way. At Heraklion, daylight lasts 12 hours 25 minutes on 15 September. By 15 October, it shrinks to 11 hours 19 minutes.

On a Crete sunset cruise, it helps to know the shape of the north coast. Its gulfs run from Kissamos and Chania past Souda Bay, Almiros and Heraklion to Mirabello and Sitia.

• Peninsulas: From west to east, Crete’s north coast has the Gramvousa, Rodopos, Akrotiri and Sideros peninsulas.
• Eastern sea: Toward the east, the island of Crete looks out over the waters of the Carpathian Sea.
• Coast length: A coastline has no single, well-defined length, a puzzle known as the coastline paradox.
• Measuring rule: The shorter the ruler, the longer the measured border, a pattern now called the Richardson effect.

Kastelli-Kissamos, Chania, Souda, Rethymno, Heraklion, Agios Nikolaos and Sitia are port towns on the Sea of Crete.

How do the twilight phases unfold on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise passes through the stages of twilight, one by one, after the sun has set. At civil dusk, the fading sunlight still clearly marks the horizon. Nightfall is the next stage, after civil dusk but before nautical dusk.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the light fades in steps. Early in twilight, a clear sky can give enough light to read outdoors. After civil twilight ends, reading outside needs artificial light.

Civil twilight also has a role in the law. A large number of laws treat it as a fixed 20–30 minutes after sunset. One example is the time drivers must switch on headlights.

On a Crete sunset cruise, nautical twilight comes next. During this stage, sailors can take reliable sightings of well-known stars. They can do this while the horizon is still in view.

In nautical twilight, the eye can make out general outlines of objects. The light falls short for detailed outdoor work. Military planners use EENT, short for end evening nautical twilight, to mean nautical dusk.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the blue hour falls around the nautical stage of twilight. It lasts about 20–96 minutes after sunset. Unlike nautical dusk, the blue hour has no official definition.

• 1 March: At Heraklion, the sun sets at 18:15 and civil twilight ends at 18:40.
• 21 June: At Heraklion, the sun sets at 20:38 and civil twilight ends at 21:08.
• 1 November: At Heraklion, the sun sets at 17:25 and civil twilight ends at 17:51.
• 21 December: At Heraklion, the sun sets at 17:11 and civil twilight ends at 17:39.

At nautical dusk, objects become harder to tell apart, and stars and planets seem to brighten.

Where does the sun set through the year on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise meets a sun that sets at different times through the year. On 21 June, the sun sets at Kissamos, in western Crete, at 20:44 Greek summer time. On 21 December, it sets at Kissamos at 17:16.

On a Crete sunset cruise, sunset time depends on the date and the place. On 21 June, the sun sets at Sitia, in eastern Crete, at 20:33 Greek summer time.

Sitia, a port town in Lasithi on the Sea of Crete, lies at 35°12′N 26°6′E. On 23 September, sunset at Sitia comes at 19:12. That day, sunset at Kissamos comes at 19:21.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the sun sets at Sitia at 17:07 on 21 December. Kissamos is a town in the west of Crete. The town lies at 35°29′N 23°39′E.

Refraction makes the setting sun look flattened by about 5 arcminutes, about 1/6 of its width. At the Athens Observatory, Georg Constantin Bouris measured refraction of up to 4° for stars on the horizon.

On a Crete sunset cruise, official sunset comes when the sun’s centre sits 50 arcminutes below the horizon. Refraction gives 34 of those arcminutes. The other 16 come from half the sun’s disc.

• EU rule: Under EU Directive 2000/84/EC, summer time is mandatory for all EU member states.
• Length: European summer time lasts 31 weeks, or 30 when March’s last Sunday falls after the 28th.
• First season: Greece first kept summer time from 7 July to 1 September 1932.
• 1975 season: Greek summer time ran from 12 April to 26 November that year.

The word solstice comes from Latin sol, sun, and sistere, to stand still. Ancient Greeks called it heliostasio, meaning stand of the Sun.

How does the moon rise over a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise sees the Moon keep its own clock. The Moon moves 13 degrees every day. So Earth must turn 13 degrees more before the Moon rises again. A first quarter Moon rises around noon and is highest around sunset.

On a Crete sunset cruise, moonrise is the moment the Moon’s upper limb appears above the horizon. The full Moon’s arc across the sky is widest in midwinter and narrowest in midsummer.

The Moon’s rising point takes 18.6 years to run through its full north-south range on the horizon. At a major lunar standstill, the moonrise point moves from northeast to southeast within two weeks.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the Moon illusion makes a low Moon look larger than a high one. At the horizon, the Moon is about 1.5% farther away, so it is actually slightly smaller.

Ptolemy tried to explain the Moon illusion through atmospheric refraction in the Almagest. Experiments by Kaufman and Rock in 1962 tied it to distance cues, much like the Ponzo illusion.

On a Crete sunset cruise, a glitter path is a mass of instant reflections of the Moon. Each of these comes from a wave facet with just the right tilt.

• Harvest moon: This full Moon falls nearest the autumn equinox, within two weeks of 22 or 23 September.
• Hunter’s moon: This name goes to the full Moon that follows the harvest moon.
• Perigee full Moon: It looks roughly 14% wider than at apogee, and its light is about 30% brighter.
• Pebble test: At arm’s length, a pebble 0.33 inches wide covers the full Moon, high or low.

On calm, mirror-like water, only one reflection of the Moon shows. Steeper waves widen the glitter path.

Which islets catch the last light on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise points to the islets off the coast. Names to know include Agioi Theodoroi, Souda Island, Pseira and Mochlos. The Dionysades group holds four islets: Dragonada, Gianysada, Paximadaki and Paximada. They lie about 17.6 km from Sitia.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Agioi Theodoroi islet off Chania is a protected place. It is EU Natura site GR4340018, which covers 81.52 hectares. Low, shrubby phrygana covers the islet.

Birds listed there include the shearwater Calonectris diomedea, the shag, the peregrine falcon and the golden oriole. Threats include grazing by introduced goats and brown hares, rats at bird nests, and disturbance.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Souda Island recalls Cretan history. On November 15, 1913, a local stamp showing the island marked Crete’s union with Greece. Only Cretan post offices sold it.

Gianysada lies furthest south in the Dionysades, and Paximada lies furthest north. Paximada’s name means “rusk”. These islets are Permian limestone, while nearby Elasa is dolomite and Upper Cretaceous limestone.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Pseira, also called Kreousa, takes its name from its shape. It recalls a louse, psira in Greek. The islet covers 1.518 km² and rises to 79 metres.

• Venetian name: The Venetians called the islet of Mochlos by the name Scoglio di Muflo.
• Bronze Age: With a lower sea, Mochlos was a peninsula with two harbours flanking its narrow neck.
• Gold ring: A Mochlos ring shows a goddess in a ship with a horse-head prow and fish-tail stern.
• Copper source: Lead isotope tests show the copper oxhide ingots in the Mochlos metal hoards came from Cyprus.

Cistanche phelypaea, an African desert plant, grows rarely in the Dionysades site. In Europe, it otherwise occurs only in Iberia.

How do catamarans carry a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise by catamaran rides on hulls that are slim as a rule. Above the waterline, they can flare to give reserve buoyancy. Low water resistance lets power catamarans use smaller engines, though two are the norm.

On a Crete sunset cruise, twin hulls have old roots. Outrigger and double-hull boats carried the Austronesian expansion from Taiwan into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. That spread began around 3000 BC.

The simplest ancestral Austronesian boat had five parts. They were a hollowed log, two side planks and two horseshoe-shaped end pieces. Such boats had no central rudder, and a side oar steered them.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the Fijian drua makes a useful comparison. Its other name, waqa tabu, means “sacred canoe”. A drua did not tack but shunted, so its stern became its bow.

Captain Cook saw druas quickly replacing the Polynesian catamaran design in Tonga. Tongans called them kalia. Only two original druas seem to survive, in museums in New Zealand and Fiji.

On a Crete sunset cruise, twin hulls recall the steam age. The first steam-driven warship, Demologos, was a catamaran built in the War of 1812. A paddle wheel sat between its hulls.

• Merchant ship: In the early 19th century, Englishman Mayflower F. Crisp built the two-hulled Original in Rangoon.
• Steel twin hull: In 1916, Leonardo Torres Quevedo patented the Binave, built and tested in Bilbao in 1918.
• 1936 voyage: Eric de Bisschop built a Polynesian double canoe in Hawaii and sailed it home to France.
• SWATH: Frederick G. Creed presented this twin-hull idea in 1938 and won a British patent in 1946.

Speed, a stable working platform, safety and extra space are the main advantages of power catamarans.

How do boat lights work after dark on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise shares the sea with boats under strict light rules. The lights on each boat depend on its size and its work. At night, boats must not show extra lights that can be confused with their navigation lights.

On a Crete sunset cruise, sidelights carry messages. A red port light tells the other boat to give way. A green starboard light says its own boat will give way; the other must stand on.

In 1848 the British Admiralty gave steam vessels a lighting rule. When under way, each one had to show red and green sidelights. A white masthead light was also required.

On a Crete sunset cruise, small motor boats use simpler lights. A power-driven boat under 12 m can show one all-round white light and sidelights. These can replace masthead and stern lights.

A power-driven boat under 7 m, going no faster than 7 knots, needs even less. It can show just an all-round white light. It can add sidelights if practicable.

On a Crete sunset cruise, light range depends on boat size. On boats under 12 m, sidelights must show for at least 1 mile. Masthead and stern lights must show for 2 miles.

• Trawlers: A trawling vessel shows two all-round lights, with the green light above the white.
• Other fishing: A boat fishing by means other than trawling shows two all-round lights, red above white.
• Pilot boats: A pilot boat on duty shows two all-round masthead lights, with white above red.
• Not under command: A vessel not under command shows two all-round red lights in a vertical line.

A ship of 100 m or more at anchor must also light its decks with working lights.

Which ships pass the horizon of a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise looks out on a busy sea. Off south-west Crete, north of Gavdos, traffic is mainly container ships. They sail to or from ports east of Port Said and Suez. Warships use a naval base at Souda Bay.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the horizon opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. This sea is a busy path for oil. Around 250 to 300 oil tankers cross it every day.

Each year, about 370,000,000 tonnes of oil are shipped across the Mediterranean. That is more than 20% of the world total. About 8% of the world’s sea trade goes through the Suez Canal.

On a Crete sunset cruise, passing ships can report their position by AIS. Under SOLAS rules, ships of 300 gross tonnage or more on international voyages must carry it. So must all passenger ships.

Under way, AIS sends a position every 2 to 10 seconds. At anchor, it sends one every 3 minutes. Ship-to-ship AIS reaches about 10 to 20 nautical miles, the range of marine VHF radio.

On a Crete sunset cruise, not every ship carries cargo. The Greek government built the Crete Naval Base at Souda Bay in 1951. By warships harboured, it is the Hellenic Navy’s second largest base.

• NATO role: Crete Naval Base is NATO’s largest and foremost naval base in the eastern Mediterranean.
• Size: The base covers 500 ha, including old artillery barracks of the Greek Army’s 5th Infantry Division.
• Facilities: Base facilities include a dry dock, workshops, a fuel depot and an ammunition depot.
• Radio: The Hellenic Navy radio station SXH has stood at Mournies, near Souda, since 1929.

Since 2020, an American navy expeditionary mobile base ship has been deployed to Crete Naval Base.

Which sea creatures rise at dusk on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise sails over the daily up-and-down trip of sea life. By animal weight, it is Earth’s largest synchronous migration. In the commonest pattern, sea creatures rise to the surface around dusk. They stay all night and sink around dawn.

On a Crete sunset cruise, deep sea life climbs each day. An observatory sits over 1500 m of Cretan Sea water. Its sound sensors tracked migrating sea life for nearly 2.5 years.

The strongest migrants of the Cretan Sea move up to 400 m every day. During the main migration, Cretan Sea animals moved at about 3 cm per second on average.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the climb follows the sun. Over the Cretan Sea, it starts half an hour before sunset. It ends an hour and a half after sunset.

In World War II, navy sonar showed a false sea floor 300–500 metres deep by day. At night, it came closer to the surface. Sailors called it the phantom bottom.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the moon plays a part too. The scattering layer sits deeper when the moon is out. It can rise when clouds pass over the moon.

• Lanternfish depth: From a daytime depth of 300–1500 m, they rise toward sundown into the top 10–100 m.
• Lanternfish lights: Belly lights match faint light from above, hiding their outline from hunters looking up.
• European flying squid: It stays deep or near the seabed by day and reaches surface waters at night.
• Midnight sink: A share of plankton rise at dusk, drop at midnight, then rise and sink at sunrise.

Noctiluca scintillans makes its light inside tiny sacs called scintillons. At night, these sacs crowd the cell surface.

Which jellyfish glow near a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise brings glowing jellyfish to mind. Pliny the Elder described the mauve stinger’s glow in his Natural History in 77 AD. He used the name pulmo marinus. A single swarm can hold millions across tens of square kilometres.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the mauve stinger’s shape is worth knowing. Each one has eight long tentacles and four long frilly oral arms. Eight small sense organs ring the bell.

This jellyfish mainly lives between the surface and 150 m, but records reach 1400 m. A 200-year archive from Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Ligurian Sea shows mauve stinger years returning about every 12 years.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Greek sting data gives context. From 1981 to 1984, 762 people in Greek waters sought medical advice for jellyfish stings. July and August stood out.

Of those cases, 82.8% came from the Attica coast. Also, 92.3% had only local symptoms like redness or itching. A citizen science observatory in Greece helps monitor blooms using public sighting reports.

On a Crete sunset cruise, not every glowing jelly is a jellyfish. The warty comb jelly has eight comb rows that glow blue-green when disturbed. Unlike jellyfish, it does not sting.

• Box jelly: Carybdea marsupialis, the Mediterranean box jelly, is the only box jellyfish in that sea.
• Compass jellyfish: It has 16 brown V-shaped bell marks and 24 tentacles in eight groups of three.
• Vinegar: A 2016 European review advises it only for these two, for at least 30 seconds.
• After a sting: Britain’s national health service treats breathing trouble, chest pain or severe swelling as an emergency.

Aequorea forskalea, described from the Mediterranean in 1810, carries the glowing protein aequorin. Yet it looks nearly colourless.

How does lamp fishing light up a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise suits a look at lamp fishing. The commonest Greek purse seine fishery works at night with artificial light. It targets sardine, anchovy, chub mackerel and bogue. Night seining lands over 90% of the Greek purse seine catch.

On a Crete sunset cruise, pyrofani is a key word. It joins ancient Greek pyr, meaning fire, and phanion, meaning lantern. A pyrofani is a fishing boat’s lamp platform that draws fish at night.

Pyrofani also names the boat and the method. A 1958 Greek song is called “And the Boat Came Back Alone”. In it, a boat enters harbour on a dark night with its pyrofani out.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Plato’s words fit the theme. His dialogue the Sophist says hunters have a name for striking fish at night by firelight. They call it “fire-hunting”.

Greek light-fishing crews use a mother vessel, a large rowing boat and lamp rafts. The rafts go out once fish are found. When a dense school gathers, the mother vessel circles it with the net.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Heraklion’s purse seine landings tell a local story. They fell from about 340 tonnes in 2004 to 32 tonnes in 2006. Withdrawn boats were the main reason.

• Brightness: Greek law bans night ring-net fishing when a lamp tops 2,000 candles per light unit.
• Lamp count: Night ring nets can use no more than five lamp robots or lamp boats.
• Shade: Each lamp used with night ring nets must be shaded from above.
• Full moon: Since 2020, night ring nets rest on the Saturday and Sunday after each full moon.

Anchovy makes up about 39% of Greek purse seine landings, and sardine makes up about 29%.

How do evening winds change on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise meets winds that shift through the day. A summer 2007 study tracked winds across the gap between the Lefka Ori and Idi mountains. All four stations logged their strongest winds at noon and in the early afternoon.

On a Crete sunset cruise, Kerame, south of the gap, has a telling evening record. On 25 August 2007, its wind fell from 11.6 to 5.4 m/s between 17:15 and 20:45.

In the late-August 2007 Etesian storm, Kerame’s mean winds stayed above 10 m/s for about 17 hours. They eased at night. Kerame’s gusts averaged 1.62 times its steady wind, against 1.33 times at Rethymno.

On a Crete sunset cruise, inland and coastal winds differ. At inland Armeni and Mourne, wind swung 4 m/s between day and night. That was double the coast’s 2 m/s swing.

At night, cool air settled over the inland stations. Radiational cooling and katabatic winds off nearby mountains caused this. The Aegean land breeze is very weak at night, except on big islands like Crete.

On a Crete sunset cruise, air temperature also links to the mountains. Daily highs at Rethymno, Mourne and Armeni ran 4–5 °C below Kerame. There, warmer air sinks from the mountains.

• Afternoons: North winds of 5 m/s or more blew at Kerame on 48 of 92 afternoons.
• Gap size: The gap is 30 to 40 km wide, with hills of 100 to 600 m.
• Wakes: A 2007 storm model showed two wakes of weak, shifting winds behind Crete’s highest peaks.
• Whirls: Each of these mountain wakes is made of small counter-rotating whirls of air.

Over north Crete, only an overcast sky, which rarely happens, can switch off the daily sea breeze.

Which myths of the evening follow a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise follows the sun west, as Greek myths did. In Homer, Helios sinks into Oceanus in the west at the end of the day. Hesiod placed the home of Nyx, the night goddess, at the far western end of Earth.

On a Crete sunset cruise, one story comes from Athenaeus. He wrote that at sunset Helios climbs into a cup of solid gold. Helios sails from the Hesperides to the land of the Ethiops.

The poet Mimnermus told a different story. He said Helios travels east at night, asleep in a bed made by Hephaestus. The name Hesperides means “originating from Hesperos”, the Greek word for evening.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the island enters the story. A figure named Crete was also called one of the Hesperides. This figure is possibly the source of the island’s name.

The Hesperides tended Hera’s garden of golden apples in the far west. It lay near the Atlas Mountains. Hera set Ladon, a sleepless dragon with a hundred heads, to protect the apples.

On a Crete sunset cruise, day hands over to night. Hesiod says Nyx and her daughter Hemera, the Day, share a house. They pass each other daily at its door.

• Hespera: In ancient Greek, the word hespera meant both the evening and the west.
• Dysi: In modern Greek, the word dysi means both the west and the sunset.
• Italy: Hesperia, which means western land, was an ancient Greek name for Italy.
• The Hours: Of these twelve goddesses of the times of day, Hesperis stood for evening, Dysis for sunset.

Euripides pictured Nyx robed in black, readying her two-horse chariot as Helios finishes his journey across the sky.

How does sound travel over water on a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise floats where sound moves through air and water. At 20 °C, sound crosses the air at about 343 metres per second. In salt water free of bubbles and sediment, it travels at about 1500 metres per second.

On a Crete sunset cruise, temperature shapes how sound moves. It matters more than any other factor. In air, sound speeds up by about 0.6 metres per second for each degree Celsius.

In a temperature inversion, warmer air lies over cooler air. Sound bends back to the ground and travels much better than normal. Near airports, aircraft sound carries farther around dawn than at other times.

On a Crete sunset cruise, sound can also bend upward. When the sun warms the surface, sound bends away from listeners. This leaves an acoustic shadow at a distance from the source.

Over water in the morning, sound bends from higher air down to the surface. Wind that grows stronger with height bends sound down toward the surface downwind. Sounds are easier to hear downwind.

On a Crete sunset cruise, an echo needs a reflecting surface over 17.2 metres away. Rock cliffs and canyon walls facing water are the commonest natural places to hear echoes.

• Lake Geneva, 1826: Colladon and Sturm timed an underwater bell, measuring 1435 metres per second over 17 km.
• Sea surface: With an air-to-water contrast ratio of about 3600, it reflects almost all sound below 1 kHz.
• Ships: Under the sea, distant ship traffic is a main noise source near 100 Hz.
• Whales: They use infrasound to communicate over distances of up to hundreds of miles.

Sound pressure from a point source halves, a 6.02 dB drop, each time the distance doubles.

How do dust and haze colour a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise sails under air that changes with the season. Haze over Crete peaks in spring, when dust from African deserts arrives. It is lowest in winter. Summer haze comes mainly from fine particles from cities, industry and biomass burning.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the air carries dust and haze. The Finokalia station sits on a 250 m hilltop facing the sea. It lies on Crete’s north coast, 70 km east of Heraklion.

From April to September, up to 90% of Finokalia’s air comes from Europe and the Balkans. From October to April, south or southwest winds bring Saharan air there up to 20% of the time.

On a Crete sunset cruise, desert dust leaves a clear mark in the records. Finokalia counted 451 desert dust days from 2006 to 2017. Each year had between 20 and 56.

Crete’s strongest dust day of 2006 to 2017 came in 2006. Its 24-hour PM10 average reached 705.7 micrograms per cubic metre. Saharan dust also absorbs sunlight, because it contains the mineral hematite.

On a Crete sunset cruise, 22 March 2018 marks the island’s record dust episode. Scientists call it the Minoan Red event. Crete recorded its highest aerosol levels in 15 years.

• Dust load: Surface dust over Crete stayed above 1 mg per cubic metre for 4 to 7 hours.
• Peak: At Finokalia, that episode set record dust levels higher than 6 mg per cubic metre.
• Khamsin: A dusty south wind, the Khamsin, carried the plume from Libya, 0.5 to 3 km up.
• Daily life: Poor visibility caused eleven flight cancellations and seven delays, and solar power output fell.

Over 85% of intense Mediterranean dust episodes last a little over a day. Strong ones can run for six days.

Which months suit a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise in summer has warm nights on the water. At Heraklion port, average lows reach 24.9 °C in July and 25.1 °C in August. The average low drops to 22.4 °C in September and 18.7 °C in October.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the time of sunset shifts through the year. On 1 April, the sun sets over Chania at 19:45. A month later, Chania’s sunset comes at 20:10.

On 1 October, the sun sets over Chania at 19:08. On 31 October, after the clocks go back, sunset falls at 17:30. At Souda near Chania, the October low averages 15.7 °C.

On a Crete sunset cruise, spring nights are cooler. At Heraklion port, the average low is 14.5 °C in April. It rises to 17.8 °C in the month after April.

Heraklion airport’s August low averages 22.9 °C, cooler than the port’s 25.1 °C. The airport’s dew point averages 18.2 °C in August. It is 12.8 °C in the month after April.

On a Crete sunset cruise, the wind at Souda changes by month. Souda’s mean wind is lightest in September, at 6.0 knots. It is strongest in February, at 8.3 knots.

• Wind: West is Souda’s main wind in a majority of months, and northwest in July and August.
• Humidity: July air at Souda is the driest of the year, with mean humidity of 50.2%.
• Dawn: The Mediterranean’s surface water is coolest just before sunrise on a large share of days.
• Warming: Daily warming stays between 0 and 1 degree as a rule, yet can top 5 K.

The Mediterranean’s daytime surface warming is clearly stronger in spring and summer than in winter and autumn.

What do visitors ask about a Crete sunset cruise?

A Crete sunset cruise brings up questions about seasickness, life jackets and drinking alcohol on the water. Visitors also ask how cold the evening air feels. Other questions cover emergency help and how to photograph the sunset from the boat.

What helps with seasickness on a Crete sunset cruise?

In a ship-rocking simulator, a seat back reclined at 22.5° gave the least motion sickness discomfort. In a 43-person study, people trained in slow belly breathing felt less motion sickness. The study used a 10-minute virtual boat ride in rough seas.

What do life jacket marks and signals mean on a Crete sunset cruise?

Under the Marine Equipment Directive 2014/90/EU, a ship’s-wheel mark shows approved life-saving gear on EU-flagged ships. On ships, seven or more short blasts and one long blast tell passengers to collect life jackets. The same signal sends them to muster stations.

Is alcohol at sea a concern on a Crete sunset cruise?

The American coast guard says motion, vibration, engine noise, sun, wind and spray speed up a drinker’s impairment. The STCW sea treaty’s Manila amendments of June 2010 set alcohol limits for seafarers. They are 0.05% in blood and 0.25 mg/l in breath.

How chilly can the evening feel on a Crete sunset cruise?

At the Heraklion Port weather station, record lows reach 15.8 °C in September and 11.6 °C in October. Shorts and a short-sleeved shirt give 0.36 clo of insulation. Trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and a T-shirt give 1.01 clo.

Which emergency number matters on a Crete sunset cruise?

Council Decision 91/396/EC, adopted in July 1991, made 112 the European emergency number. European 112 Day falls on 11 February each year. The Hellenic Coast Guard uses a remote-controlled rescue buoy with lights for night rescues. It travels up to 22 mph.

What camera settings suit a Crete sunset cruise?

For ISO 100, exposure tables give EV 12 to 14 just before sunset. They give EV 12 at sunset and EV 9 to 11 just after. A graduated neutral-density filter darkens a bright sky. Its hard-edge type suits an abrupt horizon.