A Rethymno boat trip is a day on the sea off Rethymno, the old Venetian town on the north coast of Crete. It is one of the Greece tours that set the sea, the history and the coast of Crete side by side.
What does a Rethymno boat trip mean?
A Rethymno boat trip means a sea voyage tied to the town of Rethymno on Crete. The trip is the part on the water. The town on land adds history, learning and local life to the whole story of the place.
Anyone planning a Rethymno boat trip meets a town with a long written past. It helps to know a little of that past. In 1646, amid the Cretan War, the Ottoman Empire took control of the town. That conquest stands as a firm marker in the recorded history of Rethymno and its people.
A later chapter of the story belongs to the year 1941. The Germans eventually won the Battle of Rethymno that year, after receiving reinforcements. Reinforcements are extra troops sent to support a force. A Rethymno boat trip belongs to a town that carries this history, too.
Study is part of the story as well. The Rethymno Campus, part of the University of Crete, houses the School of Social, Economics & Political Sciences. The University Library of the University of Crete stands on the Rethymno Campus. A Rethymno boat trip is one side of Rethymno, and these places show the other side.
The Frantzeskaki Collection is listed among the museums of Rethymno. Emmanouil Tsouderos, a former Prime Minister of Greece, is listed among the notable locals of Rethymno. Ahmed Resmî Efendi, an Ottoman statesman, author and ambassador, is listed among them as well. An ambassador is an official sent to speak for a state abroad.
- Sport: The Vardinogianneia athletics meeting, a track and field event, stopped in 2012 because of the Greek financial crisis.
- Research: The Academic Institute of Mediterranean Studies stands at Galos, together with the Rethymno Campus.
- Countryside: In the Rethymno regional unit, a government area, the countryside also depends on farming and on keeping flocks.
In the end, a Rethymno boat trip is one chapter in a longer story. The sea and the town belong to the same place. Readers who learn both sides understand Rethymno better, and the story of the town gains depth.
On a Rethymno boat trip, what do the Barbary pirates add?
A Rethymno boat trip gives a reason to learn about the Barbary pirates, also called Barbary corsairs. A corsair or privateer is a sea raider acting with the permission of a ruler. These raiders came from North Africa, the northern part of the continent.
The corsairs raided from bases on the Barbary Coast, which is the North African shore. Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli came under Ottoman sovereignty, meaning the Ottoman Empire held the highest authority over them. Each was either a province or an autonomous Barbary state, one that governs itself.
Raids were also launched from Salé and from other ports in Morocco. From at least 1500, corsairs raided seaside towns in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England and Iceland. That list of places is long. On a Rethymno boat trip, a visitor can picture how far the raiders sailed.
Around 1600, European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast. Heavily armed square-rigged ships, which carry square sails, were introduced to North Africa instead of galleys. A galley is a long ship that rowers move with oars. Ship design makes a good topic for a Rethymno boat trip.
The effects of Barbary raids peaked in the early to mid 17th century, a span within the 1600s. Corsair activity began to shrink late in that century. European navies, the war fleets of states, pressed for peace. That rise and decline make a clear story to share on a Rethymno boat trip.
- Mourad the Younger: This Barbary corsair also fought the Venetians in Cyprus and Crete.
- Algiers: Corsair activity based there did not entirely cease until France conquered that state in 1830.
- Shared aim: European powers agreed on the need to suppress the Barbary corsairs entirely.
Barbary corsairs raided ships in the Mediterranean and along Africa’s northern and western coasts. The Mediterranean is the large sea between Europe and Africa. That is what the Barbary pirates add to a Rethymno boat trip: a clear piece of sea history.
On a Rethymno boat trip, what does the galley add?
A Rethymno boat trip pairs well with the story of the galley. A galley was an old ship moved by oars, the long poles used to row a boat. The word comes from Ancient Greek galea, which named a narrow vessel.
The first Greek galley-like ships appeared around the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. A millennium is a thousand years. The earliest Greek galleys with one level of oars were called triaconters, meaning thirty oars. A Rethymno boat trip is a modern chapter in a long story of Greek seafaring.
Oars let a galley make progress where a sailing ship is becalmed. Becalmed means stuck with no wind to fill the sails. Rowing in a fixed position has an upper limit of around 18 kilometres per hour. Paddling from a fixed seat facing forward was less efficient than rowing with proper oars.
Rowers in ancient war galleys sat below the upper deck with little view of their surroundings. A Mediterranean galley carried 25 pairs of oars and about 500 men. A pair means one oar on each side. During a Rethymno boat trip, it helps to picture those men bent over the oars.
The great galleys of the Venetian Republic were first built in the 1290s. The Venetian Republic was the old state of Venice. A full complement of rowers, meaning the whole rowing crew, ranged from 150 to 180 men. That history gives a Rethymno boat trip a longer backdrop.
- Lantern galleys: Command lantern galleys had 30 pairs of oars and up to seven rowers per oar.
- Port stops: In 1447, galleys of Florence had up to 14 port stops on routes to and from Alexandria.
- Late fleets: By 1790 Mediterranean powers had under 50 galleys in service, half of them Venetian.
The galley adds one thing to a Rethymno boat trip: context. Oars, crews and port stops show how much work once went into moving by sea. Such facts turn a simple outing into a small lesson in Greek and Mediterranean seafaring.
On a Rethymno boat trip, what do dolphins add?
A Rethymno boat trip is a fine moment to learn about the common bottlenose dolphin. Common bottlenose is the name of one dolphin species. Such a dolphin weighs between 150 and 650 kilograms. Knowing the basics gives any day on the water more meaning.
Diet is a useful topic to read up on before a Rethymno boat trip. Common bottlenose dolphins eat mainly eels and squid, plus a wide variety of fish. Eels are long, thin fish, and squid are soft sea animals with arms. They do not chew their food. Instead, they swallow it whole.
Newborn calves, meaning young dolphins, measure 0.8 to 1.4 metres and weigh 15 to 30 kilograms. Common bottlenose dolphins use a whistle call known as the signature whistle. In 19 recorded mothers, a calf’s presence made it higher or wider in range. The finding describes only those recorded mothers, not every dolphin.
Sound is a good topic for anyone planning a Rethymno boat trip. Dolphins give off high and low frequency sounds. Frequency means how high or low a sound is pitched. Low frequencies travel best in water. Common bottlenose dolphin signature whistles sit in a higher frequency range than humans can hear.
Where dolphins live is a fair question for anyone on a Rethymno boat trip. Coastal bottlenose dolphins can be found in harbours, bays, lagoons and estuaries. Coastal means living near the shore. An estuary is where a river meets the sea. Shallow sea water that sits beside land is called a lagoon.
- Daily intake: Dolphins eat 10 to 20 percent of their body weight each day.
- Prey abroad: In South Africa, typical prey is African maasbankers, olive grunters and pandora, which are sea animals.
- Bonn Convention: Mediterranean bottlenose populations appear in Appendix II, a list in the Bonn Convention on animals that migrate.
Common bottlenose dolphins are in CITES Appendix II, a list that regulates international trade in parts and derivatives. Derivatives are products made from the animal. These facts give a Rethymno boat trip a little more context for curious people.
On a Rethymno boat trip, what do sea caves add?
A Rethymno boat trip offers a chance to learn about sea caves and how they form. Waves carve these hollows into cliffs at the water line. Sea caves exist worldwide, forming on today’s coastlines. Relict caves are the old ones, left behind on former coastlines.
A headland is land that juts out from the coast, reaching into the sea. Waves attack small headlands from both sides. Because of this, a cave can cut completely through one. Talk of caves suits a Rethymno boat trip, because the sea itself is the tool that carves them.
Waves are not the only force at work in a sea cave. Carbonic and organic acids from the soil can help weaken rock inside fissures, which are narrow cracks. Weakened rock breaks away more easily. Slow chemistry and moving water therefore both help wear a cliff away.
Rock type also shapes how a sea cave grows. The world’s largest sea cave has formed in heavily fractured Caversham sandstone. Fractured means full of cracks, and sandstone is rock made of pressed sand. Basaltic caves, which form in volcanic rock, can penetrate far into cliffs where the surface erodes relatively slowly.
Named caves give a sense of scale. Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish island of Staffa is about 70 m long. The Romans built a stairway at the back of the Blue Grotto of Capri. Anyone planning a Rethymno boat trip can use these as yardsticks when thinking about caves.
- Sinkholes: Large littoral, or shoreline, sinkholes include Oregon’s Devils Punch Bowl and the Queen’s Bath.
- Length: Matainaka Cave, on New Zealand’s Otago coast, is 1.5 km long.
- Higher caves: Norway’s coast has caves cut by waves that now sit 100 feet or more above today’s sea level.
On Santa Cruz Island, the largest sea caves face into the prevailing northwest swell. A swell is a long run of waves, and prevailing means main. Anyone joining a Rethymno boat trip can read the cliffs with that in mind.
On a Rethymno boat trip, what does the lighthouse add?
A Rethymno boat trip is a fine moment to learn what a lighthouse does. A lighthouse is a tower that carries a light. It marks dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals (shallow sandbanks), reefs and rocks. It also marks the safe entry to a harbor.
The idea behind a lighthouse is simple. Raising a fire onto a platform improved visibility, so the flame was easier to see. That step led to the lighthouse. A Rethymno boat trip is easier to enjoy with this small piece of sea history in mind.
Lighthouses have a long past, and two ancient examples show it. The Pharos of Alexandria in Egypt was the best-known lighthouse of antiquity, a word for the ancient world. The Tower of Hercules at A Coruña, Spain is intact, meaning still whole. It gives insight into ancient lighthouse construction.
The modern lighthouse era began at the turn of the 18th century. John Smeaton’s lighthouse was the prototype for the modern lighthouse. A prototype is a model for later designs. The Argand lamp of 1782 gave lighthouses a steady, smokeless flame. That history can come to mind on a Rethymno boat trip.
A Fresnel lens, a curved piece of glass, focused 85% of a lamp’s light. Parabolic reflectors, which are curved mirrors, focused 20% of it. The lantern room is the glassed-in housing at the top of a lighthouse tower. Knowing these terms makes a Rethymno boat trip more fun to talk about with friends and family.
- Daymark: A daymark is a special paint pattern that helps a lighthouse be recognized in daylight.
- Two lights: When a vessel, meaning a ship, is on the correct course, the two lights align vertically.
- Keepers: Lighthouse keepers, the people who ran the light, wound the weight-driven clockwork that rotated early lenses.
Electrification and automatic lamp changers began to make keepers obsolete, meaning no longer needed. The story of the lighthouse runs from a simple fire to electric light. That story makes any Rethymno boat trip richer to think about.
Which questions does a Rethymno boat trip raise?
Rethymno boat trip planning raises plain questions about airports, local administration and the sea. The airport at Chania serves civilians and the military. The old Rethymno prefecture matches the present regional unit. The Sea of Crete is part of the Aegean.
Which airport serves a Rethymno boat trip?
Chania’s airport is a joint airport, so civilian flights and military flights share it. Its capacity was not enough, so the airport needed a new terminal. Heraklion’s airport followed a different path in the past. Civilian operations there ceased, then resumed in the autumn of 1946.
Which season suits a Rethymno boat trip?
Season facts come from two Cretan cities. Winters in Heraklion are mild, with moderate rain, meaning a medium amount, neither light nor heavy. Chania has windy, rainy winters, yet frequent sunny days still appear. The air in Chania is also always warm.
Which regional unit holds a Rethymno boat trip?
A regional unit is a modern administrative area of Greece. Today’s regional unit covers the same land as the Rethymno prefecture, an earlier district. The prefecture dates from a time when Crete remained an autonomous state, meaning a self-governing one. Rethymno’s old provinces no longer hold any legal status in Greece.
Which sea washes a Rethymno boat trip?
The Sea of Crete is a southern part of the Aegean Sea. The sea’s total surface area is 45,000 square kilometres. Surface area means how much space the sea covers from above. Just off northeastern Crete, the sea reaches its greatest depth, near 3,293 metres.