The ship spent a few days early 2000 in Souda Bay, Crete, so Dan got a chance to look around a little.  Unfortunately, the weather was poor during the entire stay, and tensions were somewhat strained with certain ethnic groups who were displeased with America's actions in Bosnia.

This was a special stop for Dan, for this wasn't the first time that one of our family had been to Souda Bay.  In 1942, Dan's grandfather, Leonard Green, was stationed on the destroyer, HMS Kashmir, which was sunk and the crew machine gunned by axis dive bombers just a few days after leaving Souda Bay harbor.  He survived this and went on to be present at all major naval engagements in the Mediterranean theatre, including having the dubious honor of being on four destroyers in one day at the battle of Egypt.  Other ships he spent significant time on were the HMS Montclair and the HMS Jervis.  We have a book on the Malta campaign that shows the british fleet at anchor in Souda Bay, and  it's right where  we parked.  That's right, the USS Emory S Land may have been sitting in the same berth as the Kashmir all those years ago.

Dan spent alot of his time on shore patrol, trying to head off altercations with the locals (and boy, were there some altercations....but, that's another story.)  Curiously, all of the older Cretins (somebody please help me and tell me that "cretin" is correct and not an insult) we VERY friendly to us and made us feel right at home, just like the wonderful locals back in our homeport of La Maddalena.  All the troubles we had were with the younger teenage set.

Nevertheless, despite this unfortunate backdrop, Dan very much enjoyed Crete.  Even in the midst of some fairly poor weather, it was obvious that is was a very beautiful land.  The food, once again, was outstanding.  That's yet another one to check off the checklist of life... gyros slapped together right in front of your face in a little dive in Greece.  Oh my gosh, my arteries harden just thinking about those wonderful things.

Not too many photos of Crete, as it was a working port, and due to the aforementioned poor weather.  However, I feel that some of my best pics are on this page.

	One of my favorite pictures of all time.  This is a photo of the old fort in the middle of Souda  harbor with an awesome effect from the sun		a flower.  No, nothing special about it, just another photo that came out so well that I wanted to share it with everyone.
	The Harbor at Chania (or Hania or Xania), the local town to the base.  This picture was taken about an hour after sunset.		A closer view of the old fortress in the middle of Souda Harbor.  I really have no idea if this is 50 or 500 years old.
	An "inner city" view of Crete, taken many many miles from the base during our tour of the Knossos archeology site.		Knossos.  Unfortunately, most of this is recreation.  those are NOT the original buildings, rather concrete models.
	Bill Johnson and Ron Garner sitting down for a big ol' gooey honey impregnated chunk of Baklava		Gyros.  Wow, what can I say.  these thing just exude grease, but have to be eaten to be believed.  and no, you did not eat one last year at the state fair.  If you didn't get it here, it wasn't real.