Loutro
Friday was a day when the students concentrated on human geography and what they set out to identify was that sustainable tourism might contribute to the development of the area in the context of the harsher physical environment, traditional Cretan society, modern tourism and twenty first century economic and social aspirations.
The groups had all presented their plans for the day to Alan at breakfast time and as a higher proportion were going to Loutro first it was decided that the staff would take the opportunity to go to take the ferry as well. This also gave them the chance to walk seaward round the headland to the west and inspect the nick points where the land had risen and disabled the harbour that had been used in biblical times. Alan showed his agility in climbing on to a rock mass which clearly showed this event also allowing for a video recording to give a sense of scale.
Alan, Richard and Ken then proceed back to the present harbour where they partook of an excellent lunch split between main course and sweet which in turn was split between two different beach front restaurants. A group of students showed some cheeky initiative in interviewing the staff as their reasons for being in that part of the world. Obviously they were running out people to talk to or maybe running out of questions to ask as they must have had some semblance of an idea as why the staff were there.
A price was obtained for a small motor boat to run the staff back to Chora Sfakion in time for the evening round up meeting. This meeting could nearly have been cancelled as a less agile Alan mistimed his jump on to the ferry boat ramp albeit with a miraculous and rapid recovery.
