Heraklion 

Located at the foot of St. Nicholas' city, on the north-eastern coast of Crete Island, Agios Nikolaos is a modern marina and one among the few comfortable harbours of the whole island. It offers in fact many mooring places, very crowded, however, especially in summer.

It is located in one of the most beautiful areas of Crete. St. Nicholas is a very nice town, which counts an interesting archaelogical museum and some very equipped beaches directly on the Gulf of Mirabelo.

Just about 10 km far from St. Nicholas, there is the beach of Elounda, equipped with luxury hotels and resorts, and Lake Voulismeni, a lagoon which was a real fresh-water lake in the past. Goddess Athena was said to bath here. Today, it's a very nice place where to relax for some hours or have a coffee in one of the numerous cafés along its shores.

Another beautiful attraction is the island of Spinalonga, very close to St. Nicholas, on the western edge of the Gulf of Mirabelo, almost opposite Elounda. The island is a real fortress, whose towers were built by Venetians. Here, Christians took refuge to escape from Saracens; in the early XX century, the island was finally chosen as "colony" for lepers.

You can take a ferry from St. Nicholas or Elounda to visit the island and its wonderful coasts.

The marina of Agios Nikolas is located just on the foot of St. Nikolas, well-sheltered from northern winds thanks to the natural shape of the coast. Getting and entering the marina is not difficult. However, since it's always crowded, we recommend to contact the marina staff on VHF channel 72 before entering. In case of no response, you can moor at the outer dock and reach the marina offices located north of the piers in a brown building. They're open from 8:30 to 16:30, Sundays excluded.

Sheltered by a long breakwater, the marina offers 255 mooring places on paper. In practice, they're less since they're generally used by fishing boats. Moreover, the reduced sizes of the structure allow only small and medium-sized boats to moor at the first three piers and the inner part of the breakwater. Anyway, each mooring place is equipped with mooring ropes; the staff is always available to give a hand.

The marina offers water and electric charging columns (220/ 380 V) at every mooring place, showers (with hot water!), a laundry, a slipway, a 65-ton travelift, reparation services, free Wi-fi. The structure has no gas station but fuel can be required to the staff who can deliver it 24 h/24.

The marina is under surveillance and it has a private parking lot. There are no restaurants and cafés but you can find them, together with some supermarkets, shops and many restaurants, in the surroundings.

Prices are available on the marina's website; anyway, a mooring places for a 12-metre-long boat costs 24 euros a day in high season, 15 euros during the rest of the year