Saturday 9th September 2017

Today we have booked a boat trip which leaves from the small harbour at Patitiri at 10am and returns at around 6pm.  The wooden caique is called Γοργόνα – Mermaid.

There were only twenty other people on board so there was plenty of space and we made ourselves comfortable on the thick mattresses and relaxed as we sailed along the pretty coastline.

 

 

 

 

 

We spotted some of the beaches which we visited on the quad and also the fishing village, Steni Vala.  We stopped at Agios Dimitrios for the first swim of the day.  Dave and I both believed that snorkelling equipment was available on board but unfortunately we were mistaken. We must have misunderstood when we were gathering all the information.

The caique made a stop to see the ‘blue cave’; once upon a time this was a base for pirates.

High above us on the cliffs, Pachis our jovial guide pointed out a pair of Eleonora’s Falcons, these were the birds that we spotted yesterday.  A few metres further we noticed some shags on some rocks, apparently they were too small to be cormorants.

Unfortunately, the day was very overcast. The two ladies from Devon, Jo and Kit with whom we had been chatting, said that it would have been a great day for a long walk.  We agreed it wasn’t the bright sunny day that we had all been expecting, but hey ho!

Our guide was very informative; he mentioned that there was a three mile exclusion zone circling the Piperi Island which was part of the marine park where the protected monk seal lived. Pachis was also extremely entertaining and told us plenty of Greek myths (some tongue in cheek!).

One of our stops was at a small island, apparently governed by the same rules as ‘Mount Athos’ and is the only place that they allow females to visit. The island is called Kyra Panagia and has only one building, which is a monastery.  Its roof was destroyed by the 1965 earthquake and the religious building was left in disrepair for over twenty five years until major restoration work took place.  The building was much larger than we had expected and the many solar panels on its now repaired roof took us by surprise.

Although of course, these solar panels will be the only source of power for the two monks that reside here.

The path from the small jetty led to steep concrete steps, ropes slotted through metal brackets served as a handrail.

 

One lady suffering from vertigo had to turn back after just a few tentative steps up the exposed and open sided ascent which led to a shale and rock path.

 

 

 

 

 

The monastery is dedicated to Mary, Christ’s mother. Many of its most treasured icons have been moved to a monastery on Mount Athos.

After we had visited the monastery we took the wrong path back to the jetty. After a while Dave realised that the path was much wider than the original one and we had to retrace our steps and find the correct path.

We had a simple but delicious meal served on board the boat, vegetable rice, feta cheese, potato salad, cucumber, tomatoes and bread.  We also had a choice of soft drinks wine or water.

Some people, including Dave, swam again after lunch. We also fed the fish with our left over bread.  There were a lot of small grey fish, some larger bluey green ones and a few large brown ones.  We also spotted several garpikes.  Together with Jo we threw our bread aiming just in front of where Kit was snorkelling so she could hopefully see more fish, this worked but the fish ignored the bread that was very close to her.

Peristera Island was the boat’s final stop of the day, ‘’for the ‘evening swim’’ Pachis announced. The sun had finally appeared just after lunch and it had continued to come in and out from behind the clouds for the remainder of the afternoon.  We returned to Patitiri port as expected just after 6pm.

We relaxed for a while on our balcony, Dave read and I wrote my journal up to date before getting ready and going back out again.

We chose a modern eatery called ‘The Black Cat’; we got chatting to a couple who live here for six months of the year. The lady said that as soon as the ferryboat pulled into the small harbour she knew that Alonnisos was ‘the island’ for them.

 

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