Kythnos
Our last morning was completely devoted to very relaxing beach and water activities. We anchored in a beautiful bay on the west side of Kythnos Island - one of the northwestern-most Cycladic islands. The main feature of the bay was its dramatic tombola, which is a small island connected to land by a narrow neck of beach. This results in two beaches facing both directions giving us the opportunity for double the swimming and double the snorkeling!
Some of us chose to do some kayak exploration of the bay and others hiked up to the little church on a small hill next to the beach. The weather was perfect – after so many days of strong sun we appreciated some clouds on the Greek blue sky giving us some shade. Most of the kids as well as some adults took their masks and fins and dove into the water to explore the surprisingly interesting underwater world. We saw a lot of different kinds of wrasses, some flounder, anemone, urchins and very cute biscuit dollars, which are like inflated sand dollars. We also saw the common Poseidonia sea grass which is a sign of healthy Mediterranean coastline.
Those of us lying on the beach had an additional attraction: a local farmer rode his donkey, followed by two dogs, through the beach and up to the church to collect goat milk for his home-made cheese. The goats had been entertaining us all morning along the rugged hillside.
Back on the ship our Hotel Manager Nikos welcomed us with the festive combination of Panorama pizzas and Bloody Marys. After lunch we weighed anchor and headed west to Cape Sounion. It’s hard to believe that we were here one week ago taking our first swim under the spectacular Temple of Poseidon.
What a week it has been! We’ve seen so many interesting archeological sites, different islands, small villages, colorful flowers, olive trees and… we ate a lot of delicious Greek food!
