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Wow. Wow. Wow.
This day surpassed all expectations of this trip and beyond. Milos has the most beautiful landscape I have ever laid eyes on. We hired a chipper skipper named Elias who took us out on a day sail of Milos's south side of the island. We found him on trip advisor and he had so many good reviews. We started off the day at 9:30 am by taking the dingy out to his sailboat in the harbor of Paliochori Bay. We were with about 10 other people, mostly from Europe.
Upon arrival, his wife informed us that'll was his "Name Day". Here in Greece, it is common to be named after a saint, and for 2 days of the year, they celebrate that saint. For Elias, it was his "name day", and therefore he was being celebrated with presents, treats and surprises. His wife joked that U.S. 3 girls were his "present" :)
Once aboard the sailboat, we took on some rough waters all the way over to the south west corner of the island. This place is not accessible by car, only by boat. We stopped at the Sikia Cave, which is a cave that had its roof topple in after the last large earthquake... Which left this amazing sphere of volcanic rock protecting a small bay. Pirates used to get fresh water here in the 1500s. Outside of the cave, we snorkels in an underwater cave where multiple types of minerals had left various splashes of color underwater on the wall including purple, blue, orange, grey and green. It literally looked like someone had spray painted underwater... Lacey commented that this is stuff you see on the Discovery channel but never actually experience in real life, and here we were able to. So. Lucky.
Our next stop was at Kleftiko, where we used snorkels and the dingy to explore more caves that had been created by a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. The caves at Kleftiko were totally different, in that they were ALL WHITE and so smooth. The Greek and Turkish pirates used these caves to hide away from the wind and attack oncoming ships without being seen. Here we also dined on our lunch, which was a fresh Greek salad with vegetables from Elias's garden, mussels and shrimp pasta and unlimited beer and wine.
We then had our next stop going east at Tsigrado. Here we jumped into the water and Elias showed us a completely closed in cave that we had to go nearly underwater to get to. He found this cave 21 years ago... We had to use a flashlight to see in there! He also scared the living daylight a out of Jen and Lacey by screaming "THERES THE SLEEPING MONSTER!!" While in the darkness. The whole crew died laughing at their high pitched squeals of terror.
We next took anchor in Gerakas Bay, where we swam in a fresh hot spring. We dined on appetizers of grilled octopus, fish, grape leaves wrapped over rice and their signature alcohol of the Greek islands, Ouzo. We all shouted "YAMAS" which means "cheers" in Greek as we took sips of the black licorice flavored liquor. While we ate and drank, Elias told us many, old dirty Greek jokes... This man loves to laugh and to make people laugh and there was no shortage of it on this ship.
We eventually sailed back to our starting point, and met up with the crew in the harbor about two hours later to pick up a CD with all of the pictures he took from the day. Jen, Lacey and I bought Elias some treats for his name day, which he looked so grateful for and thanked us sheepishly while we were saying goodbye.
Today was my favorite day so far. So many new experiences, tastes, sights and sounds. I heart you Greece.
- comments
Anne What an amazing time you're having!! So happy for you!!