Sifnos and the Cyclades Boat Trip

Note: Sorry, but this is a very long entry. It’s mostly because I want to remember everything and wanted to get it all down before it gets lost forever. Also, I apologize but I don’t have time to write in photo titles. I’ll try and fill them in when I can.

This part of my four-month trip is by far the hardest to describe. How can I possibly put into words how it felt to sail between those mythical islands, the sapphire blue sea luminous and radiant in the Mediterranean sun? It’s like trying to describe with words the way it feels to be truly calm, content, and happy in a given point in time.  The best I can do is to describe what we did, and hope that the words convey even a fraction of the feeling of being there.

Viv, her father, Sy, Wes and I began by visiting Sifnos for two nights before meeting the rest of the group in Milos where we’d begin our time on the boat. The five of us stayed in the very same hotel I stayed in last time I came to Greece with the girls a full five years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!).  We spent both days at the beautiful Platys Gialos beach, a shining bay of blue and green lined with whitewashed restaurants and trendy bar/cafes. The arid mustard-colored land serves as a beautiful contrast to the stark white buildings and the mesmerizing bright color of the water and sky. I think Wes put it best when he asked me “Does this country have a single cloud?”…from my experience thus far, the answer would be no.

We spent our evenings in Sifnos eating Souvlaki (Wes having three times as much as everyone else) and relishing in the fabulous character and vibe of the main town, Apolonia, at night.  One night we spent in Kastro, which (true to its name) was home to a tiny Cuban-themed bar serviced by a wonderful little Greek guy sporting a full grey moustache, bandana, and cut off shorts that were so small they literally provided us with a view of the bottom of his tucked-in Che Guevara shirt.  We watched the light of the day fade as kittens played on the mountain below before walking down a gorgeous path to a tiny church on a rock outcrop overlooking the sea. We rang the bell in tribute to the beauty of the place, and made our way back up the path, panting as we climbed but loving every minute of it.

The next day was spent at the port, swimming and getting ready for our next ferry to Milos. Viv got on an earlier ferry so as to meet up with her boyfriend Will, her mom and Margot who were already on, having boarded in Athens. Wes, Sy and I bid farewell to Viv’s dad and got ready to board the slower ferry that would take us to Milos just a few minutes after everyone else. Things got a bit hairy for a while there, since the ferry was late, and the three of us got on the wrong ferry before thankfully being told just in time by a boat official and rushing back off before the ship left. We finally made it on the right one and arrived in time to meet up with the rest of the group.

It was at this point that we met our fabulous captain, Nikos, for the first time. Nikos is a native of Naxos, the largest island in the cyclades, but he has been living and working in Milos where he lives with his family for the last 15 years

or so. He is famous not only for his knowledge of the islands but for his infectious personality and warm smiles. He is a character like few others in the world, but instead of attempting to describe him more here, I think a fair likeness will emerge in the course of explaining the rest of the trip.

Our home for the next week, the catamaran Chrisopalandou, was awesome. A double-hulled, gleaming white speedster, it was the perfect place for us to spend our next week as we mimicked Odysseus. Our group consisted of Nikos, the captain, Vicky, her friend Anna Maria (sweetest woman ever, runs a gourmet Italian food shop and is the official representative of all Italians living in Greece), Margot, Viv, Will, Sy, Wes and me. You couldn’t have chosen a better-suited group for this kind of adventure. It was perfect.

We spent the first night in Milos, enjoying a night in the Hora (the main town of an island) and eating and drinking way too much. The next morning, Nikos took us first around the outside of the island, where we dropped anchor for the first time and he told us to put on our flippers and masks and to follow him. We swam into a cave and emerged a short time later in what almost felt like a natural arena – there was a huge hole in the rocks above us through which sunlight was streaming through, illuminating the water and allowing us to take in the beauty of the sea life below.

We next stopped in a small bay, where the water was so clear it literally looked like a large swimming pool surrounded by towering rocks. We swam for a while around the boat, diving off the sides before coming back and enjoying freshly

caught fish on the grill.  Nikos then took us to an enclave of sheltered caves, which we explored with our smaller dinghy (called a Tender for some reason). The chorus of “ooh”s and “ahh”s was almost comical, but who could help it when surrounded by so much beauty? We shimmied in and out of tiny crevices in the rocks, emerging in cavernous darkness and cool blue caves which seemed almost too stunning to be real.  That night we traveled to a small, uninhabited island called Polyaigos right off of Milos, where we slept in a calm natural bay under the stars.

I think it was the second day that the young people on the boat became addicted to Spades, the card game I used to play ceaselessly with my friends in high school. Bear in mind that from this point forward, every free moment was spent playing the game.  It was hilarious, and there was a very detailed and confusing score sheet that was guarded jealously from the elements throughout the week. At one point, Nikos was making fun of us for being able to tune out the beauty around us for long enough to play such heated games, but in a way we probably needed to take our eyes away from the surroundings for a few minutes so our senses wouldn’t explode from the stimulation.

The second day we spent exploring Polyaigos before sailing to Folegandros in the evening. It was a calm trip, and it seemed like every direction we looked in featured shadowy outlines of the many islands that surrounded us.  The cove where we spent our day featured a natural stone arch, the likes of which I have never seen in real life. The sea was a bright turquoise, and the water seemed to shine as if it was illuminated from below. We then went a little further

, and spent some time anchored near a rocky beach.  We all swam, snorkeled, horsed around and had a generally fabulous time spent half in the water and half lounging on the boat. The sunset that night as we made our way to Folegandros was a gorgeous watercolor wash of orange, pink and yellow, reflected again and again by the silvery sea behind us.

At that point, the air was so hot it literally felt like we were all being slowly baked by the atmosphere. Even the sea breeze didn’t help. We slowly traipsed around the main town on the island, careful not to move too quickly so as to prevent ruining yet another shirt with buckets full of sweat.  There were stray cats everywhere (indeed, there were stray cats on every island – it’s apparently bad luck for people not to feed them), and Wes made friends with a particularly lethargic kitty who was passed out on a stone wall.

After a quick dip in the bay the next morning, the sails went up for the first time (however briefly), and we made our way to yet another beautiful cove where we spent the day pretending to be fish again. What with all the swimming, reading, eating and card playing going on, I was in heaven. There’s no better way to spend a day in my opinion, especially when you cap it all off with a classic Greek taverna serving mounds and mounds of glorious food, this time on the island of Sikinos, where we had dinner.  Before eating, we climbed to the top of Sikinos where we saw a solitary white Monastery and watched the sunset from the cliffs.

As we were making our way down the steep path to the town, we saw a tiny kitten making its way awkwardly along a thorny field. It got to the end of the terrace, and there was a huge drop down to the path. The kitten fell, and landed miraculously on its feet, but something was wrong. We went to investigate and realized that his little eyes seemed to be glued shut – either because he was only a day or two old or because he was a sick. He was adorable, and none of us could bear to leave him. We searched for his mother but couldn’t find her anywhere. We called him Mishos, naturally, and carried him to the town, where it would be more likely that the people living there would see him and feed him.  It was hard to leave him.

We didn’t stop for the night in Sikinos, instead we continued on to Ios. It was total culture shock for us, having spent the last three nights on tiny islands barely frequented by Greek tourists let alone foreign ones. In Ios, this was not the case, and we heard more English there than we had the entire trip. We enjoyed ourselves at a tiny outdoor bar where we people watched for hours before making our way back to our trusty floating home.

On Thursday, we left Ios for the tiny Irakleia, where we spent the day at a gorgeous beach, not that any of us actually spent any time on the rocky shore. Why hurt your feet when you have a boat like ours to station yourself on? Seriously though, we had a busy day which included a heated game of paddleball, where Wes and Will blew mine and Margot’s record of 63 consecutive hits to shreds. But it’s ok because we weren’t really trying.  Also, they suck.

At this point, Nikos had already gone swimming at every single island and caught fish at each stop. Sometimes it was a wide-eyed mackerel, sometimes a slimy octopus, and sometimes a bag full of jet black sea urchins. We never knew what he’d find for us, but we always tried it. That day he was swimming around in a weighted wetsuit with a spear gun, and the excitement on all of our faces was probably the best ever when he emerged with a huge red starfish the size of my torso. Amazing. We spent the night at the harbor in Schoinoussa, another tiny island featuring more beautiful water and gorgeous scenery.

The next morning we set sail for the tiny island of Koufonisi, where we spent the day swimming, reading and exploring as usual. That night, however, we sailed to Naxos, the largest of all the Cyclades.  We passed kite surfers on the way, flipping over the waves like dolphins. When we arrived at sunset, the harbor was hopping and filled with people of all shapes and colors. We spent a glorious evening inhaling souvlaki alongside sweets from Nikos’s brother’s pastry shop. We also visited the iconic square-shaped ruins of a monastery by the port. Seeing the sunset framed through its rocky edges was amazing.

The next day we sailed (with all the sails up for the first time!) from Naxos around Paros to Antiparos where we spent the night. The day was filled with more swimming and resting but the night was hilarious. We docked in a small harbor that featured just one tiny outdoor restaurant famous for its lamb chops. Little did we know, however, that though the restaurant was full, the other people there were guests at a particularly raucous wedding. We eavesdropped on the toasts and soon discovered that it was a happy marriage between a Greek girl and a Spanish guy, which proved an excellent combination in terms of music and merriment. We even joined in at one point, dancing to a few songs just outside the party under the full moon. We took a walk further up the island and let out the rest of our steam before returning to the boat, but I lost my temper with the party around 5 am when the music was STILL pounding as loud as ever and shaking me awake in my sleep.

Our last voyage was from Antiparos to Sifnos, where we would be meeting up with Viv’s dad again.  The best part of this day was not the swimming, but the long ride across the sea to Sifnos. Nikos tried to warn us, but we were laughably unprepared for what lay ahead for us. The wind was the strongest we had seen it, and the waves were IMMENSE.  Even my iPod went down in the salty struggle.  It was insane! Literally, three straight hours of madness as our little boat traversed monstrous wave after monstrous wave.

The first few minutes of the crossing we spent sitting on the front of the boat, laughing and yelling as we careened u

p and down the mountains of water. Soon, Viv had a genius idea and decided to lay face down on the hammock-like net at the front of the boat. A few seconds later, Will, Wes and I had joined her, and we were flying over the waves, getting pounded by water every second and heaving up and down at hair-whipping speed. At one point, dripping, gasping for air, and sporting a wave-induced wedgie, I turned to Wes to say something and got literally punched in the face by a huge ball of water. It was awesome.

Several hours of shrieking, laughing, and painful bellyflops later, Viv and I retired – shaking with the weakness of having clung to the net for so long – to the back of the boat. I still have bruises on my knees from pressing them into the rope with such fervor for such a long time. Wes was the last of our foursome to admit defeat, but not after getting pounded with freezing water as he yelled into the wind, inspiring fright from the rest of us on the boat.  Of course, when we made it to the back of the boat, it was to find Nikos grinning like a six year old and sporting a completely dry physique as he laughed at us crazy kids. To top it all off, Sy, having found the ONE spot on the entire boat that wasn’t wet, slept through the majority of the onslaught having not felt a thing.

As our stomachs recovered from nature’s greatest rollercoaster ride, we finally arrived in Sifnos. We spent our last night in a small bay before going out that night in Apolonia, having come full circle in our week on the boat.

I can’t even pretend to have the verbal capacity to sum up a week like that one. Let’s just say it was probably the best week of my life, and leave it at that.

Pictures!