Thursday Little Things.

We woke up this morning in our peaceful little bay of the uninhabited Kyra Panagia. Actually, I’m told a single monk lives there, though I’ve never seen him or his dwelling in the two times I’ve been there. Interestingly, on our morning swim, we saw a beach lounge chair on a tiny pocket beach. If there is a monk living there, I’d say he knows how to kick back and enjoy this place.

We did a meandering swim around the inside of southwestern bay, then rounded the corner into the adjacent bay - a narrow inlet filled with nooks and crannies to explore from the water. More fresh water vents and haloclines, more ledges, more mini-beaches filled with bright white rocks, the largest of which (not at all large) had the lounge chair. We stayed in the water and sat as if in a big tub together, splashing and chatting and even tracking a large shrimp who was shrimping around in the rocks!

A lone little shrimp! Please forgive the shoddy camera work - I could barely see it!

Just as we decided to head back to the yacht, the wind picked back up to give us a sporty challenge - our peaceful calm stay had ended, time to go.

We enjoyed a lovely sail back south and west to Peristera Island, just  east of Alonissos.

Here we dropped anchor next to a hulking rusty ship wreck. I googled the wreck (which is also flanked by a smaller wooden wreck) but found nothing other than the barge used to bring provisions to the island was wrecked here and left to rust. It’s interesting to swim around, perhaps a bit creepy. But it was the rest of the swim that surprised us with the unobvious but really  interesting things we found.

39°12'18.2"N 23°58'19.8"E

Shipwreck Alonissos of Peristera Island

I often tell people who are scuba diving or swimming that if you are only looking for big things - dolphins, rays, other showy megafauna, you will be disappointed 90% of the time. But if you are willing to look - really look - at the tiny, inconspicuous, things, the areas that seemingly have “nothing special” going on, you will be delighted 100% of the time. After we left the shipwreck we cruised along the shoreline and noticed something different about the sea urchin population here. They are all wearing hats. Everywhere else we‘ve seen them, they’ve presented their natural spikey selves, but here, they are almost all decorated with rocks, shells, bits of detritus, even the skeletons of other sea urchins. A fabulous array of fascinators. We saw one that even had a tiny glass bottle for a hat! Without question, the urchins use tiny little suction cups on their spines to move and hold onto these objects, almost like armor. Scientists are unsure of the reason some urchins decorate themselves in this way. The leading theory is protection - from predators (none of note here), wave action or even the UV rays of the sun. What I found fascinating is that this spot seems to be the Sporades epicenter for urchin self decoration. Why here? We don’t get to know. But what delighted me most was that our swimmers were equally intrigued by this mini mystery. What more can a marine naturalist swim guide ask for?

A sample of the Peristera Urchins and their decorative hats. Look carefully at the second on the top row to see the little glass bottle hat!

Kendra taking a close up look at an urchin. I replaced it to it’s original spot, decorations and all!

Also present were lots of babies - small fish of a few different species that are obviously here to be safe until they grow. A nursery. And so we swam slowly along, fine tuning our focus for these tiny things that matter in the big picture of life in the sea. After about a mile we put the pedal to the metal and sprinted home for cocktails and apps which were Greek PainKillers and fried cheese.

Yes, I said fried cheese. And not your standard cheese fair you get at the grocery store. This is Greek cheese. And it’s fried.  These went too fast for me to photograph so you’ll just have to imagine it. You’re drooling. Amiright??!

Skipper moved us to a slightly more protected bay around the corner, where we laughed about who knows what over a ridiculously good dinner of pork chops and cheesy cauliflower and greek potatoes. Leave room for the apple tartatin with vanilla sauce, ok? Actually, they all licked their plates. Actually.

Richie and Lou Lou are out in the cockpit with our guests, our friends, our family, now, and they are all chatting into the dim. I know that Lou Lou is secretly hoping we will repeat last night’s gaming so she can dominate again. Who knows what the next few hours will hold.

I for one am hoping for an early tuck in tonight. I want to be fresh for our final full day. We have a great plan A and a great plan B. And if it should come to pass that we need a plan C, I have no doubts that Friday will deliver the goods which will be fully embraced by the people on this boat.

I’m headed out to join them now.

Love,

Heather