Friday = Play

Today’s Greek Lesson:

Play = Paízo = Παίζω

We all got up early this morning to catch the silkiest water of the day. Barely yet above the mountains of Meganisi, the sun made a perfect backlight to energetic entries that belied the hour. Eight splashes before 0800.

Nisida Thilia is a small island in between the channel that separates Meganisi and Lefkada, and having circumnavigated it twice before at this tender hour, we know it’s the best time of day to do so. A sea like glass, lots of fish and other marine creatures on their morning maneuvers,  flocks of jackdaws busy making their rounds overhead. The colors of Thilia’s beaches and cliffs - black to brown to orange to white - all seem to glow and stand out in the soft, subtle morning light.

These things made for a great meandering swim. We took well over an hour to cover the 1 mile journey around the island. So much to see.

Andrew found a lion fish which was a bit of a discouraging surprise, as they are invasive everywhere but the Indopacific.

Last days are bittersweet, as a group of swimmers feel cohesive and connected, but the time to part is close at hand. This group came to us as a unit, so goodbye for them feels a little different.

What we’ve loved most about this energetic bunch is that they arrived as a lot who already understands play in the water. If you’ve read our blogs before, you know that we value play as a means to fully immerse and be free in the water. Hopper and I often bristle when someone refers to SwimVacation as a “camp” which has a connotation in the swimming world as a place to “get faster” or “work harder”. We value these things, but our experience is really about losing oneself to the element at hand. When swimmers play, it’s like a moving meditation when the stress and anxiety of the rest of the world falls away, and something more pure and dear from within us is revealed.

This group came to us playfully, and they played fiercely every day, perhaps the most, today.

I got to document it both in the water and the air. I love to do swimmer portraits in the water at the end of each trip, but I have been slowly playing around with this jump shot idea as well. This was the perfect group to try it with. Swimmers + bow of boat + ball = fun, free, flying photographs. We all had a blast.

Thank you to our guests from the last two weeks. You’ve trusted us with your vacation time and your time in the water. We take that to heart and will always give you the best we’ve got. The ways I get to watch you transform and play never ceases to amaze and thrill me.

Thank you Hopper for this grand idea. It’s been a labor of love for 15 years and counting. Thank you Simon for finding many of the spots we swam and played these two weeks, and thank you Alina for your companionship and excellent support and guiding with these lucky swimmers. And thank you so much to Romesie and Lou Lou. You’re my family away from family and I love you forever. See you in a little over a month in the BVI!

Thank you to the intricate, intriguing and curious shores of amazing Greece. As usual, you’ve wowed and amazed us, fed us richly, given us an inordinate number of sunny days (not a single drop of rain for two weeks?!) and given us an inspiring place to explore and play. I often wish these ancient walls could talk and tell me what they’ve witnessed over the milenia. And if they could, I hope they’d add the story of joy and splash of 13 playful swimmers who made the most of every bit of it we could.

Efcharisto Greece, we will always come back.

Love,

Heather