Another week has passed by and now it is time to say goodbye to the incredibly amazing Cyclades islands.
This week started at the famous island of Santorini. Thanks to our local friends Markos and Alice we moored at some prime Real Estate just underneath Oia. The neighbourhood… some really fancy yachts and some small fisherman’s boats, just amazing!!
Alice would make us a visit everyday and enjoy her time with Feijão, since she always had Bull Terriers around her. We actually met her through her mother, Marcia, who lives in Fernando de Noronha and also has a Bull Terrier called Baloo who became a good friend of Feijão’s during our Christmas and New Years Eve trip out there last year. To make things better we had super cool easygoing guests, Sabine from Germany/Brazil who is a good friend of Sarah’s, and also Veronica from Spain, who beyond other stuff is a yoga instructor. How cool is that? We had a yoga instructor on the boat! Namaste! Yeah yeah!
To go to shore we could either take an 8 minutes dinghy ride to Ammoudi bay, where all the sunset restaurants were, or a 2 minutes dinghy ride to the super cool Armeni bay. Of course that at both places a 200-300 steps were needed to get to Oia. Quite tiring but the view on the way up and down was not bad at all.
And of course, once you get to the top, the view is incredible. For us, more incredible was to see Ipanema dwarfed down there. Eight year ago I had been to Santorini and was wondering… “Who are those people on those boats down there?! What do they do?!” This time around it was Ipanema and us. I guess these people might just be a couple on their sabbatical year trying to explore the Mediterranean, I guess.
After Santorini we moved to Folegandros, which according to our local friend Markos, is it the most beautiful island in Greece. This place is really special as it is a lot less explored and less touristy than most of the islands we have been so far. Markos told us to “park” the boat just bellow this most incredible restaurant called Papalagi owned by Takis and than explore the island. Needless to say that the food was just amazing and super fresh. Probably one of the best meals we have had so far.
We installed long lines to shore and used our SUPs as “ferry’s” to the island, so again we had the first ever Ipanema-Folegandros-Ipanema ferry installed. The locals and tourists also would use their local “bus” to go from one beach to the other
Takis was a fantastic host. He explained us a bit more of the history of the island and drove us in his car from the 70’s to see the town, Chora. I guess the best description I found for this town is a “sort of mini-less-explored Mykonos lying on the top of a cliff with a super cool monastery above it”. Got the picture? Well, we loved it!
After Folegandros we had a great sail to Milos, a more famous island, yet the south part of it is not so crowed. The wind had finally calmed down and we had a relaxing time in the island, which included yoga classes with our super cool yoga instructor from Bilbao, Veronica!
Later we moved to Kleftikos, an old pirate’s hideout. I tried to go out for a SUP session but Feijão went mental, until we put him on the board too. This albino beast does not like the water, but he certainly loves a board. He rode with me calmly for more than one hour. There were a few boats around and he was a pop star around them. So many pictures.
Well, unfortunately now it is time to say goodbye to the Cyclades. During this past few weeks we have been to eight of its amazing islands: Kithnos, Syros, Rinea, Mykonos, Ios, Santorini, Folegandros and Milos. Now we are calmly moving out of beautiful Milos toward Crete, everyone is asleep while I write this and watch the sun rise slowly behind the boat, a lonely dolphin has just swam by to check things out. What a closure!
Next stop… Crete! The largest of the Greek islands. Our final greek destination before crossing to Italy. Italy! Italia!
