Swimming in Poros

We took the local bus, seen here at night, to get to Kanali beach. The bus is free and runs from the morning  (with a break during siesta hours) until after midnight.

It runs every 20 minutes and is used extensively by the locals.

A five minute walk would take us to the narrow strait that divides the two islands, Sphairia and Kalaureaia that make up the island of Poros. The locals call it the Canal. On the left of the end of the canal in this photograph is Kanali beach. 

Poros beaches are not spectacularly good as in some other islands, but we did have some nice swims here. Not really sandy, just pebbles and we would have found it very difficult without our swimming shoes which we use when we go to beaches like these.

Nice views from our loungers.

In the afternoons it would get a bit rough and that was fun

A good-sized bay but not too big

It's an organised beach, so that one can get adequate shade, and the prices were not too steep as in some other islands.

The taverna on the beach is good - nice views of the sea, and fairly good food.

One thing I liked about it is that it never got too busy so that we were able to get an umbrella in the first row - I like having uninterrupted views of the sea

It's a family beach - lots of kids having fun with their canoes








I like swimming fairly long distances, so, endless expanses of water get a bit boring.  So, I like swimming around rocks and caves, or, in our own beach getting to the net and back, which gives me a purpose. But, the best are rocks and caves, and this is why I loved swimming in Therma in Ikaria and Sarakiniko in Milos . 

What I did in Kanali was I swam up to the rocks in the picture, explored all around the rocks, went inside the shallow caves - it was such fun. Exploring, no one else around, just wonderful.

I also saw something I have not seen before. Hanging from a rock was what looked like the root of a tree. But, I am not sure, it's just I don't know what else it could have been. It is very long.  It looked like the lower part of a white giant: the hips were embedded in the rock at the top of the cliff and the two long white legs were reaching to the bottom rocks, like roots or feet.  One of them looked like it had a bent knee. I find it difficult to explain, it was such an odd thing that I had never seen before. 

On two occasions, we went to the taverna that's on the beach for lunch after our swim.

The place I really wanted to go and swim, which I had been looking forward to, and which had been my favourite place during our last trip, was this bay, the Russian bay.

It was spectacular due to the backdrop ruin of a 19th century Russian naval base. 

When Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, Russia secured free shipping for its navy and this bay was one of their bases. When Russian activity declined so did the base and the abandoned buildings were left to decay.



So we went again, on our second full day. but did not stay.

They have replaced the umbrellas and the beds, and unfortunately with the new ones you hardly get any shade. The umbrellas aren't that good, but it's the beds that are the problem. They are so heavy that it's hard to move them - on the other beaches, we constantly move the beds following where the shade goes as the sun moves.  We do not like sitting in the sun and it's not good for you, so we had no choice but to call another taxi (there is no other way of getting there unless one has a car) and went to Kanali again.

It's a lovely bay, and I remember loving swimming there, but we cannot sit on a beach without shade. On the way to Kanali, we looked at the other beaches on the way, but they were all very busy, so we decided to stick to Kanali for the rest of our stay.

Swimming in Milos

We were not able to go to two of our preferred beaches in Milos because the bus schedules had been changed and the first bus back was at 4:00 - too late, we don't like staying on the beach for that long. But, there are so many beaches in Milos that it did not matter that much.

The first beach we tried in Milos was a walking distance from our hotel. Lovely beach and very quiet when we first got there.

We could see Adamas on our right

plus the villages of Plaka and Tripiti perched on the mountain

on our right, more expanses of sand

and if I zoomed in, the loading platform from one of the nearby mines

We could see the boats arriving and leaving straight ahead of us

it is a lovely beach and we really enjoyed swimming here.

Behind us, across the road was this house next to an abandoned windmill. They had knocked down the structure of the windmill and just kept the mechanism. Fascinating. I had never seen one before.

Looking closer

Also behind us, is the taverna Chamos (Mayhem)  where already at 12:40 we saw people queueing for the 1:00 opening. We had intended to go and eat there, as we had been told that it was impossible to get a table in the evenings but that lunchtimes would be o.k. But, having seen the queue we decided against it.

Even though the beach was quite empty when we arrived, by the time we left it was very busy.

We came here twice, but then decided against coming again as the umbrellas let quite a bit of sun in, and we like shade.

We also enjoyed the walk back to the hotel, as half of it was done with our feet in the sea, under the shade of the almyres (taramarind tree).

The second beach we tried was in Lagada bay, a small bay within the large bay that is the old volcano crater and which more or less divides the island into two.

It's run by the people who own the Buddha Bar (you can read about it  here ) and as part of the fee we paid for our umbrella and the beds we were also given a bottle of water in a bucket of ice.

It was hilarious when a cat came under our table and started licking the condensation on the underside of the bucket

Lovely beach, nice swimming - I particularly enjoyed zigzagging around the boats

the WWII air raid shelter and then further on, Adamas on our left,

the end of the bay and what looked like caves on our right

We were intrigued by the caves so decided to go and investigate

A local happened to be there so I asked him. They are not caves at all, but pill boxes built by the German occupiers during WWII to observe and shoot

Even though we could not see it from the beach, just across the pill boxes on the other side of the bay is the air-raid shelter built into the rock

Nice views from here.

We only swam here once, because the next day we decided to try out Achivadolimni, and Ken fell in love with it, so we went there for the rest of our stay.

From the bus on our way to Achivadolimni the next day we passed the salt evaporation ponds

Sand dunes from the bus stop to the beach

and then, there we were, a long expanse of sand

on either side of the spot where the umbrellas and recliners are

gorgeous clear waters and Adamas in the distance.

The walk from one end of the beach to the other was very pleasant

We wondered if this construction was another defence post built by the Germans during WWII

white volcanic rock as in Sarakiniko on our right

caves.

The whole place was gorgeous, and so very quiet. We really liked swimming here.