Symi boat excursions
Friday was a bit of a non-event in our house, mainly due to a late night on Thursday, but a great late night. We were invited aboard the Poseidon for a birthday party involving a trip around to Agia Marina island and supper on the quayside, and what a lovely evening it was too.
There can’t be many folk who have been to Symi and not taken one of the boat trips. We now have the Poseidon and the Diagoras (the Triton and Nikolaos have not been used here for some years now) and they both do trips. You can find them in the harbour in the morning and evening where there are stands selling tickets for boat trips and taxi boats. Or you can visit one of the travel agents in Yialos and ask them about what trips are available. We have been on several in the past; around the island with stops for swimming and a barbecue lunch at Sesklia island, sometimes stopping at Panormitis as well, and also to St Emilianos for the day with swimming stops and lunch.
It was 17 years ago now that, while on holiday, we decided to take a walk to St Emilianos. It was the last day of our holiday, and Neil’s birthday. We set off and were doing really well until we took a wrong path (it’s much easier to do it now what with the maps and guide books available). We ended up off the beaten track up on the top of a hill, the wrong hill, as it turned out. It was very interesting: signs of settlements of the past, great views and so on and we could see our destination down below. The problem was, getting there. Thanks to some rock climbing experience of my youth we were able to carefully scramble down the side of a cliff to reach a bay. But it was the wrong bay.
It was a hot day, being early September, and we were running out of water. But one of those large yachts had called into this bay, Maroni, for a pit stop of some sort. It was one of those boats with waiters on it and how nice it would be, I thought, if they sent some water across or invited us on board, or even gave us a lift back. We staggered onto the beach, hopefully, but there was no lunch invitation, not even a wave. The idea then was to find the path back from St Emilianos and so we started walking around the bay to get into the next one. We came across a fisherman on the ‘beach’ by a small hut and asked if he could take us back to Yialos, but he was unable. He did tell us, however, that the boats were in at the next bay and, if we hurried, we might be able to get a lift on one of them. The pace picked up as they were due to leave in about 45 minutes. It’s not easy scrambling around a rocky bay with no path but we got there in the end, and just as the boats were weighing anchors.
We had a choice of two boats, one was rather full, the other was not so and we were invited to hitch a ride on either. We opted for the less busy one which turned out to be a private charter (I think it was the Diagoras – it was a long time ago). Nevertheless, we were made welcome, fed and watered (ouzoed) and soon the guitars were out and the singing had started. On discovering it was Neil’s birthday, people were dispatched to the depths and returned with the gift of a shell or two for him, we stopped in Maroni bay for a swim but the yacht that had been there had left nothing behind apart from a mild oil slick so we stopped elsewhere. By the time we got back to Yialos, friendships had been made and we were invited to go out with the party again the next day. Sadly, we were leaving so couldn’t. And no one wanted any money from us for the ride either.
These are the kind of people you meet on these boat trips; not the sweaty, scratched and rather desperate English couple that was us, but the lovely folk who helped us out. I expect some are reading this today, so to you we say, thank you! Maybe see you next time we stray from the path and turn being lost into a party.
