Sand sea salt and skorthalia

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Sand sea salt and skorthalia – sums up our life these days. (Actaully we have had many, many Greek delicacies but not skorthalia - it was the only Greek dish that starts with S that came to mind))

We found the idyllic beach that we read about – cliffs on one side – dunes on the other – the ruins of Nestor’s Castle on a hill top ahead with the Mediterranean beyond. A huge cave halfway up to the castle we will explore tomorrow (where in myth Hermes hid Apollo's cattle).

The beach is perfect sand and you can walk forever in the crystal clear water with nothing but clear sand underfoot. Approaching the beach is like nothing I have experienced before – the blues and green of the water render Caribbean waters I have seen paltry kid’s jewelry as opposed to the finest glowing emerald and sapphire gems tumbled together.

Out of this world locally-sourced Greek food and hanging on the beach is our lives these days. Our 15 minute drive down dusty dirt back roads to Voidalikia Beach is our biggest journey until Sunday.

Life is very, very, very good and we appreciate how very, very, very fortunate we are to be able to enjoy our family time together in this bit of heaven.

Willl and I had a four hour hike birdwatching, snail spotting and getting poked and pricked by vicious aggressive spiky plants – Will and I figure there was not a square millime3ter below our belly buttons that were not stabbed – my legs looked like the after-effect of an appointment with a beginner acupuncturist.

Omigosh - Kim reminded me to include our lunar surprise last night. Just as I posted last night's blog, I saw a notice on google about the total lunar eclipse - I went to a Greek site to find out the best spot in the worl to see the eclipse is Israel - pretty close by Canuck standards - then checked the timing - it said it started at 9:20 and incredibly it was just a coouple minutes past that - I ran up a flight of outside stairs and saw the shadow of the earth just starting to enrobe the moon - darted to our room - Marika and Will scrambled out in their POJs with Kim and we caught a bit of the eclipse before dark clouds heralded a final curtain calll for the lunar show.

Finally - as soon as I climbed behind the wheel of our standards Suzuki car kindly lent by George, I snapped into Greek-driving mode right away and am now muttering curses to tourismos who can't seem to easily navuigatre the twists, turns and climbs - Kim has only had white knuckles a few times...

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Photos

Bruce Will Marika
Voidoolokilia beach

Palms and pool
Marika holding palm branches before jumpiing in our resort's pool with Will.

Organic banana trees
Will points to one of the ripening bananas

apartment entrance
This photo doesn't do it justice, but the enntranceway to the new apartments where oour palatial room is is lit up like an art gallery.

Snails
Will and I found and area on our nature hike where everything in sight was spattered with snails