Mykonos

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After a much needed day at sea, we sailed through the Aegean Sea and berthed at Tourlos Bay in beautiful Mykonos. We had decided earlier on that we wouldn't take a tour organised by the ship as nothing really took our fancy, and I remembered that I had seen on Trip Advisor about a local family who ran kayak tours, so a few days before hitting Mykonos we had a tour confirmed with them.

The day was beautiful and clear with a slight breeze. We were picked up at the dock in a van, where we met a young Indian couple who were on their honeymoon. She was so painfully shy, she didn't speak the whole way to where we picked up our kayaks. Along the journey, we marvelled at how Greece looked just like all the pictures we had seen with the white washed houses and beautiful clear seas.

We were given a quick demo on how to use the kayaks, although we had already kayaked a few times before, and we were off. There were a few issues with the kayaks being tandem kayaks, but Karen and Ginna got it sorted when Ginna understood that Karen was the boss and Karen didn't realise that Ginna was still just doing what ever he thought was best at the back where she couldn't see. Wrong!

The water was crystal clear and although it was quite deep, we could see the bottom without a problem. The kayaking was fantastic and it became even better when we got further out into the sea and we could ride the surf and smash our kayaks down off the waves. Unfortunately, because we only had half a day there, we didn't get to ride through the blow hole on the other side of the Island, where the two seas meet and cause the blow hole.

We headed back to shore and hiked up this 'mountain' to the top to a wee family church where we were given fresh fruit and a tour of the wee church. The history is amazing and apparently there are many wee churches like that all over the island because the sailors built them years ago to give thanks to God for sparing them from the storms at sea.

We then headed a short distance to another beach where we got to show off our skills at snorkelling. It was amazing. The sea was pretty 'crisp' but the water was so clear and although there weren't any reefs there were still some cool wee fish. Ginna spotted kina, so he was pretty stoked. While we were there, a couple of topless sunbathers emerged from behind a rock, put their bikini tops back on and went for a swim! Who knows what they thought would get bitten...

The family were very apologetic that we didn't get time to share lunch with them and so the mother had prepared fresh home made sandwiches for us all with homemade bread and these little honey cakes that were almost like our rice bubble cakes thingys but made with sesame seeds instead.

We were exhausted as we made our way back to the ship, but decided that so far, this had to be one of the best days we had experienced so far.

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