Posts Tagged With: Skyros

Sunday (Father’s Day) we headed for the Skyros about 20-30nm away. We got an early start. Again there was no wind so we had to motor to Skyros instead of sail. It was still several hours before the island began to take shape before us. We decided to use the Valaxa Strait which would remove 6nm from our trip. Valaxa Strait is a very shallow and narrow passageway between Valaxa Island and Skyros that opens into Kalamitsa Gulf and Linaria Bay (the fishing town we’d spend the next few days). Much of the depths in the Valaxa Strait are only around 3 meters (we draw a little of 2 meters with our keel). But there is a sweet spot in the middle of about 5m deep. We posted watches on the bow and the water being so clear it was easier than anticipated to maneuver the boat through.

Linaria is a pretty little town with white washed cubist homes on the hill and a white and blue church on the point of the bay that welcomed us. The port is very small but very nice as they recently upgraded to lazy lines (pre-set anchor lines) so we had no need to drop an anchor for stern tie Mediterranean moorage style. There is also a port manager (George) who took care to help moor our boat and took care of all our needs; “You need shower? I have shower for you. Free internet, free water, free electric hookup, my boys will find bike and ride bike and swim with your daughter. You want to see Skyrian horse? I have friend. I call taxi for you. I rent you motorcycle. Eat here, best place in town. Your daughter like dog? We have English Sheep Dog. Anything you need, you find me, I’m always here”.

George told us about a place to get a drink up on the hill that looks back on Linaria. “Favorite place in all of Aegean”. And he was right. Great place to watch the sun set and get a drink. So we did. George was great. He delivered on all his promises and our petty demands. He and his wife were very sweet and really tried hard to make Clara feel at home. Then later that night we invited George and his wife Angela to have a glass of wine with us and thanked them for their help. We loved Linaria and Skyros. We’ll certainly be back again.

George, Angela, Linaria! Cheers! Stin Iyia Sas!

Monday we hired a taxi and went to Skiros Town (also known as Chora or Hora). Its a beautiful cubist style town perched upon a cliff overlooking the sea on the windward side of the island. The town has an interesting history. It has a prominent castle on the top of the mountain that used to be an acropolis and was converted into a monastery of St. George. It was under construction due to damage from an earthquake when we were there so we couldn’t go inside but we did walk the winding streets up through the town, over rooftops and small alleyways built atop each other so we could see the view from the top. It was spectacular.

World’s Collide! Its a blog-cross over event. See: Cult of Achilles . Legend says that Skiros Town (Hora) is where Thetis hid her son Achilles in order to thwart the prophecy that only he could help win the Trojan war but would also die there. She dressed him as a girl and he was brought up as one of King Lykomides’ daughters. However, Ulysses was able to discover him living there and took him to Troy and victory as well as his demise. Traveling here was a pilgrimage of sorts for me to see the home of Achilles after having recovered from severing my Achilles’ tendon last year.

We thought we had made arrangements for Clara to ride a famed Skyrian horse. The island of Skyros (Skiros) is home to a unique breed of horse. They are small horses, some of which still run wild on the island. Skyrian horses are ponies (like Shetlands) are bred and live only on this island. They are celebrated on the island in an annual festival where all the horses of the island are gathered together and judged.

We hired a taxi to take us to a horse farm in the middle of the island. He dropped us off and said he’d be back in about 2 hours to pick us up at 5pm. Unfortunately we didn’t know that the horse riding didn’t start until 6pm. So we were only able to pet the horses and photograph them. There were some day old babies that made it worth the special trip.