Overnight to Loutro on a Calm Sea

A small problem with the daily morning ferry from Paleochora to Sougia and beyond during early July  –  there wasn’t one.  With the ‘Samaria’ out of action, the larger vessel ‘Daskalogiannis’ operated a different schedule, arriving from Sfakia around 1.30pm, and setting off back almost immediately.  This, though unsuitable for walkers descending the Samaria or Agia Irini gorge, who could not return “home”, was perfect for my plan to kayak along the coast from Sougia to Loutro, with an overnight camp on one of the many beaches.

At 3pm, with the distant ferry now heading for Agia Roumeli, I paddled steadily out of Sougia in the same direction.  I’ve described this journey before (see ‘Explore’ – June 2009), so suffice to say that I stretched legs at Tripiti and the far end of Domata beach before approaching Agia Roumeli in the cool of the evening.  I was tempted to go ashore briefly, but there was every chance of meeting Andreas (Stavroudakis) at the Tarra restaurant, and leaving with a raki-spinning head an hour later.  I hoped he wouldn’t see me paddling by and be offended!

Kayak and Chapel at Agios Pavlos

I passed below the precipitous Eligas gorge, which we descended some years ago at the end of an epic four-day walk through the White Mountains, including an ascent of Pachnes, highest of all at 2453m.  Then along to the beach at Agios Pavlos, with its beautiful Byzantine chapel, and not-so-beautiful taverna and rooms close by.  Two moored speedboats and loud music from inside persuaded me to move on, until at 8pm I beached the kayak below the ‘Selouda’, where a steep footpath finds a way up through cliffs to the village of Agios Ioanis.

A swim first, then the tent was quickly erected and a meal enjoyed as dusk fell.  Tea, pasta (one which Lynne had made earlier!), cheese & biscuits, fruit, and more tea.  Venus appeared in the western sky, the scent of the pine forest behind became stronger as the day cooled, and waves broke leisurely on the shingle below the tent.  It doesn’t come much better than this.  The lights finally went out at the taverna along the coast, and the world was left “to darkness and to me.”

My accommodation for the night

Sunset from my tent

Strains of Liszt on the mobile phone woke me at 5.45am next morning, and ten minutes’ later I was up, the tent down and the stove lit.  A large bowl of home-made “granola”, an annual and much-appreciated gift from Carol (Popi) for expeditions like this, would set me up for the journey to Loutro.  The sun was already hitting the high summits above the Samaria Gorge as I launched into a flat calm sea at 6.30am, but heading to Cape Plaka I was in shade.  But only briefly, as, in Browning’s lovely couplet :
” Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, and the sun looked over the mountain’s rim.”

…and the sun looked over the mountain’s rim

Another hot day ahead!  It’s more than 5km to Marmara Bay (Marble Beach), over an hour’s kayaking, and with with no possible landing place en route I was glad to spend fifteen minutes ashore, and walk up to the foot of the Aradena Gorge.  Later this small beach would be crowded as visitors arrived on foot or by small boat from Loutro, but now I was alone, enjoying the tranquillity of what was still early morning.

Both Likkos and Finikas (often Phoenix) have grown since Lynne and I came here twenty years ago.  Now rooms and tavernas offer opportunities to escape the stresses of modern life – to relax, walk, swim, or – as at Loutro, take a canoe out for the day.  Both were coming to life as I passed by around 8am, but the small fishing boats, their occupants waving to me, were returning home.

The approach to Loutro, around Cape Moures then (by kayak at least) through the gap between the mainland and little Fanari islet, is simply stunning.  How many millions of photographs have been taken from the ferries as they turn into Loutro Bay?  Despite the threat of a road, Loutro is still only accessible on  foot or by boat, and hopefully will remain so.  Loutro is everyone’s idyllic Greek island village, with blue and white buildings lining the water’s edge, enormous cliffs behind, and even after many visits I still find it captivating.

The kayak moored at Loutro

I had time for a stroll around (it doesn’t take long!) and a second breakfast at the Blue House before the ‘Daskalogiannis’ arrived from Sfakia.  Relaxing on deck, enjoying the coastline on one side, and watching (unsuccessfully) for dolphins on the other, I was quite content that, to paraphrase Kipling, I’d more than filled the unremitting previous twenty-four hours.

Big boat, little boat

Before anyone comments, of course solo sea-kayaking is potentially dangerous and inadvisable, but  ….. competent friends were working or elsewhere, and conditions were just perfect.  And as Hazlitt observed, “one of the pleasantist things in the world is going on a journey  –  but I like to go by myself.”

If you can’t get hold of a kayak, the 14km/5 hr walk from Agia Roumeli to Loutro is equally enjoyable (though not in August!) and described in our book  “More Walks from Paleohora”, available from ‘To Delfini’ bookshop.