We spent the last four nights of our trip in a small beach town named Pefkohori, just relaxing and recuperating from climbing so many mountains. Yesterday, we decided to spend the day at sea on a ship that left from the docks around 9:30 am. My roommate and I woke in the usual way, with someone banging on our door. This time it was Stephen, telling us we only had 10 minutes to be at the ship or get left behind, but thankfully we made it and we even had time to put on our matching tourist tshirts. The boat had two levels and a deck wrapping all around, so we picked a sunny spot, applied our sunscreen, and set sail. Stephen and Seth spent at least the first hour speaking in pirate voices so convincingly that even the crew members were cracking up at them. The boat took us to Turtle Island, which really is shaped like a turtle, but it was uninhabited so we couldn’t dock. Instead we all got to jump off the plank, just like the pirates made their victims do! We swam in the crystal clear blue waters all the way to the island (avoiding the sea urchins, of course) before climbing back aboard. Then the boat took us to a small town on a different peninsula (our beach town was on the first of three peninsulas that jut out from Greece in a row). The town was beautiful (I actually never saw any place that wasn’t beautiful in Greece) and we spent an hour shopping and eating delicious homemade ice cream. The horn sounded too soon though, and we boarded the boat again for lunch and a trip to a beautiful sand beach. We spend another hour or so here, playing in the water and baking in the sun before boarding the boat and going back to Pefkohori. We all ate sandwiches from the seaside bar at our hotel and watched the sunset. Every day in Greece is perfect, and this one was no different. Although I’m sad that the program ends today, I’m also excited because now I start the second part of my summer journey, which is 6 weeks of backpacking through the rest of Europe. It’s hard to believe any place can compare to Greece though.
