Harvesting dried seaweed on Katelios beach

We had an final excursion today, as we head home on Friday, taking a speedboat taxi a couple of miles around the point to Katelios beach.  We had seen it when the bus delivering us from the airport last week dropped other visitors at different hotels near the village. We had heard it was a lovely quiet place and so it proved.

The boat trip was good fun cruising over the blue sea again very close to the water this time. Arriving at about 1030 am we had a short walk past the few and various tavernas and cafes before walking to the end of the built up area.  There we stopped as the beach becomes a bit of n=a nature reserve spreading around in a curve to the point we had sailed around. It is renowned as a beach where turtles lay there eggs and is thus rightly protected.  It resonated for me as I was lucky to be able to watch baby turtles hatching on a beach in Sri Lanka in January and witnessed there struggle to get down the beach and into the ocean. As we looked along the beach I spotted not only some flowering cacti, but also a pretty trunk of a eucalyptus tree, reminding of jaunts into the bush in New South Wales, Australia, many decades ago. Beyond the tree a man was harvesting the dried sea weed that washes up on this coastline and I have blipped him, as I rather like to see real life happen, despite the onset of tourism, which we are colluding with.  The landscape along this coastline does some relatively undamaged I'm pleased to report.

After coffee and another delightful bout of swallow watching again as the nests were very close at hand under the ceilings of some of the cafes.  A brief interlude on the beach followed, including a swim for Helena, before we headed to the restaurant that the driver of the boat had recommended. It was fantastic,.  We both had sea bass brought ashore earlier in the day and couldn't have been happier with the whole meal. In fact all the food here has been excellent, which was a worry of mine before we came here, as I hadn't always enjoyed Greek food in former times.

We found that a bus was running back to Skala at 3-15pm which we managed to catch and then we had even more time in the sun on the beach beside our hotel before our final supper and packing ensued. I've added a picture of the bus stop at the beach terminus in the village in the 'Extra photos'.