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Sightseeing, shopping, eating and sun! |
As Melanie was already holidaying in Europe, we met up in Athens in early June. We then spent the next 10 days, before the swim holiday began, visiting three of the bigger islands in the Cyclades: Santorini, Paros and Naxos.
Mel had not done much swimming this year so we made sure we got a decent sea swim in each day, and spent the rest of our time sightseeing, shopping, lying in the sun and eating! We were there before the peak of the summer season, so there weren’t too many other tourists around, nor was there much evidence of the impending economic crisis!
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Walking from the hotel down to the port at Schinoussa |
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Video session at the hotel pool |
For the remainder of the week our group was based on a 40 foot yacht, Katerina, skippered by Aki, a local, who has been working for SwimTrek since its inception in 2003. We had our first proper swim that afternoon – about 2.5km following the coast of the island of Iraklia and finishing in the little port there.
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Katerina and Aki, our local pilot for the week |
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Swimming with SwimTrek |
In the afternoon there would be another shorter swim, probably 45-50 minutes long. This would often be a coastal swim where we would just hug the coastline, swimming only a couple metres from shore and swimming into every little bay or cave along the way. All of our swims were done in the groups we had been assigned on that first day, and we were always accompanied by an IRB and a guide.
Once we were back on shore, the group would usually head to one of the local beach cafes for a beer. We were then free to do whatever we wanted for the remainder of the day though as our group all got on very well, we tended to get together for dinner. Interestingly our group was mainly women and the majority were around the same age as us, (50-54 years!), though we were told by Trish that they usually get a wider range of ages and have had teenagers through to people in their 60s. The majority of our group were from the UK but we also had an Irish woman, two Germans, a resident of Spain and, of course, the two of us Kiwis.
Midway through the week we transferred to the island of Koufinissi which, while still very much an unspoilt island, had a town that was bigger and quite a lot busier than the one on Schinoussa – though we’re still only talking about populations in the low hundreds (which no doubt grows over summer with all the holidaymakers).
The Greek islands are a lovely place to go for a holiday – we found everyone incredibly helpful and friendly, and the way of life is relaxing, with long siestas in the afternoon with everything staying open till late.
I would definitely recommend SwimTrek. The trip was well organised, safety was always a priority, and we were looked after well. While it may not suit everyone given how structured it was, if you’re happy to go with the flow it really is a lot of fun.
Rebecca Perrot
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