Nikolakis Swimming Trips

A day in the life of two Skiathos Fisherman, Yiannos and Costas:

We spent another amazing day on Skiathos island, by taking the Nikolakis Swimming Trip.

It was a friend’s birthday, and this was a lovely present from his wife.

Yiannis and Costas picked us up at Kanapitsa Beach and ferried us to wonderful spots around the island. We soon noticed, that this was not your average tourist excursion, no blaring Mamma Mia (ABBA) music, and no other boats anchoring in the bays they took us to.

After preparing the bait, Yiannis threw in yards and yards of line to catch the fish for the lunch he would later prepare on board, in his tiny cooking spot.

After a swim on the empty, far side of Tsougria island, he looped around to the buoy where he had fastened his lines to collect them. We toasted and cheered excitedly, as he pulled in one fish after another. Two large star fish and a baby stingray were spared and thrown back, and we ended up with a total of 9 beautiful fresh fish of various sizes.

Our next stop was a land spit on Tsougria island, to explore, while our two friends prepared lunch.

It was the nesting place of the island’s seagulls. At first very hard to detect due to their camouflage colouring, we then saw baby seagull chicks wobbling around in the sand.

Much to our surprise, above us, the grown seagulls started making a huge racket, screeching and calling, and bomb diving towards us.

We were surrounded by nests. Many of them had eggs in them, some of them in the actual process of hatching.

After a cooling dip in crystal clear turquoise waters, we were called to lunch on board.

Lunch is served:

We enjoyed a generous meal of fresh fish, tasty salad and all the wine we wanted.

Fully satisfied and happily staring off to the horizon, we cruised around Skiathos island. And this was our lucky day, because on our way back to Kanapitsa Bay, we sighted dolphins, arcing in and out of the water in pairs.

That alone made my day!

And as the sign on board their colourful kaiki boat indicates: Who needs therapy, if you can spend a day like this?