We left Mykonos early and headed to Syros island for our last landing in a town. On the way we moored just off a little island for a swim. They put a gangplank down the side and you go down these steps straight into the water. The boat is tied to a big rock onshore with tension against the anchor at the bow so it stays quite steady.

It was about a 100 m to shore so we swam in and sent our towels, sunnies etc on the zodiac.

There is always a crewman in the zodiac keeping an eye on all the swimmers and kayakers and he also acts as barman zooming back for water, beers or cocktails. We all thoroughly enjoyed the swim. There are plenty of foam noodles for people that are not confident swimmers. We had about an hour and a half there then headed to Syros. It’s an important port and a central stop for all the inter island ferries. There are ferries of all shapes and sizes and they arrive every 30 minutes or so. They go whizzing right up to the dock and do a 180 degree turn to reverse in. They stop for about 5 minutes and then it’s off again.

There are lots of buildings from the 1300s -1600s that you don’t see on other islands because Syros was always protected against the Ottomans due to its strategic position as a trade route. Therefore the years of darkness the befell the rest of Greece were not visited on Syros. As Joseph said, the rest of Greece seems to be either ancient (pre 600AD) or post 1950s.

Syros town is very pretty. It has a marina right in town where yachts back in and a larger dock on either side. We were on one side and the ferries and large commercial boats on the other. The restaurants have tables right beside the water so many of the people on their boats were only a metre or so away from the diners.

There are some very nice shops but unfortunately we didn’t realise that they close for the day between 2 and 3pm on Wednesdays so that saved the credit card as we elected to have lunch after a bit of a wander around. We found a lovely restaurant under some bougainvillea and ordered salads, which were delicious but enormous. Mostly lettuce but still enormous. I ordered grilled octopus which was yum.

We had a good walk around after lunch then back to the boat. Barbara and I had a swim at one of the swimming platforms just around the corner. Being a busy port you can’t swim by the boat but there is a boat free area just along from our dock that has steps that go down into the sea. The water is crystal clear despite being on the side of a busy port. You can either dive in or use the stepladder that goes down. It’s a bit like a giant open-ended swimming pool.

We dressed for dinner as it was the captain’s dinner. Everyone looked very smart. Instead of a buffer they had a sit down meal of appetiser (salmon salad – enough to be a meal itself), vegetable soup, steak and vegetables or fish and vegetables, dessert and icecream or fruit salad.

Afterward there were speeches and another introduction of the crew so that everyone could clap and cheer. Then the crew got to go ashore for their night off!

Barb and I had a stroll along the waterfront and enjoyed seeing the town and the Galileo all lit up.