Milos boat charter: rent a private sailing boat with captain Petros on the Kirki

This is a great idea for people who want to decide for themselves what they want to see, without other people around. The Kirki sailboat is berthed in the port of Adamas and can be rented for day trips, but it can also be rented for several days. There are sleeping accommodations on board. You can discuss your plans with Captain Petros. The Kirki boat can accommodate up to six guests and is really not that expensive. The price ranges from 300 euros in 2014 (low season) to 500 (high season) per day, and this includes food and drinks (for day trips). There are not that many private boats for rent on Milos and captain Petros is the cheapest. The normal excursions from the port of Adamas that you share with people you do not know cost 50 euros per person, so if you are with six people, you can have your own boat for the same price The most popular routes are the trip along the beautiful coast of the island of Milos to Kleftiko with swimming stops at various locations, or the trip to the Glaronissia islets and then around the beautiful uninhabited island of Polyaigos. Telephone: +30 6944659914 - Send an e-mail to captain Petros on Milos.

After we already made the trip along the coast of Milos to the Sykia cave and Kleftiko with a regular excursion boat it seemed a good plan to have a little luxury and make the other popular route, to the Glaronissia islets and around Polyaigos by private boat. I had already been in contact with Captain Petros of the Kirki sailing boat about this. It was nice that he spoke English so well and he was very sympathetic. He gave interesting explanations of the things we passed while we were sailing. After sailing along the coast of Milos we headed to the first big "attraction", the Glaronissia islets. These three small islands are located on the northeast side of Milos, not far from Pollonia, and they are a very special volcanic phenomenon. They were made under very great pressure and they consist of all hexagone (six-sided) tubes. From what I understand, there is only something similar to be found in Tasmania. The water around the islets had a beautiful turquoise color. The islets are (obviously) not inhabited by humans, and only the seagulls have their home here. They gave the island its name (Glaronissia means seagull). Glaronissia was the first place where we made a swim in the sea. If you sail on you will pass along another rock (which you can see well from the village of Pollonia) with the same kind of hexagone tubes.

Long ago the island of Polyaigos was donated by a Byzantine emperor to the church and it is now (thankfully) uninhabited. It is right next to the island of Kimolos (about 2 kilometers away) but it is totally different from it. Where the coastline of Kimolos is mainly brown and gray, the coastline Polyaigos has wonderful colours of white, pink and orange. Instead of people there live goats on Polyaigos and in the caves along the coast you find the protected Monachus Monachus seal. The Greek Orthodox Church lends some pieces of land on the island out to local shepherds that live on Milos and Kimolos. Polyaigos is about 18 km2 and the coastline is about 25 kilometers long. At several places along this coast are nice pristine pebble beaches. Our first stop was in the "Blue Bay". Why it is so called so really needs no explanation. The bay looks a bit like an amphitheater with white rocks around the sea and has a beautiful blue water.

From the Blue Bay we sailed along the coast where a little further a bunch of beautiful pointed rocks rise from the sea. We pass by the remains of an old building that was once used at the time that there was a mine on the island (mining is now banned). The rocks looked majestic as a kind of castle towers coming out from the sea and we sailed close past them. It almost seemed like we had landed on another planet or in a science fiction movie. We are now on the south side of the island and go around Polyaigos further to the east.

Cruising along the beautiful white-pink-orange-red coast we see more lovely deserted white beaches. We also pass several places where the water has a beautiful turquoise colour. You can choose a beach where you can lie all by ourselves.

We make a stop at one of the beaches on the eastern side of Polyaigos and swim over there from the yacht, while captain Petros is going to make the meal. It is a fairly large pebble beach with beautiful white, but also many nice coloured pebbles. The water is clear and again turquoise and the beach is clean. There is also a path leading to a lighthouse which is located above the beach. Remarkable in the landscape are the strangely pointed shaped rocks that stick out of the ground. After half an hour "free" we swim back to the boat. I can put a new island on the list of islands where we put foot on shore. Petros has made some nice food and there was cold white wine for us.

After we have finished eating, the boat trip goes further along the coast of Polyaigos and we sail through an arch into what appears (or is) a collapsed cave. The color of the water is getting sort of predictable but it is indeed again turqoise. We continue along the north side of the island of Kimolos and sail around the island on the west side back to Milos. The difference with Polyaigos is quite extreme. Not that Kimolos is not charming, but the coastline lacks the beautiful colours that we encountered on Polyaigos all the time. The water is not as gorgeously blue as what we have seen all the time. The west side of Kimolos also makes a deserted impression. There are some nice rocks in the sea and we see some beaches, but there are hardly any houses on this side of the island. We arrive again at the island of Milos and we first pass some special rocks that come out of the sea. The water here is of a beautiful greenish colour and very clear.

We sail into the large bay where the port town of Adamas is also situated. First we make a stop and sail around some crazy rocks. One of them looks like a bear and if you sail away from it and you look back the same rock looks like a rabbit. With a little more imagination you can see other things in other rocks. We continue along the coast and see several villages with "syrma". These were originally storage places carved into the rocks where at the end of the summer the boats were stored. After World War II the people began to put another floor on them and use them as holiday houses. After the captain had painted his boat he usually had a lot of paint left and thus he painted his house in the same color. Hence all the houses in these villages have a different colour, which makes it extra special. The last village with syrma that we pass is also the most beautiful. It is the former capital of the island, Klima. Directly net to the village in the rocks you can see catacombs that were made in the Roman period. (1st century AD). They started here with the first catacombs and later it continued just above Klima where it is now the second largest complex of catacombs in the world (see page Milos sights). That was the story of our day on the boat Kirki. At 7 o'clock in the evening we were back and we had a really special day. Who knows one day soon..... another trip with Captain Petros?

© Hans Huisman, https://www.angelfire.com/super2/greece/ 2014