It’s my third August in Nicosia, and this month, and the whole summer really, has felt exceptionally long. I’ve compiled a long bucket list of all the places we still need to explore, restaurants we want to re-visit, and trips we want to take before we leave, but between the heat and everything be closed this month, we haven’t made much progress.
In July, before Severin left, we checked off one of my major bucket list items: To rent a self-drive boat and toodle around the Akamas peninsula on Cyprus’ west coast. The port at Polis is not far from Nicosia as the crow flies, but because of the division of the island and the mountains, the only way to get there is to drive halfway around the island. The drive ends up taking more than two hours, which is a bit much to do regularly. It’s a shame, because Polis is one of my favorite parts of the island.
Somewhat shockingly, you can rent a 250 horsepower boat in Cyprus with just a driver’s license. (Somewhat hilariously, the rental place only accepted international drivers’ licenses, not Cypriot ones. I guess they do not trust Cypriot drivers’ ed?) We have absolutely no sailing experience, but after a 10 minute briefing on where to go and what reefs to avoid, and a 15 minute briefing on how to work the boat, we were off! They drove us out of the harbor, but once we got to open water the driving was all on Severin.
We stopped at four or five different harbors along the way, the most famous being the Blue Lagoon. That spot ending up being my least favorite, because there were probably two dozen boats of all sizes packed in a very close area. If you consider that 3/4 of the boats were being driven by people like us– i.e., who have no idea what they are doing– it’s not exactly conducive to a relaxing float. The best spot was the very tip of the peninsula, which had a nice cove where some hippies had set up a camp site. After snorkeling around the reef (very few fish in these parts of the Med), I just sat in my life vest and bobbed happily while watching the sun set.
Akamas and its coastline are quite rugged, with many parts of the interior only accessible by 4 x 4. One of the lagoons we stopped at was the site of ancient stone quarry. I didn’t get pictures of that area, but hopefully we will go back in the springtime for some hiking and maybe I can get something then.
We will definitely be doing this again before we leave!
