Today is our last cruise excursion day! I don’t know why I’m excited about that, because I have truly loved every single place I’ve gotten to experience. I guess it’s just the exhaustion speaking.
We woke up sometime around 8:30, got beach ready and went to breakfast. We met at the meeting spot at 9:45, and it was complete chaos. The lady I’ve seen every morning on this cruise wasnt here. Hmmm. Weird. And apparently we were docked outside of Zakynthos, Greece, but not cleared by customs yet-so we were all still waiting to be able to take a tender boat shore.
When the announcement was made that we had cleared customs-there was also an announcement saying that we did have several guests and crew positive for covid and that they were taking strict precautions for our safety. Uh oh, I wondered if the excursion lady was out with covid, then? And then, what does strict precautions mean? Were they going to test everyone today before we got off the ship? Before we get back on?
Around 10:30 we finally got to leave the ship, and even that was a bit chaotic, but no covid testing, so we weren’t complaining. Once we were on our bus with our tour guide, Catherine, it was mostly smooth going. We had an almost hour drive from where we got on our bus to where we got on the boat to take us to the shipwreck beach of Zakynthos.. a famous beach only accessible by boat because of its huge sandstone cliffs surrounding it. Along the way, we saw gorgeous views of the island and Catherine told us information about the shipwreck and her home island.
The shipwreck happened in 1980. The famous story is that some bandits had stolen a bunch of cigarettes, alcohol, and money on this ship and were trying to navigate home with their loot.. but a storm came and they got blown off course, ultimately hitting shallow waters getting their ship stuck. The bandits took what they could carry and abandoned the ship.. which then washed ashore to where it still sits today.
She also told us that the island of Zakynthos is only 26 miles from top to bottom and that it only has 33,000 permanent residents on the island-known mostly for tourism and agriculture. The people more inland farm olives, grape vines for raisins and wine, and have sheep, goats, horses and cows. During the summer, there is an influx of over 100 Thousand tourists at any given time on the island.
In 1953, the island suffered a major earthquake. Every single building on the entire island collapsed-except three-one of which was a church that’s still standing today. Whatever buildings didn’t immediately collapse during the 4 hour continuous earthquake, ended up collapsing within the next 10 days due to either aftershocks or fires that broke out. It was devastating to the population and took years to rebuild, and even now there are very strict building codes to follow, like nothing is allowed to be over 3 stories tall.
Catherine was full of information like this, which kept me entertained the entire hour drive to the bay we were going out from. She told us about their population of sea turtles, the largest in the Mediterranean Sea, and the environmental groups that work to preserve the turtle eggs on certain beaches. When we finally got to the drop off location, it was almost noon already!
We were able to use a restroom and buy a gyro to eat on the boat.. I was pretty excited about the gyro. We all got on a charter boat with good views from every spot. We then had an almost hour boat ride to get to shipwreck beach! It sure was a lot of riding around today. At least on this boat we had the wind in our hair and could be mesmerized by the sandstone jutting up out of the Crystal blue shimmery waters. It truly was gorgeous!
Once we docked at shipwreck beach and got off the boat, we were met with a huge white pebble beach-not sand-pebble.. hahaha, I can still hear mom now as I write this. Those pebbles HURT, and sandals wouldn’t stay on your feet because of the water causing your feet to immediately sink deep into the rocks with every step. We painstakingly eased our way up onto the beach, found a spot for our towels, and went back to get into the water.
I swam, mom stood there in pain because her feet hurt but the water was too cold to get in and relieve her feet. Then, right where she was standing, a boat decided to pull to up dock there.. so she had to move down the beach to get out of their way. This happened several times and before we knew it, we were a long way from our towels. She had left her sandals on our towels, so, I tried letting her wear my flip flops, that didn’t go well and I had to swim after them when a wave snatched them from her feet.
She got frustrated and told me to leave her be, so I walked back to our towels and grabbed her sandals and came back to where she was to help her in them. That wasn’t really very smooth either, since she kept sinking into the beach with every step.. eventually she managed to get onto the more compact pebbles and we got over to our towels. We weren’t laying out for maybe 20 minutes when our boat reappeared and our captain was yelling for us to come get on board.. time to go back! I thought mom was going to pop a blood vessel.
We got back on the boat and started the trek back to the bay. Our captain did stop in some of the blue caves, which was really neat. Overall though, I think mom and I would have enjoyed it more if we could have stayed on the beach for an hour or two at the least, to make up for all the riding and sitting and painful walking. We just wanted a little longer to actually enjoy the beauty of this place without being corralled away again. It was probably one of the prettiest places we’ve seen so far! Now I know what works if and when I ever get to come back.
So, after our boat ride back to the bay, we used the bathrooms again, mom got a pastry and I got another gyro, even though I wasn’t hungry. This is our last hour in Greece! I had to have just one more! As I’m carrying it to the bus, the driver stops me and says I can’t take it onboard, that I have to eat the whole thing now.. “we leave in 2 minutes.” Umm, excuse me? Couldn’t they have mentioned this before just about everyone getting on this bus purchased food? So as I’m making a shocked face, Catherine walks up behind me and whispers, “if you can’t eat it all, just wrap it up and stick it in your bag, he never mentioned this no food before, I’m sorry.” So that’s what I did..
Our hour long bus ride back to the ship was more fun this go around, since Catherine had already told us everything and now we were all awake and more lively. The couple sitting behind us are on their honeymoon and were so funny. We all chatted and laughed the whole way back to the ship. Once we were back, we realized again that the port was really far from the city, so we didn’t venture out to explore, even though we did have 2 hours to do so if we so pleased.
Instead, we went straight to the pool. Mom got us drinks, I ate my old gyro, life was good! We swam in the pool and laid in the sun until close to 6:30, then went to our favorite spot on the back deck. Wine and pasta and sunsets. Seriously, there’s nothing better. Around 10pm, I changed and went for my run on the upper deck. There were way more people out and about tonight, all commenting on how proud they were of me running while on “holiday.” To some I explained my run streak, to others I just said thanks.. either way I got 2.6 miles done before I called it quits and went to the room to shower.
When I got to the room, mom surprised me with room service desserts (and more wine for me)! I showered quickly so I could enjoy the goodies she got us: cheesecake and crème brûlée. So so good. We watched tv and talked until almost 1am. Sure, we could have gotten dressed again and gone to the “party” but from all the things I’ve seen so far, this isn’t really the crowd I want to drink and dance with.. plus-I’m tired! Lol party pooper? Maybe.. but I’m ok with that-as I lay in bed in my robe eating cheesecake.
Tomorrow is just a sea day and our last full day onboard. I think we’ll take it easy, lay at the pool, and get ready for our travel day to Rome! Thanks for following along y’all. Goodnight!