Cruises in Zakinthos

On Zakynthos a boat is the only way to see the west coast. There the land breaks off in a two-hundred-metre wall, no road goes down, and the island's headline places are reachable only from the water. Navagio, the bay with a freighter's hull on the sand, is closed in by cliffs on every side: the boat enters through a narrow gap, stays half an hour and leaves. The Blue Caves at Cape Skinari are galleries washed into the limestone; as the boat goes in, the water beneath the hull begins to glow, because the light bounces off the white bottom.

The routes differ by departure time. The early morning sailing is taken for the emptiness: by ten a dozen boats gather in Navagio bay, and before that it is quiet. Daytime programmes join the caves, the shipwreck and swimming stops, while full-day ones add the south — Marathonisi in Laganas bay, where the turtles nest, the islet of Cameo with its wooden footbridge, and the Keri caves.

Two formats stand apart. Traditional eco-fishing goes out with locals on a wooden boat: simple tackle, slow pace, lunch cooked from the catch. And the evening cruise from Poros port runs along the shore into the sunset, when the cliffs turn orange, and comes back in the dark — in one day on the water the island manages to show both sides of its character.