Cruising The Med - Sandy and Rob's Excellent Adventure: Aristotle Onanis' Skorpios Island

As we left Nidris, we took the time to tour around the island of Skorpios, owned by the famous shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis who married Jackie Kennedy there in 1968.

Skorpios has many lovely inlets and the entire island has been planted as a park so it takes many permanent employees to keep it beautiful.

We enjoyed touring around the island seeing the homes (or rather glimpses of them) as we passed by.

Tour boats come here every day and we learned that on there was a particular beach home on the south west corner that Jackie Onassis favoured. (See pics below)

Skorpios is self contained as has its own farm providing eggs, milk and they make their own cheese as well. We saw some trucks and employees on the road that cirlces the island likely off doing daily chores.

I also learned from some research that in April this year, a billionaire heiress from Russia (age 23) has bought Skorpios from the only Onaniss living today, Christina's daughter who is just 24 and lives in Brazil with her show jumping boyfriend. The sale is quite controversial as Aristotle had clearly stated in his will that the island could never leave the family. The island sold for 100 million british pounds, or a quarter of a billion dollars.

Apparently, Bill Gates and Madonna tried to purchase Skorpios in the past but were unsuccessful.

After our tour, we headed across the water from the Lefkas area to Palairos. We noticed a resort next to the port and headed over to find one of the largest Sunsail Charter bases in Vounaki.

They have a full service marina but in addition to that, a large hotel with a beach chock full of Lasers, Kayaks, Hobie Cats, and wind surfers all available to guests with or without instruction. They have many marks placed in the water off the beach so the guests have something to sail around and we saw at least 3 coach boats teaching or just making sure everyone was safe.

We anchored just outside the harbour at Palairos. Many cruisers go into harbours everywhere but we really prefer anchoring and taking our dinghy in which gives us more privacy, cooler breezes, and less chance of rats coming aboard.

Yes, rats! I haven't written about this nasty critters but they are around here and many places we have been the pilot books have warned us to take precautions. Other than the obvious creepiness of having one of this critters on board, they can wreak havoc with the electronics, chewing on the wiring.

Old water bottles cut off and run on the mooring lines are a good deterrant and we met a couple who place an old frisbee on their anchor chain after learning a rat swam through tranquil bay and climbed someone's anchor chain! I did not know they can swim but many people we have met have confirmed this. Yuck!

Back to the fun...

Palairos is on the mainland of Greece and the mountains rise just about straight out of it topping 5,000 feet which makes it very scenic to approach from the water. There are cruisers here but the town mainly supports the locals who are mainly in agriculture. We could see some fields being farmed as we toured around this area.

We took the bikes into Palairos town and rode along the waterfront and up a few hills completing a pretty good cirucuit and feeling like we got great exercise as well as a chance to explore.

After descending back into town, we found our way to a cute beach bar for a cold beer and then back to the boat for dinner and a quiet evening.

Looking back at Tranquil Bay as we head to tour Skorpios

We drink coffee and eat breakfast on the go... Nidris in the background

Lefkas - Nidris local islands

These signs are all around Skorpios deterring visitors from staying here although they don't own the water and it is OK to anchor here according to our pilot books.