Sailing Through Greece: Ionion, E10 Part 1 Zante: Nikolaos
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This episode Ionion, E10 Part 1 Zante: Nikolaos to Wreck Bay, Navagio Despite small size, Agios Nikolaos houses an important harbour, as it is a starting point of ferry boats to Pesada in Kephalonia. Two ferries a day run in the summer season. Small boats drive tourists to nearby Cape Skinari, the northernmost point of the island, and to the “Blue Caves” on the coast between. The caves are shallow orifices in the white cliffs, combined with numerous rock arches. They are named after the turquoise blue colour of the sea, sunrays reflect through blue sea water from white stones of cave bottoms and walls, creating visual lighting effects. An islet, also named Agios Nikolaos, lies off the coast, protecting the harbour from northerly winds.The most famous landmark of Zakynthos (Zante) is the Navagio beach. It is a cove on the northwest shore, isolated by high cliffs and accessible only by boat. The beach and sea floor are made of white pebbles, and surrounded by turquoise waters. It is named after a shipwreck (MV Panagiotis), which sunk on the shore around 1980. The ridge area from Anafonitria has a small observation deck which overlooks the shipwreck, and there is a monastery nearby. The unique and stunning visuals of the location are a favourite for BASE jumpers, and each year a major event in the BASE calendar is held at Navagio, around the end of August. The Bay of Laganas is the site of the first National Marine Park and the prime nesting area for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean. In the early 1980s, this bay was seriously threatened as a nesting habitat, but thanks to the efforts of MEDASSET it could be preserved. Caretta caretta is an endangered species – especially by the deck chairs laid out on their breeding grounds and the inevitable pollution. Every year at the beginning of June, the female turtles come to the southern beaches in order to bury their eggs in the sand.The incubation period for the nest is approximately fifty-five days, after which time hatchlings emerge from the nest and make their way to the sea. Their survival rate is very small, it is estimated that only one in one thousand hatchlings that enter the sea lives to adulthood. Each nest contains around one hundred to one hundred and twenty eggs, female turtles begin to lay eggs at around twenty to thirty years of age. Keri is located in the far south of the island. It is a mountain village and has a lighthouse in the south. It includes a panorama of the southern part of the Ionian Sea. The whole western shore from Keri to Skinari contains numerous interesting rock formations, including arches.