During our gulet cruises we regularly stop to swim in beautiful coves and bays. One of our favourites on our "Cruising the Dodecanese" trip is Mesa Almyres. If you try an online search for that name, you are not likely to find much: Mesa Almyres is a small cove on the very rugged and mostly rather forbidding eastern side of Kalymnos, a small spot of shelter from the prevailing northwesterlies that must have been welcoming to mariners for millennia, as it was to us today.
At face value, there is nothing special about Mesa Almyres. It is one of hundreds of such coves in these islands: a deeply incised V-shaped notch of turquoise water - just wide enough for a gulet like ours to anchor - in the otherwise sheer limestone cliff that forms this coast, perhaps as the result of a natural fault in the limestone, or of the little winter gully that cuts through the interior of the island and meets the sea here, or maybe of both. There is a tiny pebble beach with a row of tamarisks growing on it; the surrounding slopes are quite barren, clearly showing the striated structure of the sedimentary rocks, but just hospitable enough for a few wild olive trees, assorted herbs and some caper bushes. Day trip boats like to stop here for a bit, and sometimes we see goats roaming - or browsing - along the cliffs, announced by the tinkle of their bells, heard long before the animals are seen performing acrobatic stunts above near-vertical drops. That's all there is to Mesa Almyres...
Nothing special at all? Mesa Almyres, a cove reachable only by boat for any but the most hardened hikers, is the perfect embodiment of the wild and tranquil beauty of this part of the world. It is a place far afield from the trappings of civilisation, perhaps unspectacular at first sight, but heart-achingly peaceful, beautiful, timeless, a world in itself. It is a place that invites our guests and us to simply enjoy the moment, perhaps just by admiring the scenery, by considering its geology and botany, by exploring the beach and surrounding cliffs, or - chief joy of all - by swimming in its clean and temperate waters. The happiness that a place like Mesa Almyres can offer us is as pure as its waters, as sheer as its rocks and as peaceful as the place itself: an instant of perfection in time and space.
To me, coming to the place, and to places like it, is a bit like William Butler Yeats' image of his "Lake Isle of Inisfree": And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow...
We often spend a good few hours at Mesa Almyres before continuing on our journey, and although our guests may have already forgotten the name of the place, what will stay with them as a memory of our voyage in the Dodecanese is much more significant: its image, its sounds and its aroma, the feel of the water on their skin, the peace and the happiness.
Find out more about our cultural gulet cruises.
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