Ganema Beach, Serifos, Greece

Some of the best events during our sailing trip involved sailing to a beautiful, secluded beach and have a good time. We did this plenty of times, but this beach at Serifos (called “Ganema”) stands out — it was not only beautiful, but it was secluded and was far away from any town closest to our reach by boat or walking. And there were no public transportation available.

We had very less money for eating outside, so cooking on the boat and jumping in the water was on the only fun we could have had. We never realized that we had no wine or liqueur left onboard either, and we were ok with it for a change, till we reached on the beach. We all swam to the beach and had a great feeling walking around. There were two more boats, and about 3 couples in around the 2-3 km of the shoreline. That’s when we got the idea of doing a campfire on the beach. We weren’t sure if that was even legal, but we did not care.

The big problem was not collecting the wood fire — that was easy. The question was what is a campfire without some liquor?. That was when we decided to try anything to get the wine on the beach. We found out the nearest town was 10 kms. away from where we were standing. The walking was impossible because it was hot afternoon, the road was quite a climb beside the town being 20 kms. a round trip.

We had to wait 2 hours, ask few folks on the beach before one couple game us the ride to the town. It was quite a ride and very humbling experience. I along with skipper Peter were given the ride in the car which is probably good for two people and a dog to be max. The couple did not know english, but they tried understanding what we needed. They pulled their seats so that we can accommodate on the tiny back seats on their coup. The best past — dog sat with the driven on drivers lap all the way

This story may not reflect too much of the great experience we derived in the end, but for me it was a learning to shed inhibition, be loose, carefree to gain the little bit more fun when I needed.