A Rib Boat Trip to Paros and Antiparos with Captain Andres
Today was our second boat outing. Totally different, but just as successful as the other day. This one was set up by our travel agent.
Before we left, though, we had one matter to attend to: Getting our pre-return Covid tests. Our travel agent arranged for a guy to come to our house and administer them on site for about a jillion dollars per person. Talk about paying for convenience (later we saw sweaty tourists lined up in the sun outside a covid testing clinic — for probably 1/10 the cost).
We drove to the marina where we got picked up in the same spot in the Naxos marina by Andres (American alter ego would be someone named Andrew, a tan West Village 20-something croakie-wearing prepster in a worn-in golf shirt.) Our destination today was Paros and Antiparos.
Andres’s boat was a 38’ rib, aka a speedboat with raft-like sides. It had two rollercoaster-like seats, which the kids loved. He immediately put on a playlist of house music and pulled out across the water at top speed, wind in our hair, coastline of Paros in the distance across blue waters.
If we closed our eyes we could pretend for a second that we were on a kid-free Mykonos holiday. (Though I could also hear my mom’s Southern-accented voice, indignant all the way from Washington, DC — “Andres, please! Turn. that. crap. OFF,” followed by eye-rolling to the rest of the boat like Can you believe this guy playing disco music on our boat ride??)
We made two swimming stops at coves with electric turquoise water (chill house music still playing, but on lower volume). We dropped anchor and swam. The water was cool but it felt so refreshing and necessary considering how hot it was when the boat would stop. It’s been around 100 degrees — with no breeze — all week. You had no choice but to get in the water, captain Andres included.
James has been getting braver. Swam all the way to shore and even through a rock tunnel (he had on his life jacket). He was rewarded with a Coke, which he drank afterward on the boat, wind in his hair, splayed on the bow of our boat next to his sister, like a little undeserving prince. He informed me that “Coke makes my mouth gassy,” between gulps. I’m not sure he realizes the Cokes stop when we get home.
Joanna and Dave had come to these parts a few years ago and reminded me before we left how much they’d loved it — especially Antiparos, which they’d stumbled on and decided was their favorite island. Rustic, undeveloped, low-key. It’s where Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have a house. Joanna said there was a restaurant there that she still dreams about: Captain Pipinos.
A motto we developed on our 2019 trip was: Don’t recommend a place unless you mean it, because we WILL go. We decided to seek out Captain Pipinos, which Andres knew how to get to and drove us to for lunch.
So glad we went. It was a trellised waterfront taverna with blue and white wooden chairs and tables, fresh catch on the menu and octopus drying on a line over the shallow water just beyond the deck. The only restaurant or establishment in sight. Patrons in bathing suits, waiters friendly. Quiet and lovely. The food was awesome, too. Oh and to make it just perfect, across the way on a nearby uninhabited island was the white marble ruin of a temple to Apollo.
We’d invited Andres to join us for lunch but he waved us off, content to hang on the boat while we enjoyed. We could see him out on the water, kicked back in the shade looking at his phone. Yet James was VERY concerned about him. “But what is Andres going to eat?” “But what IS Andres going to eat?” “But WHAT is Andres going to eat?” “But what is Andres going to EAT?” Same question, different emphasis, all lunch long.
We kept reassuring him that Andres was okay, that he does this every day and probably had a sandwich packed or something. I said, “But I like how empathetic you’re being, buddy.” And he told me that yes, they had learned all about being “compassionate” and “empathetic” at school. Good!
A mask mandate in this heat is difficult, to the point of impossible. We donned ours for precisely three minutes to walk inside and use the restaurant bathroom, and it was torture. I don’t know how these waiters are out in that 100 degree sun working their butts off wearing masks. Seems cruel.
After lunch we hit another spot for swimming. All day we’d spotted yachts, including Rising Sun, a 400+ foot aircraft carrier-sized megayacht owned by David Geffen (built by Larry Ellison, who sold it and presumably moved onto bigger boats). The kids were fascinated by it, especially after we read that it had a basketball court and movie theater. At one point we were swimming in a cove alone when a small boat carrying some of Rising Sun’s passengers pulled up and hopped out — we were desperate to identify someone notable, but couldn’t ID any of them. Just a bunch of British good-timers.
Our last stop was Naoussa town in Paros, which is gorgeous. Way prettier than Naxos town, which isn’t all that charming — more of a t-shirt shop-style holiday spot for Brits and Euros. I imagine Paros is a chill Mykonos. All the beauty and charm without the jet set scene.
We came home around 6 pm and the kids skinny dipped while we put together a hodge podge dinner of veggies and leftovers. We all got in bed around 8:30 pm.
At bedtime James told me, apropos of nothing: “I used to think [the Hamilton song] ‘The Room Where It Happens’ was about the room where a baby gets born. Now I know it was just about a work meeting.”
If you’re not familiar, the song is sung by Aaron Burr, lamenting the fact that he wasn’t in the “room where it happened” when Jefferson and Hamilton made a deal about America’s debt plan (in which the capital of the US got moved from NY to DC). A work meeting.
Misc:
This place is amazing but it’s unbelievably dangerous sun-wise. If I’d known — even I, who play fast and loose with the sun — would’ve packed some of those long-sleeved grandma UV protective shirts. It’s just unrelenting. We reapply 50+ about 10 times a day, not exaggerrating, and still fry. Teddy has commented multiple times that we haven’t seen one single cloud since we arrived on Naxos a week ago. I don’t think we experienced this kind of beating-down sun and all-day exposure anywhere in our entire trip around the world. So, I will be sad to end vacation, but relieved to get (my kids, especially Willer) out of this sun.
