Last year in June/July i had the opportunity to go to Greece with my girlfriend Electra, who is Greek. Greece is one of the places i’d always wanted to go but had never made it to… it’s a long list! We stayed only 4 weeks, which is not long enough to really explore Greece, but seeing all of it wasn’t the objective, but to experience the life and culture of Greece a little, hear the language and eat the food… and eat more of the food… Greek food is great, usually quite simple, but really good!
One of the places we visited was the Island of Ikaria, not one of the main tourist islands, and right over near the coast of Turkey. Ikaria was quite different to what i expected Greece to look like, and very different to the other Greek Island we visited on that journey, more on the other island later.
Trapalou Bay, on the Greek Island of Ikaria. Greece
I had always thought Greek Islands would be more like Rottnest Island, off the coast of Fremantle, and many of them are, very rocky, dry and windswept with low scrubby vegetation and small white painted houses. In contrast to this Ikaria is green, forested and has beautiful gorges with rivers and waterfalls, and the houses are not painted white!
One thing that was as i expected it to be was the crystal clear water of the Aegean Sea with it’s amazing deep aquamarine blue colour that just invites you to jump in, which i did on many occasions, including just after making this image here, which is the bay of a tiny fishing village at the end of a long rough dusty dirt road (it was a hire car…). I cant remember the name of the place, but when we finally arrived it was around midday and the whole town (all 15 houses) was asleep for the afternoon, so it was quite eerie, like a ghost town, we had the whole place to ourselves. So, we went down to the bay and swam around naked! It was lovely.
By the way, this shot was taken on the Canon 5D Mk II with the 16-35mm f2.8L lens and the awesome Really Right Stuff pano head. It’s composed of 13 portrait format shots stitched with PT Gui Pro and the finished file comes in at 1.9Gb… It makes nice big sharp prints.
Stay tuned for more on the Greek Island of Ikaria and Greece in general.
Lesley Walker 
Carol Darby 
Luke Austin 
Carol Darby 
Richard Cofrancesco 
Rob Lewis
Hello Adam
I come from the island of Ikaria (though I don’t live there now) and I am a blogger and an amateur photographer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/isl_gr/
Less than three months ago our beloved island was hit by a torrential rainfall which caused a lot of damage and altered entire landscapes. For example Trapalou that you have taken such an outstanding photo of, now looks like this
http://www.ikariamag.gr/images/trapalou12.jpg
http://www.ikariamag.gr/images/trapalou3.jpg
as for Chalares canyon where I suppose you took the other great photo of the pools and waterfalls, looks now like this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/angeloska/5336106985/
I was about to write a blog entry about the changes and make a point that things are not so bad after all, when I found your page. Will you allow me to blog on your two entries about Ikaria? I won’t “steal” them, mind you. I am going to do the same thing as I did in my last entry about another outstanding photographer
http://islgr.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/ikarian-nightscapes/
that is, connect to the original page and only formate. If I hopefully have your permission, will you also let me copy the descriptions as well? The title of the entry will be “An Australian Photographer’s Ikaria” or “Adam’s Ikaria”.
regards
Eleni
Hello Eleni, you certainly come from a beautiful part of the world! I had a look at your links and it made me a little sad to see the destruction, but then, as somebody said on your blog, its nature and nature sometimes does these things. In the Kimberley, an amazing region in the north of West Australia they get monsoonal rains and cyclones every year that often cause massive destruction, even changing the course of whole river systems. But the ecosystem has adapted to it and evolved along side of it, its just humans that struggle with this i think. But then, its not a nice thing to have your house washed away… No problem with linking to my blog and using the images, i’ll have to get on and put up some more of Ikaria as it was. Thanks for watching!
Thank you very much Adam. What you say about Kimberley is very appropriate. The Aegean is also an area of great changes (hopefully not to the tropical level). It’s something that the old generations knew well though now the young have forgotten, so when things happen, they are shocked. I may be able to blog round the weekend. If there are more of your photos later, I can always edit and add them in.
We will be in touch, won’t we?
Thank you again
Eleni
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