Raging Fires over the Akamas...

We woke to the sounds of fire helicopters and emergency vehicles this morning and saw the bright yellow forestry fire spotting aircraft travelling low over the house towards the direction of Latchi/Neo Chorio - as we drove down to the coast we could see what was happening - there was a huge huge fire raging on the open land at the back of the Anassa Hotel - you could even see the flames from the car. 

We have since learnt that there were about four different fires and that they may well have been started deliberately which is appalling.  The emergency services battled the fire for hours and utilised eight helicopters with the water buckets underneath and fire crews from as far away as Limassol.

Day two of Deb's holiday and a check of the itinerary showed that we were scheduled for a walk along the coastal path from Polis to Latchi Marina with time to take some photographs and take in the scenery followed by a leisurely lunch at Faros (where else) and then an hour or two on the beach so that Debs could go home with some colour.  The sea was very choppy today - the winds were whipping up white horses and in so doing were obviously whipping up the flames of the bush fire making the job of keeping it under control even worse.  You could see a heavy pall of smoke over the hills which gave for a very strange light as it began to engulf the sun.

Debra is also quite keen on her photography and so we decided to do something arty farty and wrote her name in pebbles in the sand and then took a photograph trying to capture her with the extraordinary colours of the sea behind.  We mooched along towards the harbour, sometimes on the path and sometimes on the beach but the sand was very hot on your feet!!

We met up with John in a shady spot in Faros exercising his brain with a Sudoku - the marina was a hive of activity as the helicopters were constantly going by picking up water to be dumped on the fire,  just when we thought it was getting under control the wind changed direction blowing towards Neo Chorio rather than away.  Debra and I went to the edge of the marina to watch what was happening whilst our lunch was being prepared.  As always we had a good lunch - as we said to Debra it is good honest clean food - nothing fancy but well priced.  After a leisurely lunch we carried on down to the beach at Latchi and set up camp just past the lifeguard station - not right next to it as we had done last year because they have now randomly put a shower there.  The red flag was flying when we got there indicating just how rough the sea was.  Rough and quite churned up as there was much more sea weed than normal.  It didn't put me off though as I was determined to go in and it was exceptionally warm - the only trouble was the current took my legs away from me and I had one hell of a job getting out!

Not being one of life's sunbathers John opted to go and do the shopping whilst Debra and I had the chance to relax and get some rays.  The warm wind meant that it was just too easy to lie in the sun and we needed to be careful - in fact Debs was regretting the fact that she hadn't slapped on more factor after our walk along the coast.

We were quite happy to pack up when John returned and came home to a welcome swim and relax before having what John calls 'picky tea' - lots of bits and pieces which included sheftalia, koupis, lounza, halloumi, salad and dips and a fair old amount of red wine.  Another late night!!