End of August in Greece

Yesterday we managed to find a completely secluded beach with black sand. It was as small slog with a windy dirt road but we were rewarded by this stretch of empty sand. It is on the north end of the island and the waves are more vigorous there. Although according to the wave strength expert Kyran, too puny for boogie boarding. That Hawaii experience serves to make a lot come up short. At the end of the beach was a church with a bell. For most of the morning we were there alone and then a greek family arrived. They initially began their stay with prayer and bell ringing then it progressed to what I term a meal gathering excursion. The two men initially busied themselves digging into the sand right at the interface of sand and sea. They only seemed to be a foot down and were loading a jar up with tons of tiny creatures. We were curious and Joop did a tentative dig to see what we could find. He only found some colourful worm like things with legs. Kyr suggested perhaps they were looking for cockles – gleaned from reading Gerald Durrell’s book. Then as the old woman lay right at the edge of the beach so that the waves would break over her, another woman snorkeled around with a plastic bag. She was in the ocean for along time. I snorkeled up to her to see her harvesting sea urchins and then some grey thing she had to cut off rocks – maybe abalone. After the digging the men then worked with a small line and hook catching tiny fish(almost ensnaring my boy in the process). All in all they were very industrious. As we were leaving they excitedly approached Kyr and Joop and asked if they had a gun to shoot a ½ meter fish they had just seen. Kyr has turned into an expert abalone shell seeker and now has enough for a necklace. He is curious as to why he only finds the same side in all of his shells. I practice diving for things but am not that good at it.
Greek appears visually to be a country without immigrants. Apparently this is not true – 10% are Albanian immigrants mostly illegal, and they do the menial jobs. Greeks supposedly hate the Albanians. The chances of a waiter being Albanian are pretty good. So now I am traumatized that our lovely waiter at the internet café who is always so smartly dressed and pleasant may be Albanian. The Greek proprietor is always glowering in the background while this guy does everything. I hope his work environment is not as upsetting as it looks and maybe that greek guy only looks cross.
This weekend most of the tourist children will be gone as they head back to school. I wonder how it will affect the boy – realizing everyone is back at school while he lolls about. I would like to do more exploring – see more evidence of the history but it is too hot to do this comfortably. It’s a long and complex history anyway. It is hard to keep it all straight. Maybe it is sufficient to see these olive grooves stepped up in small terraces on all of the hills – some trees 500 years old. Who could have done all of that stone gathering work in this heat?
Joop is going to attempt to make us some egg breakfast on the hot plate. I guess he is tired of the hotel bun with one slice of cheese, one slice of ham, some jam and a brownie.