Arkoi

Arkoi lies east of Patmos and north of Lipsi, just under seven square kilometres of dry rock, olive trees and low scrub with a single village and no hotels. Forty-four people were counted here at the 2011 census, down from fifty-four ten years earlier, and only around twenty stay through the winter. Administratively the island belongs to the municipality of Patmos.

Living on Arkoi

Fishing, merchant shipping, goat herding and the island's four tavernas account for most of the work. The village sits above the harbour on the southwest side: a square, a few small churches, a shop selling handmade goods and a scatter of houses. Goats, sheep, cows and donkeys graze loose across the hillsides, and their bells carry a long way in the quiet. Most of the island has never been built on, and it can be walked end to end in an afternoon.

Port Augusta

The harbour, marked on charts as Port Augusta, lies at the head of a narrow dog-leg inlet on the southwest coast. A small quay takes eight to ten yachts stern-to or bows-to, in depths running from about 2.5 metres at the western end to 3.5 at the eastern. Once inside, the inlet is protected from every direction, but the meltemi gusts down into the basin and can set up a surge along the quay, so lines want to be long and watched. Marathi, the islet across the strait, has an anchorage of its own and a couple of tavernas ashore, and is the usual alternative when the quay is full.

Between the shelter at Port Augusta, the anchorage off Marathi and the shallow water at Tiganakia, Arkoi has become a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Greece, with the result that in August the harbour is a good deal busier than the village behind it.

Beaches and the water

Tiganakia, on the southeast side, is the beach people come for: sand and pebble at the head of a bay closed in by low islets, the water shading from pale turquoise to green. Limnari, on the north coast, is sandier and usually empty. Kapsaliasmenos and Padelia are smaller. Beyond the named beaches there are unnamed bays and islets all round the coast, most of them reachable only by boat, which is what makes the island worth a day rather than a lunch stop.

The marine life is in better condition than around the busier islands nearby. Grouper hold in the rocks, and bream, octopus and nudibranchs are common in the shallows. The bottom shelves gradually off most of the beaches, so snorkelling is easy and the water stays clear well out.

Birds and protection

Arkoi, Lipsi, Agathonisi and the rocky islets around them form a single Natura 2000 site, designated under both the Birds and the Habitats Directives and covering roughly 125 square kilometres, about two thirds of it marine. The species the designation is best known for is Eleonora's falcon, which breeds in colonies on sea cliffs and uninhabited islets from April to October and hunts migrating songbirds over the water in late summer. Audouin's gull is also present, and the islets sit on a migration corridor.

What is left of the past

Above the harbour are the remains of an ancient acropolis. Little of the structure survives, but the hill is the best viewpoint on the island and the standard walk for sunset. Arkoi was part of the Italian Dodecanese from 1912 to 1943, came under German occupation for the rest of the war, and passed to Greece in 1947. A ruined building on the island is known locally as the Italian jail, though the account is oral rather than documented. Inland there is a cave with stalactite and stalagmite formations, screened by olive trees and scrub and easy to walk past, and islanders are said to have sheltered in the cave at Votsi during the bombing of 1943.

The feast of the Panagia

On 23 August the village church of Panagia Pantanassa holds the island's main festival, in honour of the Virgin. The panigiri that follows takes over the square with food, wine and traditional music and runs until the early morning; it is the one night of the year when Arkoi is crowded. Beds are limited to rooms rented in island houses, most of them a short climb above the harbour, so anyone intending to stay for it books well ahead. Ferries connect Arkoi with Patmos, Lipsi and Samos, with occasional runs across to Marathi.