Nera Island

Nera is a small, uninhabited islet in the Dodecanese, lying off the southern tip of Kalymnos just beyond Cape Kefala and almost directly opposite the village of Vlychadia. Official census counts have recorded a population of zero since at least 1991, and the island is compact enough to be walked end to end in a few hours. There is no road, no settlement, no electricity and no shop on it, only rock, scrub, a handful of olive trees and, a short climb up from the water, a chapel that carries the whole of the island's history.

Water, Olives and Seagulls

The name is simply the Greek word for "waters", and it is generally taken to refer to fresh water on the island: springs near the centre keep a stand of olive trees and other greenery alive, which is unusual on an islet of this size in this part of the Aegean. Away from that green patch the ground is dry limestone and low thorny scrub, and the coastline is almost entirely rock, broken by a couple of small pebble beaches with very clear water over a pale bottom. Seagulls breed here in large numbers and can be aggressive around their nests in early summer, which is worth knowing before wandering inland in nesting season. There are no facilities of any kind, so whatever you need on Nera has to arrive with you.

The Church of the Holy Cross

Two very old monastic chapels stood on Nera, one dedicated to the Holy Cross, Timios Stavros, and the other to the Zoodochos Pigi, the Life-Giving Spring. Both go back to the centuries of Ottoman rule and piracy in the Dodecanese, when small island monasteries like these were common and keeping them in repair was often impossible. By the twentieth century they were derelict. In 1946 a Kalymnian sea captain, Kleanthis Maglis, vowed to rebuild them after surviving a storm at sea, and the work was carried out by local craftsmen and volunteers over the years that followed; a large concrete cross raised on the island was blessed in 1960.

The result is that this empty islet has one busy night a year. The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross falls on 13-14 September, and hundreds of Kalymnians cross in small boats for the evening service and the gathering that follows it. For the rest of the year the chapel is left to passing yachts, and a ruined taverna near the landing, abandoned long ago, is the only other building standing.

Anchoring at Nera

The usable anchorage is the sheltered bay on the eastern side, beside the modest stone jetty that serves as the island's landing place. The bottom is sand and holds well, but the bay is small: three or four boats fill it, and once it is taken there is no realistic second option on the island itself, so most crews either arrive early or move on to the bays of Kalymnos. The spot gives reasonable protection from the prevailing summer meltemi out of the north and northwest, but it is open from the south and is not a place to sit out bad weather. Nothing ashore will help: there is no water, no fuel and nowhere to land a tender other than the jetty and the beaches.

Vlychadia and the Sponge Coast Opposite

The village across the water gives Nera its context. Kalymnos built its wealth on sponge diving, and Vlychadia, on the island's south coast, is still a diving base. It is also home to a museum assembled by the sponge diver Stavros Valsamidis from more than 17,000 objects he brought up over some sixty years of working the seabed: sponges, corals and shells alongside amphorae dating from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BC and the remains of an ancient merchant ship found with its cargo still aboard. Nera has become one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet cruise in Greece, valued for its clear water and for sitting close enough to Kalymnos and Kos to reach easily while feeling a long way from either.