Atokos

Atokos is a small, uninhabited island in the Ionian Sea, lying about 9 kilometres northeast of Ithaca and 8 kilometres southwest of Kastos, off the coast of Acarnania and close to the main shipping channel between Brindisi and Patras. It covers 4.7 square kilometres and rises to 334 metres, which makes it far steeper and more dramatic than its size suggests. Administratively it belongs to the municipality of Ithaca in the Ionian Islands region, and it counts among the most westerly and remote of the Echinades.

Owned by One Family, Open to Everyone

The island is private property, belonging to the shipping magnate Panayiotis Tsakos, and the census records no permanent residents. What the family keeps there is modest: a well-maintained chapel, a locked two-storey house used occasionally in September, and a well that yields brackish water. A shepherd comes over every few days to look after a small herd of goats, which are effectively the island's full-time population.

None of that closes Atokos off. Visitors are allowed to land, walk the shore and swim, and the island has become one of the standard stops for boats working their way through the inner Ionian. Its protection comes less from fences than from law: Atokos falls inside a NATURA 2000 conservation area, which is one reason a much-publicised attempt to sell it in 2015, at an asking price of 44 million euros with hotel development pitched as the upside, went nowhere.

The wider Echinades have seen more successful sales. Oxeia, the largest island in the group and a near neighbour of Atokos, was bought in 2013 by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, then emir of Qatar, along with several surrounding islets.

One House Bay and Cliff Bay

Atokos has two usable anchorages. One House Bay, on the eastern side, is the one almost everyone uses: a pebble beach with a small patch of flat ground behind it, sheltered from the prevailing northwesterlies, with depths of roughly 5 to 15 metres over sand and reliable holding. Long lines ashore to the rocks are normal practice, since the bay fills up in high summer and arriving late can mean nowhere left to swing. It is an overnight stop only in settled weather, as easterlies make it uncomfortable and at times genuinely dangerous.

The name causes some confusion. The building most visible from the water is a chapel dedicated to Agios Ioannis; the two-storey house that actually gave the bay its name sits back through the trees at the northern end of the beach. Cliff Bay, on the south coast, is the alternative, with small sandy pockets beneath the rock face and depths in the region of 6 to 15 metres, again usable only in calm conditions.

There are no facilities whatsoever on Atokos. No water, no fuel, no shop, no taverna. Anything you need has to arrive with you.

Atokos on an Ionian Itinerary

What makes the island worth the detour is precisely that nothing has been built on it. The water in both bays is exceptionally clear, the cliffs drop straight into it, and after dark the complete absence of lights ashore makes for a night sky you rarely get anywhere in the Mediterranean. Lefkada, Meganisi, Kalamos, Kastos, Ithaca and Kefalonia are all within easy reach, so Atokos slots naturally into a week of short hops rather than demanding a day of its own.

Because it remains empty and undeveloped, Atokos has become a favourite quiet stop for boats passing between Ithaca and the outer Ionian islands, and many gulet cruises in Greece call in here for an afternoon swim before pushing on.