Fried Egg Jellyfish and Other Things You See at the Beach

It's hard to believe that we've been on A. for ten days already. We've settled into a happy rhythm of a morning swim at the same beach, Milia, and an evening dip (or banyo as they say in Greece) at a different (but similarly spectacular) beach. For the morning swim, it's us and the other regulars. Takis and Tassos, two local shop owners, meet every morning for an hourlong swim-chat (emphasis on the chat part, as they float leisurely across the bay, never submerging their heads). They meet around 830am and seem to head directly to their shops afterwards in their swimwear. It's usually us and them and maybe another person or two in the water. I have a relaxing float while Sam gets her mile swim in. Takis calls Sam a dolphin because of her speed compared to him and Tassos. This morning there were other swimmers that we'd never seen before. Roughly every decade, there's an invasion of jellyfish on Greek beaches and this is one of those years. Most of the jellies are harmless. We saw a bunch of these big ones, which are called fried egg jellyfish (you'll see why in the pictures below). They are roughly the size of a ten gallon hat, look like a sunny side-up egg from the top, and have lots of amazing looking purple dangly bits underneath. They are self-propelled and they seem to like to pulsate towards you. They're sort of creepy but also beautiful and mesmerizing.

Milia beach also has something we've never seen before--a seat and track, sort of like a ski lift, to help people with mobility issues to get into the water.

It's all pretty idyllic. How can this place be real? We ask ourselves this multiple times a day...