Daisy has her 27th birthday while she’s out here and to celebrate she asked if we could head down to Larnaca and dive on the wreck of the Zenobia.  Well….. definitely!!!!  Bob and I dived the wreck quite a few times in the mid 90s when we came to Cyprus to teach scuba diving at the British Joint Services Adventure Training School at Dhekelia.  In fact, Daisy was along on one of those trips, albeit as she was only about 3, she wasn’t yet diving.

So, we booked up a day’s diving with Dive In, that would give us 2 dives on the wreck.  Going to do that tomorrow, but as its an early start, we decided to come down today and spend some time in the south.  We found a cheap but decent apartment, Kasapis Apartments on Booking.com website

It cost us 48 euro for an apartment to sleep 3 ie one bedroom and a sofa bed in the lounge.  Its perfectly clean, very new, a/c and comfortable beds.  Perfectly fine for an overnight.

Set off about 1030, crossed the border at Metehan and took the motorway south to Larnaca.   Found a good beach club base at CTO Beach, Pyla, just between Larnaca and Dhekelia and about a mile from our apartment.  We had lunch in the restaurant and it was pleasantly served but definitely below par.  We ordered burgers and they were the worst I have eaten in years.  Meat was almost undetectable, unlike all the cereal and filler.  I was starving so I smothered it in ketchup and ate it……  They gave us a free cake afterwards, probably as a reward for eating the burger

The beach was nice though.  Good loungers and umbrellas, clean and the water was glass clear and amazingly warm.  You had to walk out a long way to get to swimming depth which helped warm the water no doubt.  Excellent for wallowing in.  Stayed on the beach till nearly 5pm and then came to the apartment to shower and rest.

We went out at about 7pm, back to Dhekelia to Lambros Fish and Chips on CESSAC Beach.  Back in the day when we were coming out here for BSAC, this was called Sergeant’s beach, but the fish and chip restaurant was there.  I don’t know if it was privately run then but it was amazing.  I can remember eating there every chance we got and not only fish and chips but calamari.  The calamari was outstanding, the best ever, so juicy and tender.  We came back for a visit when we were in the south 2 or 3 years ago and ate at Lambros.  It has changed a lot since the 90s, much bigger and the beach is more developed but the fish and chips are still as fantastic.  It’s always packed both with people from the base (which surrounds it still) and from further afield.

Tonight there was a massive full moon, quite orange when it was low in the sky, getting more golden as it got higher.  We started our meal with a shared plate of the calamari.  They also brought bread, tahini dip and a salad.  Then the large cod and chips with mushy peas.  The fish was fantastic: moist and flaky with lovely crisp batter.  The chips were traditional chip shop chips.  Not the best in Cyprus but very good  The mushy peas were really nice.  Huge portions,  We were stuffed.  A bottle of cold white wine and a large Keo for Bob.  It all came to about 60 euro.  English prices really other than the wine.  A nice trip down memory lane…..

Back to the flat to catch up with the last episode of the Bodyguard.

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