Peloponnese Part 4 – Trinisa + Shipwreck

On Friday evening we finally reached the coast again. Despite the problems with the car, we were looking forward to a good kitesurfing session and when we arrived at Trinisa, the spot looked great.

Arrival at Trinisa

You drive to the beach through incredibly large groves of orange trees. I have never seen so many trees with oranges in my life. Upon arrival, we were exhausted and hungry. We jumped into the sea for a few minutes and went to a local tavern for food and conversation. The tavern looked a bit like the ramshackle shacks of Flatland, but basic Greek snacks like souvlaki and Greek salad were no problem. After dinner, we got three ice creams. The lady owner told us that we could easily stand and freecamp in the parking lot, we just had to move a hundred meters to the building of the local kiters and not take up space under the trees right next to the tavern.

The beach and the area around the spot

The beach at Trinisa is beautiful clean sand, several kilometers long and more than wide enough to launch kites. In places, it is dotted with white flowers and we also saw several nests of sea turtles.

Entry into the water is gradual, you can walk several or even a few hundred meters from the beach. Ideal wind directions are from the south when it blows on-shore or a little bit side on-shore.

The local kiter community bought a former restaurant building and built a facility there. If it’s windy, you’ll always meet someone here. You can shower in their building or use the hose to wash the equipment. Otherwise, there is an outdoor shower by the tavern. Right next to the kiter house is a hole in the ground for a septic tank, where you can pour the toilet. We also pumped a full tank of drinking water into the car without any problems.

In the wider area and along the entire length of the beach, there are mature trees and under them many caravans, houses, and other summer residences. About a kilometer from the parking lot, there is another tavern with umbrellas on the beach. Towards the town of Gytheio, there is also a smaller beach with umbrellas, a small port, a church, and a taverna.

With a south-westerly wind, a small flat sometimes forms behind the pier near the port, where you can easily get just kiting a few hundred meters upwind.

Trip to Dimitrios Shipwreck

Everything looked fine, but the wind did not promise any kitesurfing on Saturday. It was blowing quite a bit, but unfortunately from the inland and the wind was spinning in different ways. That’s why we used the afternoon for shopping and a trip. We went shopping in the nice town of Gytheio, which was full of Greek tourists. On the way back we went for a swim at Valtaki Beach and to see the local attraction, Dimitrios Shipwreck.

According to legend, the sailors themselves led it to the cliffs and then set it on fire because they were smuggling goods from Turkey and did not want to be caught with them. In any case, it is a very nice and photogenic place.

We saw crowds of tourists here on the way to town, but before sunset, when we arrived at the shipwreck, there weren’t many people there.

Even here on the beach, there were many nests with turtle eggs. In the evening we sat quietly by the car and waited for the next day. And especially for the wind.

Kitesurfing at Trinisa

On Sunday, we ate lunch, and the local kiters arrived around two o’clock. It’s a group of people in their sixties, former surfers, but really nice people. If you head here, ask for Kostas, who is here almost every day and is the main person who is happy to help with everything and is in charge here. When we told him that we were from the Czech Republic, he immediately contacted us and asked about Switch (Czech kitesurfing legend), who taught him how to kite on Trinisa in 2001.

Kostas also brought us several kilograms of local oranges, which we ate for the next month, they were really tasty and juicy.

Between two and three o’clock it was getting pretty windy, so I jumped on the water and went upwind with Kostas a little way to the harbor, where it was possible to enjoy the flat water, but the wind was not very stable because it was blowing across the harbor.

Even so, we had a great time there and did some funny tricks and jumps. Even Kostas showed us what he can do.

The wind pleasantly surprised us for the next few days. It mostly blew from the southwest, but you could also ride south and southeast, which were the onshore directions. It is said that even the west to northwest is not so bad and is very strong as it pushes from the mountains. But what was really surprising was that even if it was only blowing 5 or 6 m/s, it was such a dense wind that I was able to ride without any problem, while normally I would need 7 m/s at best. And if I jumped, I was in the air like on a parachute and the hangtime here was probably the longest I’ve ever experienced.

I even took out the foil board once because we thought it still wasn’t blowing much. But when I found out how well the wind worked here, I enjoyed the twintip.

I also practiced backroll kiteloops and even tried and nailed down the one-leg board-off trick.

After a few days of break, Verča was practicing jumping again and Max was enjoying the waves in the shallows. We mostly spent the whole afternoon soaking in the water.

We spent four nights here and would have loved to stay longer. Trinisa really made an impression and for us, it is one of the top spots in Greece that we visited this year. At least we postponed the departure to the next spot until Tuesday evening and enjoyed another great afternoon on the water.

Departure and change of route

Trinisa and I were a bit reluctant to say goodbye, but time was running out and there was still a lot to explore. We originally planned to go to Pouda Beach. Unfortunately, you can only ride there on a westerly wind, because otherwise, you get in the way of the ferries, and kitesurfing is prohibited. However, if you are at Pouda Beach, you can take a ferry to Elafonisos Island and cross south to Simos Beach. But here you need south or south-westerly wind, otherwise, it blows offshore and if you have a problem there is no one to save you here and it will blow you straight out to the open sea.

As there was neither a southerly nor a westerly wind in the forecast, we were still hesitating where to proceed. Finally, at night in the car at the crossroads, we decided to leave this southern tip of the Peloponnese and headed north. Although we have heard that Pouda Beach and Elafonisos Island are beautiful places to go for a trip, it would be a detour for us and a loss of at least two days of kitesurfing. On Kostas’ advice, we headed to Cheronisi Beach, a short distance from the ruins of the mill near Mylos Cafe.

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Author: Karel

I simply love kitesurfing :-).