From the surface
Snorkelling in Plakias
The same reef the divers use, from the surface. Two hours, guided, equipment included. You need to be comfortable with your face in the water.
Who this is for
People who want the reef without a tank. People who tried diving and decided the surface suits them better. And the person in a mixed group who is not diving and has no intention of sitting in a car park.
You need to be comfortable floating with your face in the water. That is the whole requirement. We stay with you, and there is no depth you are expected to reach.
What you actually see
Every photograph below was taken on this coast, by us, on an ordinary day. Not a stock library, and not the Red Sea. The Mediterranean is quieter than the brochures — the reward is finding an animal that was hiding in plain sight, which is a different pleasure from swimming through a wall of fish.
Lionfish
Striped, slow and unmistakable. Two guests named it in their reviews before we thought to photograph it.
Octopus
In a den under a ledge, often with shell fragments piled at the entrance. Once you can spot the pile you start finding them everywhere.
Cuttlefish
Hovers over sand and changes colour while it watches you. The most reliably curious animal on this coast.
Nudibranch
A few centimetres long, and the reason people start looking at the rock instead of the blue.
Scorpionfish
Sitting still on the reef, coloured exactly like it. You will swim past several without seeing one.
Cleaner shrimp
White antennae waving from a crack in the rock. Small, and worth stopping for.
Are there turtles?
Not here, honestly. Loggerheads nest on Crete, but not on this stretch of coast, and we have no photograph of one because we have not seen one while guiding. Anyone promising you turtles at Plakias is selling you somebody else’s beach. What this coast does have is the caves, the walls and the animals above.
On the boat too
Snorkellers are welcome on the full-day boat trip alongside divers and first-timers. Same water, same stops, same lunch — you stay on top of the reef instead of under it. The mixed-group page is for the rest of that decision.