Syrmata or Greek Island Boat Garages

Boat Garages, oil on linen panel, 12x12

Here is the first painting completed from my recent trip to the Greek island of Milos. I painted it small to see if I might want to paint it larger at some point. This is in the little village of Mandrakia, which if you Google 'Greek boat garages' most of the images that come up are from this particular bay. Mandrakia is a collection of mostly vacation homes but it does boast its own little chapel and a part time/quasi legal Taverna during the summer.  I picked this particular boat garage to highlight because the 'owner' is one of the local fishermen whom my friend knows. Stellios is one of the few year round residents of Mandrakia. He takes it upon himself to paint all the steps down to the water every year. His is the black boat, painted black after the loss of his wife. His 'garage' is open as he was working on someone else's boat on this particular day.

We were fortunate to have coffee with one of the other boat garage owners from whose garage I took this photo. Yannis has more of a man cave thing going on although his boat is berthed inside as well. He fixed us fresh coffee in his tiny kitchen and brought it out to his little patio. I took this still life that was set up where we enjoyed our first afternoon on Milos.

These boat garages are grandfathered in, as technically you cannot own water front property on the island. So people like me are free to wander around since it is considered public property. No new garages are legal to build.

This is the long view from where I was staying and it looks right down onto this little cove. At the end of the gully there is a small beach, which when we were there we had to ourselves.