The Coolest Place in Cyprus Is One Hundred Metres Offshore
August on the Akamas Coast | Latchi Queen Blue Lagoon Cruises
There is a moment, about twenty-five minutes out of Latchi, where the colour of the water changes.
You notice it without being told. The harbour green gives way to something deeper and harder to name, the coastline on your right stops being hotels and starts being nothing at all, and the temperature on deck drops by several degrees because the boat has made its own wind. Somebody’s sunglasses come off. That is usually when a family stops talking about the drive up and starts looking at Cyprus properly.
August is the month people brace for. Inland it is relentless — the kind of heat that makes a car park feel like a decision. Four hundred metres offshore, moving at cruising speed with the whole Akamas on one side and open sea on the other, it is a completely different country. That is not marketing. It is physics. Moving air, water at swimming temperature, and enough deck to find shade when you want it.
What we do with the day
Three daily sailings from Latchi to the Blue Lagoon. Cool sea air in the August heat, the Akamas turtle nesting coastline, and how to pick the right departure time.
The morning sailing (10:30–13:00) is the calmest water you will get. Cleanest light on the cliffs, flattest sea, and you are back in the harbour in time for a long lunch. If you are travelling with small children or with anyone who thinks of themselves as a poor sailor, take this one.
The Afternoon sail (13:30 – 16:30) sits in the strongest heat of the day, which is exactly the argument for spending it on the water rather than in it. This is the swimming trip. Nobody on this sailing is in a hurry.
The Evening sail (17:00 – 20:00) is the liveliest. By late afternoon in August the breeze has usually built along the coast, and the sea has some movement in it. The light is better, the deck is cooler, and the run home is the best hour of the day for photographs. A 24-metre hull with six metres of beam handles that afternoon chop in a way smaller boats simply cannot — it is the single most practical reason to book a boat this size, and the reason people who were nervous at the gangway are asleep in a deck chair by the time we turn for home.
The run out takes a little under an hour each way. The rest of the time is spent stopped, which is the point.
What is happening on the beaches you are passing
Late July into August is the most interesting few weeks of the year on this coastline, and almost nobody on the harbour talks about it.
The loggerhead and green turtles that come ashore on the Akamas beaches lay from the end of May into late June. Incubation takes roughly seven weeks. Which means that right now, in the sand of the protected beaches you can see from our starboard rail, several thousand hatchlings the size of a matchbox are finishing the job of breaking out of their shells.
You will not see it from the boat. They emerge at night, when the sand has cooled, and they run for the water in the dark — that is the whole strategy, and it is why those beaches are protected and why nobody lands on them. But it is worth knowing what you are looking at as you pass. That empty stretch of pale sand with nothing built on it is not undeveloped by accident. It is one of the most important turtle nesting coastlines in the Mediterranean, and it is doing its most important work of the year in the fortnight you happen to be here.
The adults are a different matter. They feed in this water, and they surface to breathe. So do the dolphins, and the monk seals that use the caves along this coast. We do not promise sightings and we would not trust anyone who does. We do tell you where to look, and on a calm morning sailing you have a genuinely good chance.
The bit we cut on purpose
We do not run a barbecue on board, and we are not going to start. A full cooked meal in the middle of a hot August day changes the shape of the trip, and not for the better. We would rather the day stayed light and simple, and the boat stayed the reason you remember it.
Booking Boat Trips in August
August is the busiest month of our year and the sailings fill. If you want a particular slot, book it before you fly rather than on the morning. If you are undecided, take the morning trip with children and the afternoon trip without them.
Bring more water than you think you need, a hat that will survive wind, and reef-safe sun cream. Everything else, we have.
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One thing you won’t find on board is a BBQ – and that’s deliberate.
We’ve explained why in this post, but the short version is: your time in the lagoon is for swimming, not queueing.
Latchi Queen departs from Latchi Harbour. Book online or call +357 99 564 478.