We plotted an eight day loop of some 150 nautical miles taking in the islands of Kythnos, Mykonos, Delos, Paros, Sifnos and Serifnos in Autumn aboard a 66 foot motorsailor.  Already on the trip from Piraeus to Kythnos, a pleasant sail, we were having fun.  We had been met at our hotel and driven to the marina where our yacht was docked.  We explored her from bow to stern, selected cabins and stowed our gear.      Kythnos:  Brightly painted fishing dories festooned with yellow fighnets bobbed like toys around us as we maneuvered up to the dock at Meriahs on the western coast.  Crusty old fishermen who watched but pretended not to, nonchalantly spread their nets to dry across the dock front walkway.   We took off to explore and hiked up the winding road behind Meriahs until our boat became a tiny dot in the harbor.  We could smell lavender in the air as we watched an Aegean sunset bathe the sugar lump cottages of merihas in orange.  Later in the evening, we were summoned by the lovely strains of Bouzouki music to Antonio's Tavern where we dined on Barbounia (red mullet), Moussaka (meat and eggplant) and Greek salad under a crescent moon.      Mykonos:  Most folks have a preconceived notion of Mykonos and so did we, approaching its snug harbor chock full of brightly banded fishing boats and ringed with windmills and cube cornered houses of dazzling white.  It turned out to be a magical island.  Mykonos is the product of one of those happy collissions between past and present, where the best of both seem to thrive in delightful state of disarray.  Where the fish we ate with Swedish modern flatware at Katria's were netted that morning much as they have been since the world was thought to be flat.  Where the tomatoes in our salad, sweet as plums, were toted to town by a young boy on a donkey vying for the right of way with Vespas and taxis.  Cameras at the ready, we scurried about the maze of cobbled alleys, up and down stucco stairways, capturing Kaleidoscope glimpses of Chapels, blue domed and red, shutters, doors and balconies ablaze in turquoise, mustard and magenta.   For all its funkiness, its disco dizziness and crass commercialism, Mykonos was our favorite island.  We loved it for its resilency.  The way it absorbs rather than rejects the zanieness of its visitors.  The stubbornness with with its baggy clothed native folk cling to the old ways for the charm and simple dingnity that still survive there.      Delos:  With our yacht anchored in the harbor, we took the dinghy ashore and climbed atop a hillock to study the ruins spread like a map below; the gymnasium, theater, Agoras and Temples, the plan is very clear.  We were profoundly touched by the notion that real people, citizens of one of the world's most influential empires, once strolled these same streets.      Paros:  Paros may indeed be trying to emulate Mykonos but despite all the recent development it remains something of a country cousin, retaining a quiet kind of rural charm.  Unllike most other island towns, Paroikia is not stacked end upon end on steep hillsides.  This made the town a breeze to explore and saved us the usual trauma of climbing thousands upon thousands upon thousands of irregularly spaced stone steps.  After dinner we enjoyed a rousing round of drink and song with a band of Irish tourists at Black Bart's, then retired to our yacht for a good night's rest.  The next morning we took an early ride to Naousa, a little fishing village some 15 miles from Paroikia.  Nesteled about a tiney harbor jammed with fishing boats, Naousa came to tlife before our eyes.  We settled down for coffee at a dockside cafe and watched an old gent fashion a fishnet, employing the bare toes of one foot to stretch the apparatus as he worked.  This little fishing village proved the most idyllic of any we visited.

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