The Dionysades: the uninhabited islands off Sitia

The Dionysades: islands off Sitia

The Dionysades lie to the north of the wide Bay of Sitia, off the north-east coast of Crete – nine nautical miles, a good sixteen kilometres, from the harbour town, and about twelve and a half kilometres from Cape Sidero, the island’s north-eastern tip. The group runs in a line from south to north. On clear days their low, wind-scoured backs stand out plainly on the horizon. Local people generally speak of the Gianysades, and it is by that name that the fishermen know them, who have always sought shelter there from the meltemi. None of the islands is permanently inhabited; there is no ferry, no taverna, nowhere to stay and no drinking water. The only way out is by small boat from Sitia, and only when the sea is calm.

Four islands and a few rocks

The archipelago consists of several uninhabited islands and rocky islets. The two larger are Gianysada, the southernmost and, at 127 metres, the highest, and Dragonada, which follows to the north. Then come the rugged Paximada, the northernmost, and little Paximadaki, hardly more than a reef close under the north shore of Dragonada; the two northern rocks are also called Prasonisi. Together the islands amount to scarcely more than five square kilometres – 5.27, to be exact. The larger ones carry low phrygana with kermes oak and juniper. Since grazing was banned in the 1990s the vegetation has visibly recovered, and with it the wild rabbits, which have multiplied greatly ever since. On the west coast of Dragonada columns of rock rise from the water like a bundle of stone piers, and on the east side a sea cave opens beside a small beach. Here too are the only buildings in the whole group: a small chapel dedicated to St Anthony, with a cistern and a hut, and a modest landing stage.

The real importance of the Dionysades, however, lies not in their scenery but in their wildlife. The north-eastern tip of Crete and the islands off it belong to the European network of protected areas, Natura 2000, and BirdLife International lists the group as an Important Bird Area; seabirds such as Scopoli’s shearwater and the yelkouan shearwater breed here, and above all Eleonora’s falcon, while lesser kestrels pass through on migration. Dolphins are often seen in the surrounding waters. Access is therefore restricted, most strictly of all during the breeding season.

Paximada and the falcons

The best-known island is Paximada, also called Paximadi, whose cliffs hold the colonies of Eleonora’s falcon (Falco eleonorae). These slender, long-winged hunters, something between a large hobby and a small peregrine, with a wingspan of up to a metre or so, arrive in the Mediterranean in spring, make their nests in rock niches and on ledges, where they lay up to four eggs, and leave in autumn to winter in Madagascar and along the east coast of Africa – a journey of as much as 9,000 kilometres each way, which tracked birds have been found to make overland across the Sahara. About 250 pairs breed on the Dionysades, and this is one of the largest colonies of the species, most of them on Paximada and Paximadaki. It has been under scientific observation since the 1960s – German researchers began work here in 1963, and the ornithologist Dietrich Ristow went on to conduct, over decades, one of the longest continuous studies ever made of a bird of prey.

Traces of ancient seafaring

In the waters around the islands researchers have documented evidence of ancient shipping, including finds connected with Roman trade. On Dragonada the remains of an old settlement can be made out, and on the eastern beach gravestones of the Early Christian or Byzantine period have come to light; in antiquity the archipelago is said to have belonged to the territory of the city of Itanos, whose harbour, long since derelict, lay round the cape to the east. All this is a reminder that the islands, empty of people today, once lay close to the sea lanes that linked Crete with the Cyclades, the Dodecanese and the other shores of the Mediterranean.

Visiting with consideration

The greatest asset of the archipelago today is its protected ecosystem. Trips to the islands are possible only if the rules of nature conservation are observed: there is no landing in closed areas, birds must not be disturbed, plants must not be picked and no rubbish may be left behind. In any case the Dionysades are at their most impressive from the water – when, on a late summer evening, the falcons wheel in small parties above the cliffs of Paximada and the lights of Sitia come on in the distance. Anyone going out should ask the boatman or at the harbour in Sitia about the restrictions currently in force.