Vrika is the beach you see in every photograph of Antipaxos: fine white sand and water that keeps its colour down to seven metres, where you can still make out the sand below with no weed on it.

It was not always a beach for swimmers. In 1885 it was called Katovrika, and stone was loaded here. Antipaxos quarried slabs and marble, and the boats took them from four points along this coast: Kalamitsa, Sarakiniko, Rodovani and the main harbour. The sand that now fills with sunbeds was a loading ramp.

The round rise behind it, which separates it from the next bay, was called Misorachi, and the point at its end Salimvourgos, because the rock there forms a shape like a statue and the islanders named it after the statue of Marshal Schulenburg in Corfu.

Today Vrika is the busiest beach on Antipaxos. Two beach bars serve food and hire out sunbeds. Boats run from Gaios through the day and come in one after another, so the sand is crowded from late morning until late afternoon. Come early or come late and it is a different place.

There is no road. The boat is the way in.