Manolis Bay on the Akamas Peninsula – often overlooked in favour of its famous neighbour, the Blue Lagoon. But we were about to discover that Manolis Bay is an absolute gem, filled with sea caves, turquoise water and great snorkelling opportunities.

There’s something magical about the Akamas Peninsula that keeps drawing us back. It feels totally unlike anywhere on the island. Its towering hills form a gateway to an area of pristine beauty, home to the Blue Lagoon. Less gateway, more impenetrable fortress if you are trying to reach it by car. I’ve blogged before about our various attempts to reach the Blue Lagoon. There was the time when we nearly drove off the cliff following the condemned ‘Road from Hell’ along the coastline. Then there was the time we tried to reach it from the opposite direction and nearly rolled the Land Rover.

After these hair-raising drives we decided that boat was the best way to access the Akamas. And so that’s what we did last weekend. We hired a powerboat from Latchi Watersports to drive ourselves along the coastline of the Akamas. Do we know how to drive a powerboat? Of course not. But how hard can it be?!

Latchi Watersports have a range of boats you can choose from on their website. Ours cost €182 for four hours which we shared with some friends who came with us. We were upgraded free of charge to a luxury 8-person vessel because of a booking error. Our boat was called Wee Donald Pussycat, though we all wished we’d had this one:

You don’t need a boat licence to hire a boat, just your driving licence. But Latchi Watersports gives you an excellent briefing – they take you through everything. And if you get into a spot of bother, you just call them and someone will come out and find you. The staff also drive your boat in and out of the harbour, which is the trickiest bit.

But it turned out that a powerboat is pretty easy to drive. And soon we were on the water heading towards the Akamas Peninsula.

Ah, that exhilarating feeling of freedom driving your own boat on the brightest blue sea, the wind taking the heat out of the air. It was utterly wonderful.

We all took turns driving – even Herc. But the faster you go, the more fuel you burn. And fuel is an extra cost. That said, I gave myself five minutes to enjoy bombing it.

We were told it would take 45 minutes to reach the end of the peninsula but we got there a lot faster than that! There was a sandy beach but it didn’t look that interesting so we turned the boat around and headed to Fontana Amorosa bay.

Fontana Amorosa is a beautiful bay, linked to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The water is a green-blue and its temperature is perfection under the scorching sky. So wonderfully refreshing, I just floated, face-down in my snorkelling mask soaking up the incredible feeling. Curious fish swam around me as I spotted ancient pottery on the rocks below.

A word of warning. When snorkelling, take care of boats entering and leaving the bays. There aren’t any designated swimming or mooring areas and a swimmer could easily get hit by a boat. It wouldn’t see you if you were close to it and had your head in the water.

I could have spent a lot longer snorkelling in Fontana Amorosa but there was so much else to see. Four hours suddenly seemed very short and I wished I’d hired the boat for the day.

Next stop, the Blue Lagoon. We’ve been there a few times but it was our friends’ first time. We dropped anchor in the sandy sea bed and jumped into the blue. We didn’t see many fish here but it didn’t matter. Just swimming under the water lit up by sun rays was mesmerising. I felt like a mermaid.

One tip: when you get your boat you are given the option to hire a large inflatable doughnut for an extra tenner. Do it!! The children loved it. Plus the hole in the middle doesn’t go all the way through, so Herc could sit in it while we swam around him.

Pretty soon the big tourist boats started to arrive in the bay, filled with dozens of loud twenty-something men. I get their excitement but it did ruin the tranquil atmosphere. If you want to avoid the crowds, get to the Blue Lagoon before 11am – this is when the tourist boats set off from Latchi harbour.

We moved on to the bay next door – Manolis Bay. I’d never heard of it, despite numerous visits to the Akamas. In comparison to the dazzling blue of the Blue Lagoon and the sparkling expanse of Fontana Amorosa, Manolis Bay looks rather unassuming. And easily missed. But as we got closer I could see that this little bay was rather special – it was lined with sea caves!

I’ve dubbed this summer Sea Cave Summer. In the absence of an annual holiday abroad, we are going to find and explore as many sea caves as we can. The ones in Manolis Bay were our second group of sea caves after the beauties in Cape Drepanum a few weeks back.

I jumped into the sea and set off for the nearest cave. And I soon discovered Manolis Bay’s hidden attraction – it is excellent for snorkelling! Large fallen boulders lie beneath the water, covered with sea plants and home to numerous fish. Of the fish I recognised, I saw lots of pipe fish, puffer fish, sea bream, sea urchins, crabs plus lots of others. As I approached the sides of the cliffs, there were loads of nooks and crannies that looked like the perfect habitat for a moray eel. I didn’t see one but I wondered whether they saw me.

There were two big sea caves in the bay and a couple of smaller ones. The largest cave has a rope attached to it so that people can climb down from above. This cave was more interesting under water than above, with small shoals of fish swimming amongst submerged boulders.

At the very back of this cave is an intriguing low-lying ‘doorway’ leading to thick darkness. I didn’t attempt to go in as I didn’t have a torch and it was intimidatingly low. But one of the chaps at Latchi Watersports told me they’d dived it. This doorway leads of a cave that goes back 25 metres. There’s a hole at the very end that possibly leads to a network of tunnels. Fascinating! Though cave-diving fills me with terror.

The second big cave was low and wide, stretching far back into the cliff. Latchi Watersports told us not to go into this one because it’s dark. But it wasn’t that dark and we couldn’t resist. Our feet sunk into a carpet of horrid plant waste that covered the cave floor. The water was colder here than in the other caves. We spotted a small pebbly shore at the back of the cave but neither of us fancied venturing in that far. It wasn’t a pleasant place to explore.

We swam back to the boat and spotted something we’d never seen before. Two small flatfish, almost invisible on the sandy sea bed.

Incredibly, our four hours were nearly up. But we had one final thing to do – being towed by the boat in the inflatable doughnut. As the boat bombed back to Latchi harbour, we each took turns bouncing across the waves in the doughnut. Best tenner ever spent! Awesome fun!

We set out on our Akamas boat adventure thinking that the Blue Lagoon would be the highlight. But it wasn’t. Everyone agreed that Manolis Bay was the highlight of the day. The big tourist boats don’t stop there, so if you want to visit it, hire your own boat.

We discovered that four hours really isn’t long enough to explore the whole of this coastline. If you have the energy (and money!) for a whole day, do it. We didn’t have time to stop at Ampitheatre Bay or one marked mysteriously as Secret Cove on Google Maps.

If you want to explore the Akamas by boat, go now. The borders are still closed to many countries, which means that the bays are empty mid-week and not as busy as usual at the weekends. Also, a few weeks ago the agriculture ministry proposed banning boats in Fontana Amorosa, the Blue Lagoon and Manolis Bay from April to October each year because of safety issues for swimmers.

So go now!