#ScenicSaturday 14th October 2023

On By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Nature, opinion, Photography

My photos in this continuing series show our beautiful world. Maybe I can encourage viewers to help save it from human carelessness. I was unable to post one of these for last Saturday. We’d just returned from a two week break from online activity, and also had our ‘Flu and Covid boosters on the Saturday. The Friday previous was simply too busy for me to compose.
So, this month’s series will all be from our stay on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where we spent our 35th wedding anniversary. A lovely break from the madness of the world. We took a couple of boat tours from this fascinating island, and we walked around 50 miles in the surrounding countryside during our stay.


This shot is from the first boat trip and shows a cloud building over the warm Mediterranean Sea as we sailed toward the southernmost tip of the island on a turtle-spotting trip. We saw no turtles, but happily sat through a short and interesting talk about the conservation work done on the island to try to keep these vulnerable giants safe in a world full of threat.


The weather was fine throughout our stay, but we watched storms building and flashing their lightning on the Greek mainland across the narrow straits of the Ionian Sea from our room in the hotel. The region suffered some damaging downpours at that time, almost certainly made worse by human-caused global warming.


This was probably our final overseas holiday. Flight is one of the primary causes of climate change. We’ve flown around 25 return flights to places in Europe over the years of our marriage, so a lot fewer than many folk, but more than others. We feel we’ve had our fair ration of such excess and will look to spend our remaining time in the UK. Perhaps the time has come for the world in general to start considering the idea of rationing travel? But that’s an idea for a different post.

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Feel free to comment, like, and share the post so the joy of natural beauty is spread to as many people as possible. That will help in the fight against the rapidly approaching climate emergency and species extinctions.


I post every Saturday here, but also post a picture of natural beauty at the end of each day, with the hashtag , on FaceBook and Twitter. Join me there and comment, share and like if you wish.

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Please bear in mind I will be offline when this post comes online, so I will respond to any comments on my return to the mad frenzy of the digital world in early October.

13 thoughts on “#ScenicSaturday 14th October 2023”

  1. Pingback: #ScenicSaturday 14th October 2023 | In the Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life

    1. An ever-changing scene, Ali, like the sea. Like you, I never tire of gazing out there at the sky. And I find the same sense of eternal change within familiarity when staring at the sea.

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    1. Yes, it built as we sailed along. Just one of the cloud formations that developed around rather than over us during our stay. Our small island seemed immune as far as the bad weather was concerned. The sun shone every day, the minimum temperature was 20C even through the night, and we had just 3 drops of rain, which we experienced during a walk in the countryside.
      We will be restricting our future holidays and breaks to the UK now.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Such a beautiful photo, Stuart, and thanks for sharing your thoughts about travel and the environment. My understanding is that leisure travel has increased rapidly since the pandemic ended. Congratulations on your 35th anniversary. 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Lynette. The place we stayed was a family-run hotel with excellent staff and comfortable rooms. The majority of those staying were from the Netherlands. Most spoke excellent English and they were a friendly and cheerful bunch, so we had a great time.
      I fear that tourist travel will eventually become unsustainable. Unfortunately, that will probably mean only the wealthy will be able to do it. But if the world could just apply a little common sense and consider rationing as a way to allow some travel to foreign places, many more people would be able to do this. And all those ‘frequent flyers’ who travel many miles just to spend a weekend somewhere would be forced to think about their environmental impact.
      Who knows? Maybe common sense, justice, and fairness might actually become factors in the decisions humans make in the future?

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      1. So much of this is driven by money, Stuart. I live in a community (and geographical region) that is extremely popular with tourists; everything from shoestring to very upscale is available. The amount of money and jobs generated is high, and while a lot of our tourists drive here, many do fly. The number of flights encompassing the spring through autumn seasons has gone up five-fold from the pre-pandemic days. The economic impact is big, and of course, too many people want that money even if a lot of what people come to see is being damaged by numbers.

        I have read a lot about the electric jet engines that are in varying testing phases at the moment; it’s thought that long-haul jets will be ready by 2030 but work on range is still in progress as at present they are limited to about 700 km. Short-haul and electric air taxis will probably be available earlier as they are further along in development. This should make a big difference as long as the electricity in use is sustainably sourced. What concerns me is that people will think they’re travelling responsibly but the jet they’re using may have re-fuelled in place where the electricity is coal-generated. It’s a circus.

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        1. Yes, Lynette. The world is obsessed with money, which results in business concentrating on profit rather than quality, sustainability, or even customer care.
          There are now over 8 billion of our species on this small blue marble. That’s many more than the resources of the planet can sustain. But the world of finance is designed to ensure that the wealthy remain rich at the expense of the poor. So, instead of a world where justice, equity and fairness are priorities, we have a system imposed on us where only the very wealthy can lead the lives they wish to lead, and the rest, the other 98%, have to make do.
          We should be devising ways to spread wealth around, to reduce population, to create equality of opportunity, to remove prejudice and injustice, but our media companies are owned by intensely selfish billionaires whose greed is infinite and who have most politicians on their payrolls.
          Ignorance is the major problem. But education is considered a luxury by those in charge, a luxury they do not wish to share with those less fortunate, as they understand that an educated public would swiftly bring an end to their domination.
          On my hobby-horse here, so I’d better end this at this point or I’ll be writing another book here!

          Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you, Penny. I’ll be attempting in future to place a positive spin on everything. The world is full of negatives, and they rarely achieve anything worthwhile. If we could all do something to increase the pleasure and happiness the world has to offer, we might just persuade the misery promoters that life could actually be worth living. It’s going to be a difficult balance with so much bad stuff happening, but I’m determined to try my best.

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