This year, the Lloyd's award for the best shipping company was given to the small maritime company Small Cyclades Lines. With its only ferry, the legendary Express Skopelitis, this company connects all year round Naxos with Amorgos, Donoussa, Koufonissia, Schinoussa and Iraklia.
Small Cyclades Lines is a family business that passes from one generation to the other. In fact, today, the owner and manager of the company is also the ferry's captain, Giannis Skopelitis. The company was established by his grandfather and his father and in the next years it will pass to his son, who has graduated the Greek Academy of Merchant Marine.
This maritime company has been awarded many times by local authorities and organizations for its offer to these small islands of the Aegean, particularly in winter, when ferry connection with Athens is very sparse. On the contrary, this ferry provides daily connection between the islands of Small Cyclades with Amorgos and Naxos, even in bad weather conditions, that are frequent in the Aegean Sea in winter time.
As Mr Skopelitis stressed out, it is frequently needed to transfer doctors or medicine urgently to an island, therefore the ferry has to access the ports even in the middle of a storm. It has also happened to transfer patients in Naxos, or other islands like Syros and Santorini, so that they get hospitalized there.
