Fry, the capital round the harbour of Bouka

Bouka was the old anchorage of Fry: a natural round basin opening to the sea through a narrow channel, just big enough for the island's small boats. The fishing caïques still tie up here, painted red, white and blue, and since 2020 the harbour has been lit from under the water, so that at night the boats seem to float on green glass. Above them stands Agios Spyridon, with its blue domes and tall bell tower; inside is a carved wooden templon of 1866.

In the middle of town, the Heroes' Monument remembers the islanders of 1824, with two anchors and four cannons, and the Holocaust Monument by the sculptor Anatolis Lazaridis stands on the square of the Town Hall. Every year from 7 June Fry gives three days to the memory of the Holocaust of Kasos, when the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet destroyed the island, and to the title it has carried ever since: the Heroic Island of Kasos.

Kasos once lived from the sea, with hundreds of ships around 1800, and later from the far side of the world: from 1859 Kasiots went to Egypt to dig the Suez Canal and stayed on in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. Some of the great Greek shipowning families came from here. Fry is small, but it has an Archaeological Collection with Minoan stone vessels from Helatros, a Maritime Museum and the N. G. Mavris Municipal Library, with some 4,000 books, founded by a Kasiot doctor.

The rhythm of Fry is the rhythm of the boats. When the ferry comes in, the town fills; when it leaves, it goes back to the café tables on the harbour, the fishermen mending nets and the evening walk to the windmill on the shore.