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High-end travelers are exacting and often have last-minute requests, including for bodyguards, drivers, maids, butlers, limos, luxury cars, helicopter services and yachts to explore the Greek islands, said Apostolos Geladaris, a manager at Royal Myconian Hotel & Thalasso Spa Center, one of 10 Myconian Collection luxury hotels on the island of Mykonos.

The focus of this resort, built in 2006 on the detached southern arm of Motu Piti A’au, is on the seawater coursing through and around it: “Thalasso” refers to “thalassotherapy,” therapeutic spa treatments that use seawater.

The lakes where he had witnessed similar bubbling activity were in the tropics and polluted — ideal conditions for the production of methane, said Thalasso, a scientist with the Center for Research and Advanced Studies at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico.

Another scientist, Frederic Thalasso, had traveled from Mexico City and spent days taking gas measurements around the lake.

Under overcast skies at Playa de Pescadores, or Fishermen’s Beach, the bathers practice thalassotherapy, which derives from the Greek “thalasso,” for “sea,” and draws on the ocean’s healing properties.