6/3 – Santorini and the Caldera Sailing tour

Another ship’s tour – but this time a sailing tour around the Caldera that is the bay around Santorini. It is another beautiful day, although there is still that strong wind, so the water isn’t as smooth as I’d like it to be – motion sickness pills to the rescue! The tender ride isn’t all that bad, as we sail past the long views of Thera and the rest of the island.

The tender takes us over to the Bus pier (we’ve never been to this pier as we always just go directly into Thera) and walk the short distance to….what? That little sail boat thing? No way that will hold all of us…will it? Oh boy – I thought about taking more pills. We’re at the front of the line (of course) and get on first so we fortunately have our pick of seats, grabbing two on the port side underneath the shaded cover and toward the middle of the boat. They do fit everyone on – much to my amazement, and off we go into the WICKEDLY rough seas with high winds that sprayed us with overwash from the totally choppy seas. OMG.

Ok – so there are incredible views – if you can stand to look out at them – and if you can stand to take a picture (not likely in a lot of places). Fortunately, the pills work (yes, I took more – I’m no dummy) from a seasickness perspective, from a fear perspective? I’m going with an 8!!! I mean I know they knew what they were doing, it is their job and they do it all the time, and I don’t think Azamara would have let us go out on this little boat if it were dangerous…but still. Really and truly not my cup of tea!

But there is no turning back now, so I’m in for the whole frightening experience. The scenery was gorgeous though – and from the sea level perspective, one you don’t see from either the cruise ship or the tender just taking you ashore. We started off, through the troughs, heading to the island of Thirasia, past the uninhabited island of Nea Kamini, with its lava landscape, volcanic park and hiking areas, but little else.

Then it is on towards Thirasia, with a little more greenery than Santorini and stunning cliffs that drop off into the water. We get leeward of a little bay (thank you calm waters) for a view of this chapel out in the middle of nowhere, only accessible by boat….

Then circle around to the main town of Thirasia, or at least the path providing access up to the town. No vehicles are allowed here, so everything is on foot or donkey. Sounds a little like Hydra, only more remote. And it definitely is beautiful and sort of inviting in its solitude. At least compared to Santorini.

And, we’re off again. Bye bye calm waters, we are bobbing around like a cork again, the narrator guy kept saying we had the best captain in Santorini (we better! I’m wishing we had Captain Filip here! I think I’d feel much better), and it’s a little rough but we really want you to see this and blah blah blah. Yeah, I could care less if we saw anything at that point! I just wanted to be safely on dry land!!!

Finally, the blessed waves stop as we sail into the shallow waters near Oia and we can all (ok, me) breathe a huge sigh of relief and just enjoy the now smooth sailing and gorgeous views up to Oia. There’s a little town down below at sea level we never even knew existed! Gorgeous!

Now that the sailing was smooth, we were served our wine and mezes – which they kept talking about it as we were bobbing up and down, and I was thinking, yeah right, I’m not drinking anything!!!! But now that the seas have calmed down – it was all good. Good wine, good food – Cheese pie and olives and cheese and a meatball I traded with Ed for his olives – and more beautiful sights – another little seaside chapel, views up to Oia (we can see where we ate when we were here in November), then these weird little cave entrances at sea level (no idea for what they are used), yet another chapel and then Thera in the distance up above.

Phew. Made it. Back on dry land in Thera we boogied over to the Cable Car before the others were even off the boat and trying to find their way around (I know, I know, but, well, what can i say?). We were on the cable car and outta there before half of them figured it out. Up top in Thera, we walked out to Skaros – another first for us. As many times as we’ve been here, you’d think we would have walked this way (toward Oia), but no. It was spectacular – a little toasty, but spectacular nonetheless. The views down into the caldera and back toward Thera were not to be beat.

Halfway through our trek we decided to stop for a drink – and stumbled upon this great little bar on the bottom of an obvious rental house or apartment. Just a little patio with chairs and a comfy sofa and 5 person bar. Odyssey’s house bar, low key and nice, perfect for us. We sat in the shade of bar, enjoying our beverages and and the views off to the other side of the island.

Refreshed, we pushed onto Skaros rock – where there are lots of hiking trails that from our vantage point looked pretty intense – and not worth the potential exertion at this point in the day. We settled for taking pictures of the rock and the trails – and all the gorgeous views both ways along the coast, before heading back toward Thera and the long walk down to the harbor (of course we walked!).

Along the way, we also found that once again, my family has been here! And the Rageths too! We both have places here on Santorini that we really should make more use of!

On our attempt to walk down to the harbor, we were stymied about the correct path to take because we were coming from a different direction than normal. Plus the stairs were in a state of construction we didn’t remember from just a few months ago, which confused us more. We got to a point where we decided we should go back up top to figure it out – so up we went, only to figure out we needed to just go a block or two further from where we turned around to get to the main stairs down. Sigh. Down we went again – can’t say we didn’t get our exercise! – and because we were hot and tired, decided to stop at the little restaurant right by the tender pier where we have visited on previous trips. Along with our beer and wine, we also decided to throw caution to the wind and order the tomato balls – a “Santorini specialty” we had never seen before – so either it’s seasonal or they just invented it or we just never paid attention – oh, and they weren’t balls at all, but little fried patties of something that tasted like seafood with tomato bits throughout. Really good, just not what we expected.

Then it was back to the ship to cool off and prepare for White Night! Our first since the COVID cruise in 2020 (last year it was “Bright Night” which was fun – but nothing like the White Night’s of old). We were hoping nothing would change now that White Night is back, and we were so very happily surprised. Just like in the “before-times.” Huge buffet full of everything you could ever want, including these amazingly disgustingly good desserts that the HR director and I bonded over, virtually everyone wore white, and there was an incredible sunset to boot. the dancing and the partying went on all night – and what an atmosphere in the Caldera outside Santorini. Couldn’t get any better than this.