6/4/2015 – Santorini

We went to Santorini today. We decided that instead of taking the cruise ship excursions we would instead book a trip on our own. Conrad worked with a team called Santorini Sea Kayak to book a fantastic excursion that had us Kayaking in the sea around Santorini for several hours. More on that later.

First we woke to the sun rising over Santorini. When you travel with Conrad you do not sleep in.

Sunrise over Santorini

This is the only port where you can’t dock right next to the town. The Towns are all up on top of the cliffs and there is nowhere for a large ship to dock so you need to be out in the harbor and little ships called Tenders come and ferry you to shore. It takes a long time, but Conrad arranged for us to have an early special tender so that we could get to the Kayaks and back on time. These are the tender boats.

Tender boats in Santorini

The dock where you land is down on the beach, but all of the towns are high above. We needed to get from the water to the town of Fira above. You can either take the cable cars, a Donkey, or walk up, We chose the cable cars.

Cable cars from the dock to Fira

We saw lots of Donkeys coming down the stairs to meet the boats but they didn’t look very happy and the cruise ship people told us not to take the Donkeys.

Donkeys to Fira

When we got to the top we were in the little town of Fira. We had some time before we needed to meet the Kayak people so we walked the streets along the water for a little while. There were lots of Cafes and shops and boutique hotels and some really beautiful views. There were also some dogs running around and some were fighting so we broke up a dog fight while we were there and chased away the two little dogs who were picking on another dog.

Some nice people took our picture looking down from the town of Fira into the harbor where our ship was docked

Cafe at the top of the cliffs

Church in Fira

Looking down on a church in Fira with the harbor in the background

A little cafe above the harbor

A little cafe above the harbor

Another church on Fira

The walkways and steps where all lined in rocks for decoration and traction. A little different than the other islands which used smooth pebbles but the same idea

After a while we needed to meet the Kayak people in town and we headed off to a different part of the island to go Sea Kayaking. They picked us up and made a few other stops. We took some pictures at one of the stops while we were waiting for more people.

Little square in the town where we stopped along the way

Little cafe along the way

We had a very nice bus driver. When Conrad asked about making it back to the cruise ship on time he told us not to worry, if we miss the cruise ship we can just get a job there. He came three years ago and never left. The quality of life in Santorini is much better than on the mainland of Greece.

We finally made it to the beach and had a really fun time kayaking. We were below the cliffs on the outside of the Caldera and in the ocean nearby. The guides were fantastic. We had two Greek guides who were great kayakers and very knowledgeable about the area. They showed us the cliffs, and the beaches and the wildlife of the area. They had a new guy who was “interning” for the summer who was from California. He was a really nice guy who had just graduated from BYU and is heading for New York in September to start his job. One of the Greek Guides really reminded us of Eric Ridgway. We can’t remember his name because we called him Eric all day. He was our favorite.

We saw a white beach, a red beach, and then we pulled up on a black beach to have lunch. All of the cliffs near the beaches had little beach houses built right into the cliffs. They are owned by families. You can’t build them anymore but they are allowed to keep the ones that are there. Some were just little changing rooms and others were full blown houses. Down the beach from where we stopped were some nude sunbathers. We had some really good Greek treats for lunch followed by some fresh fruit.

We headed back along the cliffs and to the kayak headquarters where we took a picture with the crew before heading off. They took a lot of pictures while we were out on the Kayaks so that we didn’t need to use our cameras in the water. They will post them and we can take them for free.

We really enjoyed the trip and the people at Santorini Sea Kayak were awesome.

Santorini Sea Kayak Crew

The guy between Conrad and me reminded us of Eric when he had his hat on.

We headed back to the cable cars and down to the cruise ship. We saw our yacht of the day but it turned out to be a sort of small cruise ship so it didn’t really count.

Yacht of the day

As we pulled out of port we passed the town of Oia which is really pretty with lots of blue roofs. We took a few pictures of the town from our balcony.

Oia

Tomorrow is Athens.

#MediteraneanCruise2015