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Thursday, July 24th, Santorini, Greece
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You might think that laziness is my excuse for not
having posted an update in nearly three weeks. Or
perhaps we've had some bad luck with the boat and are
too busy fixing it to write an update. Maybe there
has been some family emergency that has called us away.
Reality, luckily, is much less dramatic than these last
scenarios. Our website administrator has changed the servers
that he uses to store all the data for the websites that
he hosts. As much as it grieves me to say, our inability to log on to the new server
lies in priority somewhere near the bottom of the list
of issues that arise during a transition like this. Hopefully not too much time has
passed between the writing of this update and its
posting. My parents also wrote an
update while we
were together which will post along with this one.
Looking on the bright side, I have heard from numerous
readers who are wondering what befell us. The
feedback motivates me to keep writing.
Our families love the updates but knowing that our
cruising lifestyle interests and inspires others
provides extra incentive to keep the stories coming.
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Our wind swept reunion with Gran and Gramps at the
Blue Palace in
Plaka, on the northeast corner of Crete, was a
wonderful, relaxing, decadent interlude after the
grueling pace of the EMYR and our long trip from Israel.
After ten glorious days, however, the Zia crew was ready
to move on. Spinalonga Lagoon is a beautiful place
to drop your anchor if you are cruising in the area but
beware the winds! Luckily, the bottom, at least in
front of the Blue Palace, is nothing but sand so the
holding is excellent. Our trusty spade anchor
really earned its place in our arsenal of safety gear
during our blustery stay there.
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As
Dan and Candyce climbed into a taxi for the hour long
ride to Heraklion, the capital of Crete, Zia hoisted her
sails to make the same trip in about seven hours.
The island's airport is nearby and our mission was to
check out the port to make sure we knew where to tell
our next guests to meet us. In ten days' time,
Joe's brother Mike and his wife Sue were scheduled to
board Zia for a two and a half week adventure sailing
the Mediterranean. Although far from ideal, with
airplanes taking off overhead at all hours and a jolting
surge throughout the port, it is still quite suitable.
Conveniently close to the airport, being only a few
kilometers from the windward end of the runway, it seems
the perfect place to direct our guests to meet us.
We did so with the following photo:
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They arrive tomorrow night, so hopefully our strategy
and directions make for a smooth arrival after the long
journey from New Mexico.
Chores, weather and inertia kept us in Heraklion for
four nights of broken sleep. We were all thrilled
to to take off on Saturday morning for the famed
Santorini.
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An
active volcano, its rim is made up of the islands of
Thira in the east, and Thirassa to the northwest, and
its center is filled in with seawater except for the
mound of hard black lava that serves as the plug of the
sleeping beast.
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It
is unique among Greek islands and a very popular
vacation destination. We met a few honeymooning
couples at the Blue Palace whose itinerary consisted of
Athens, Crete and Santorini. We also remembered
our cruising friends John and Po Martin on "Jamie"
telling us that it was their favorite spot in Greece.
With recommendations like that and only 60 miles
separating us, we just had to go check it out. Of
course, it is upwind from Heraklion, but we found a nice
light-wind day and were pleasantly surprised with a
beautiful sail directly to our anchorage at Red Beach.
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Our new friends on Bel'Mare - Peter, the captain, and
Helga, the chef of the 100+ foot motor catamaran - had
recommended the anchorage as we got to know each other
over a Zia taco dinner in Heraklion. We weren't
disappointed, arriving before sunset to swim in the
crystal clear water, well protected from the prevailing
northwesterlies.
The anchorage wasn't perfect, however, as no wifi
signals appeared on our trusty
5milewifi system.
Joe went around the corner the next morning to scope the
anchorage on the other side of the small outcrop that
protected the eastern side of Red Beach. Ten
minutes later, we were re-anchored next to our new
friends on "Casulo." A cruising family from
Brazil, we made fast friends with Joao and Solange and
their daughters Luana (8) and Marina (6).
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Just a year into their cruising adventure, Solange is
still adjusting to life as a sailor. She loves
being with her family and hanging at anchor, but the
sailing part of the equation is still a little
intimidating. They were thrilled to meet another
cruising family and we quickly became inseparable.
The girls all got along famously and spent their time
frolicking in the water and coloring while the adults
swapped life stories, exchanged cruising advice and made
fast friends. We rented cars and explored the
island together, ate dinner on each others' boats, went
to the beach, had little girl sleepovers, and followed
each other around to the east side of Thira to find a
more protected anchorage when the wind changed
direction. "Casulo" plans to head east to Turkey
before turning around and making their way westward and
across the Atlantic this winter. Our time together
was short but immensely rewarding. We will meet
again and stay in touch in the meantime via email.
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The people that you share your time with are more
important than the physical details surrounding you as
you create memories of a place. For this reason,
Santorini will always be a special for us. That
said, the natural beauty and wonder we experienced,
sailing through the caldera of an active volcano, was
priceless. The brilliant white buildings of Oia
and Thira, speckled with dashes of blue, red and gold,
perched atop the volcano's red and black rim was as
brilliant to behold from below as it was from above.
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Most visitors to Santorini make their way to Oia at the
northernmost point of Thira to witness the daily
phenomenon of the sun set. Throngs of people line
the walls and narrow passages of the town, staking out
their territory and sharing quite conversation as the
sun slowly sinks on the horizon.
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Although we knew it would be hard to beat some of the
spectacular sunsets we have enjoyed from our boat, Joe
and I left the girls on Casulo and ventured to Oia to
take part in the ritual. As the earth rotates out
of sight of the sun, the crowd bursts into applause.
The magic of the moment turned comic as Joe and I
listened to an Italian guy talking to his friends.
"So, what the *!*!'s the big deal? You can't even
really see the sun with all the fog on the horizon."
As the crowd began to applaud: "Yeah, let's get this
over with so we can get out of here."
Gotta love those Italians!
Half way through our tour of the caldera, Casulo headed
north and Zia turned south back to our anchorage for one
more night. We sailed down past Thira, weaving our
way through cruise ships and motorboats ferrying people
to and from.
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It
was a bittersweet moment for the Zia crew, parting ways
so soon with our new friends but knowing that we will
have more memories to create with them in the future.
Next Entry
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Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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