Cruising the Mediterranean

August 15 - 24, 2003

To see more of our cruise, click here. To go to our homepage, click here.

On Wednesday we found ourselves at Santorini. Before disembarking by tender, the kids played a round of miniature golf on the ship with Lauren and Katie.

Santorini is a volcanic island that was probably the origin of the legend of Atlantis. This was once a large island with a volcano on it where there was a city. Then there was a very large explosion that could be felt far away. When traders returned to the island, instead of finding the island they found ocean, with a ring of islands. It may have seemed to them that Atlantis had sunk into the ocean, when what it really did was blow up!

At Santorini we went on an excursion to a volcanic hot springs and submarine ride. Our first stop was at the hot springs. To the left, you can see Ellen and Laura making their way to the spring, which was just upstream to the right. See the brownish water in the back of the photo? That was actually reddish-brown water loaded with iron from the spring.

The swim to the hot spring turned into quite a challenge with two nervous children (no life jackets - just jump into the ocean and start swimming.) Once we could touch the bottom things got a little better, but then we had to be careful not to crash into the rocks.  We thought we'd be snorkeling, but the visibility was zero! Just when we got to the rocks it was time to swim to the boat.

Our next stop was the submarine ride. It was quite a thrill to go underwater. We saw lots of fish, mostly thanks to the scuba diver who brought a lobster to show us and dropped bits of bread for the fish. We also saw two shipwrecks, one of which had many pots and vases lying about. It was fascinating to get to see the ocean from 30 meters under the surface. By the way, this is the only submarine in the Greek Islands.

After the submarine ride, we cleaned up a little and then went to the town of Fira on Santorini. Although it's hard to tell from these photos, this is the island in Greece famous for the pure white buildings, some of which have brilliant blue roofs. You can get from the dock to Fira by donkey, cable car, or walking. We chose the cable car, which was fun.

Our walk in Fira took us through what is basically a very nice tourist trap. Lots of adoreable winding streets with great tourist shops and little places to get something to eat. We ran into our friends from England and Ellen went back to the boat with them while Kevin and I tortured Will with more shopping. Then the three of us dashed to meet the others at dinner on the ship with no time to spare. It was fun to go running through the ship and then sneak into the dining room in less-than-semi-formal attire! Call us a bad influence, but it was fun!

To see more of our cruise, click here. To go to our homepage, click here.