Santorini, Greece

We docked in the late afternoon at Santorini. It is an awesome sight sailing into the caldera at the harbor. The main village is hundreds of feet above the sea with vertical cliffs up to the village. Since it is not a particularly calm harborage, the docking procedure seemed very rough. Our ship (M/V Arethusa) is small enough to dock at the port whereas other cruise ships have to anchor offshore and tender in passengers. At sea level there are only a couple of shops and taverns. There are three ways to reach the village at the top of the cliff; walk up a steep, paved path, take a cable car, or ride mules. This evening we rode the cable car with David and Bonnie from California and got a glimpse of the village. It was packed with young people walking around the narrow streets and sitting at restaurants and taverns. The last funicular was at 10:40 pm and managed to get there in time to return to our ship.

OAT provided passes the next morning, which could be used for either the cable car or the mules. We took the mules up to the city and loved it!

It was about a 15-minute ride up the mountain. The mules were well behaved, however, they tended to rub against the stone walls and telephone poles on the way up. Several people received mild abrasions and bruises on their legs. David, our friend from last night’s adventure (who chose to take the cable car up) made the following comment when asked if he was going to take the mule or the cable car “do you think I’m going to trust my life to what might possibly be a Greek, pissed-off jack ass?” Maybe you had to be there, but several were in tears!


We boarded buses and toured the village of Oia for a couple of hours and then returned to the village of Fira. At Fira we had lunch with other folks in our tour group and then walked (shopped) around the village until time to board the ship.

While we were touring we heard that the ship had to be moved away from the dock and anchored off shore and that we would have to tender. Seven of us took the last tender at 6:30 pm. The seas were pretty rough and apparently the only way to board was by climbing up a rope ladder dropped down the ship. As we approached the ship and saw the rope ladder, Richard commented that “this is certainly different than a Princess cruise”. It was pretty interesting, but we managed to board without any major event. Later, we laughed as we recalled hearing our tender mate Fern repeating “I’m not liking this”. Apparently the earlier group had a much rougher time boarding because of rougher seas and inexperienced pilots. It was a fabulous day and fit the company’s name perfectly (Overseas Adventure Travel).