I find Santorini one of the most peculiar and spectacular places we visit. Where else in the world do you drive with a ship straight into a Volcano crater; and not a small one either. But that is what we do and then we spend the whole day “pushing” guests up and down the mountain. It is one of the more spectacular ports in the Mediterranean and I put it on the same pedestal as Glacier Bay in Alaska, Geiranger Fjord in Norway, Milford Sound in New Zealand and Saguenay Fjord in Canada. The views just take your breath away. The only small item that marred our arrival was that we approached from the West and thus we sailed against the sun into the crater; but we were compensated for that in the evening when we had the sun opposite the Crater wall when we sailed out.

Santorini from the air. The black line is the way we came in, coming from the West. The red line was the way out, turning to the East once outside. The green arrows indicate to o’Athinai and Thira.

Our approach started at 07.00 when we arrived at the South West entrance of the ring shaped crater top. Basically the whole place is just a volcano top rising steeply from the sea bottom with a few gaps on the West side for ships to sail in and out. The Volcano inner cone is still in the middle and everybody has to sail around it.  And that is what we did. As soon as the ship entered the Volcano, the anchor party went forward. Made up of the Deck storekeeper, who operates the anchor winch, a sailor who acts as communications man between the officer (who is on a platform) and the store keeper and in this case also my good self as the officer concerned was the cadet.  (There has to be a license forward for this evolution)

Today we only had a wind force 4 blowing and that was already enough to keep the ship laying behind a stretched chain all day long.

On the Oosterdam we have currently two deck cadets who are on their last weeks of training and who will get their 3/0 license in August. Enough experience gained in the last year to be able to benefit from a crash course in anchoring and docking by yours truly. All the water between the crater cone and the crater wall is deep, very deep water. Way too deep for anchoring; only very close to the shore there are some options but then only for smaller ships; and the best spaces have been taken up by the ferries that service the local communities. But there is one shallow patch, which we call “The hump”, where the water is about 30 meters deep and we can nicely lay an anchor with a lot of chain over the ground to keep the ship in place and prevent it from dragging. And dragging can easily happen here when the Etesian winds are blowing full pelt. The anchorage can only take one ship and if there are more, then the rest of the visitors have to drift and stay on the engines.

 Santorini on a busy day. The biggest ship gets the anchorage and the smaller ships have to drift. The very small ships (here the Ocean Majesty) can go on the mooring buoys. The speeding boats are the local tenders who ferry the guests to and from.

But we were the only ship today. Hurrah. I hope that the guests realized how lucky they were. No holdups at the cable car, no waiting times for the donkeys, etc. etc. There is not much Holland America can do about not being the only ship or not as the harbor master simply allows as many ships in as the local tender service can handle. We are not allowed to run our own tender service here. The whole happening is run by a local union or boatmen association. Nothing to complain about as they run a very efficient and effective service; to the great delight of our own sailors who otherwise have to run the ships tender service all day. When there are more ships in, Holland America ships first stop at Athinai in the South East to land the tours. There is a ferry dock there with sufficient room for the tour buses and that takes a good deal of pressure of the operation. The guests are then later dropped off at the Cable Car stop at the top. Today we where the only ship and that made this exercise unnecessary.

This is the way we like it. The anchor on top of the hump and the anchor chain nicely paid out in line with the wind. Maximum holding power.

Then on orders of the captain, the cadet signaled the anchor to be dropped in stages. Every time one length (15 fathoms, 27 meter or about 90 feet) at the same time the ship moved sideways so the chain was paid out nicely over the holding ground. We ended up with 5 lengths in the water and about 4 + the anchor on the sea bottom. What is there to learn for a cadet? Communication; in such a way that the captain on the bridge can visualize what the anchor is doing and where the anchor chain is leading (direction) and how hard the ship is pulling at the chain (weight or strain at the chain) Good communication makes a perfect maneuver and thus a perfect anchoring possible.

The cadet did really well and the chain went exactly over the ground as the captain had attended. I could limit myself to ensuring that “in all the excitement” the cadet followed all the protocols. At 18.00 hrs. we sailed out and the sun with bathed the white houses of Thira on top of the Volcano wall in a golden glow. A perfect ending of a perfect day.

Tomorrow we are in Rhodos for a full day and the weather gurus have promised us a sweltering day with little wind. 92oF / 33oC and no clouds. A good day for me, as apart from being forward with the cadets, I have tender driver proficiency assessments with the sailors.

Santorini. The houses on the top of the mountain basking in the evening sun light.