Salt Salt Salt

Over the last 7 days we learned to manage sea sickness, we made some of the most challenging sandwiches (trust me it is challenging to make a sandwich in a galley kitchen when the boat is swaying away), and we became acquainted with port life of a sailor.
The adventure continued the last 3 days on the sail boat. After exploring Naxos Island we set sail for some of the smaller Cyclades islands. I will spare you the details, but due to some toilet issues we had to change our course to a bigger island. We ended up at Ios Island, which has a small settlement down by the port and then the larger local population high up on the mountain. By the time we got to Ios Jorie and I needed a break from the group, so we ran to the beach for some quiet time. Ios felt like a ghost town, as most of the shops had closed for the season and there was very little going on. Luckily our mechanical toilet problems got fixed so that we could leave the next day.

We sailed from Ios to a beautiful remote bay in one of the small Cyclades islands. The bay had steep mountain sides with Greek goats wandering the rocky terrain and then a isolate beach. There was a WWII fighter jet sunk in the bay, it was rather eerie to look at the skeleton plane that has sat their for almost 70 years. We enjoyed a beautiful swim in the majestic water. Then we sailed to Katokoufonisia, a very small island with a population of 240 people and probably just as many cats. Because there wasn't tons to do we played cards on the boat and continued to peal through our books.

The weather is very unstable in the Greek islands this time of year, so we had to change our plans again and head back to Naxos rather than to sail on to Santorini. We were all bummed that we couldn't make it to Santorini but a big storm would not make the seas fun. It took almost the whole day to sail back to Naxos, but the wind was good.

Our captain gave us two options of ferries to take to Santorini: Saturday night at 11:00 PM or Sunday at 3:00 PM. He didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to leave so late at night, but we wanted to maximize our time in Santorini so we sacrificed another nights sleep and took the late ferry with the other family from our boat. We arrived into Santorini at around 1:30 AM. We were both so tired, and the 12 year old girl Kaylie said I looked scary because my eyes were so bloodshot from exhaustion. Jorie and I took a bus to the town that our hotel was in and the bus driver pointed us in the right direction, but we had other directions from the lady who runs the place. It felt like the Czech Republic all over again, as the directions made it seem obvious but it was no where to be found. After walking the streets at 2 am with our big packs for a while we caved and called Pension George. Even on the phone with us she struggled to describe how to find the place. We finally collapsed after a long day at 2:30 AM in our hotel room. Although we didn't sleep as well without our swaying boat, we are glad to be on land again.