September 9 – At Sea

We were up and at breakfast by around 8:00.  At 8:45 there was a talk about the construction of the ship and about its sails.  They had some nice ships diagrams available including the deck plans 

and the sails.

This is a map of the Greek Isles with our planned itinerary.

About 9:00 the captain gave orders and the seamen (and one woman) started climbing the rigging and releasing many of the sails.  

***************************************************************
Watch video of unfurling the sails.
***************************************************************





Once the sails were unleashed there was a fair amount of rope pulling in order to release them.  They used mechanical means to release and pull in some sails but others required old fashioned manpower.

The ship is absolutely magical under sail.  It took about 45 minutes to set all the sails.

Some of the sailors were quite creative when it came to organizing the ropes.

The sails didn’t come down until 4:00 in the afternoon.  We made between 4.5 and 7 knots throughout the day.  It didn’t seem like we were moving but if one watched the nearby islands (and we seem never to be out of sight of at least a couple of islands), you could see that we moved in relationship to the islands.

Later in the morning the ship’s photographer gave a talk about photography. 

In the afternoon we had a lecture about the three Bronze Age civilizations that were located in the area, the Cyclades, the Minoans, and the Mycenaean.  Very interesting lecture.

The approach to Santorini was a bit surreal as it looked like parts of the top of the island were covered with snow (in 80 degree weather).  It is the very white houses that are packed into towns along the top of the island.

After the ship dropped anchor off of the island of Santorini they sent out a zodiac raft with a long rope to which flotation rafts were affixed.  They then ran a second line to the ship (with a life buoy on it) to define a large triangle in the water.  And we got to go swimming.  Well, Jim and Phyllis can’t swim and Paul took a nap so Mary went swimming by herself.  And about 25 others.  They said that it was one of the largest groups to take advantage of the chance to swim off the ship.  The water was great.

There was a Captain’s Cocktail reception, where they introduced the senior members of the staff and then we had a “Gala” dinner.  Food was excellent as was the conversation around the table.

And of course we finished the day with a very nice sunset.

We have an early morning tomorrow so then it was off to bed.