Blue Fira

Back to Fira to crash for the evening. A closer view of this shot.

Blue Woman, Red Beach

It not easy to see at these small sizes, but there are two women on red beach. Here's a zoomed in view of the second one. This poor woman has a reason to be blue. She passed us and headed further up the deserted beach to settle down and enjoy the solitude. She's not there long before a naked old gentlemen starts walking in front of her picking up rocks or shells or something.

I just think that December is an odd time to go nude sunbathing in Greece.

Red Beach, Blue Woman

Red Beach, Santorini.

Amazingly, Santorini has a white beach and a black beach to go with this red one. I was too tired to go see the other beaches though. Almost all my shots of the beach are from this one viewpoint. Couldn't bring myself to hobble down the rocky path to the beach, or even move once I'd set up the tripod. LC and I had hiked up to the ruins of Ancient Thira and down past the monastery earlier in the day.

The hike up to Ancient Thira was a killer, seemingly endless switchbacks up a steep mountain road to the ruined city. Even getting to the road up was a scramble, unsure footing most of the way with loose scree. I'd reached the road first and LC was struggling behind me, sliding back a couple of paces with every step forward. I could see she was in trouble. LC yelled out, "I'm giving up". I shouted out to her to try switch backing up the slope instead of climbing straight up and thought that if that doesn't work, I'd have to go back down and help her up. Just then a car turned around the corner of the mountain road, heading up to the ruins. I had one of those slo-mo moments of decision. I wanted to thumb a ride up the mountain, but there's no telling how long it will take to get LC up the slope to the road. OK, I thought, we'll let this one go, get LC up and hitch a ride from the next car that comes along.

LC finally made it up to the road and when I told her about the car, promptly said, "Why didn't you flag it down?". We never did see another car, as we hiked those endless hairpin loops up and up.

I think I was gnashing my teeth the whole way.

Anyway, that's the reason why I have almost twenty shots of Red Beach, and all of them are from this one spot.

Monastery

Fira, Twilight

Underwater

The view from the roof of our hotel.

I'm tired from the day's hike and waiting for the shutter to trip so that I can get back to the warm room. The wind is making the clouds rush overhead and the full moon breaks cover, burnishing the sea with bright, cold, light. I think of Atlantis, and feel like I'm underwater, with the clouds streaming above like the surface of the sea.

Fira

The view if Venus looks to the left.