Santorini Depths

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and
find that I lived just the length of it.
I want to have lived the width of it as well."
-Diane Ackerman

Part I:
I laid back on the cool, cement roof of the castle, watching for shooting stars in the late night sky. Despite the occasional false alarms of bats and satellites that caught my eye in hopes of a shooting star, I felt relieved to kick back under the stars and just BE. Beneath me, the Art Maison's Castle of Oia (the oldest and most picturesque part of Santorini) jutted out on a precipice high above the throngs of the Aegean Sea; a sea that had already swallowed up any signs of a horizon, suspending me in the center of a seemingly endless black orb.

"I'm on top of a castle. In the Greek Islands. Counting shooting stars. A handsome Greek man beside me. Can it get any better than this?"

Laughter. Beside me, peals of contagious laughter erupted from Yianni and Palamas, lifelong friends bonded by the adventures of being raised on the beautiful "caldera" (volcano) island of Santorini, 200 miles south of (and a 9 hour ferry ride from) mainland Greece. Yianni and Palamas, our Santorini tour guides, had led me and Nicole to the heights of the castle roof by way of a cobblestone labyrinth, weaving through a maze of hotels, shops and white-washed churches with brilliant blue domes on the side of a steep cliff. By day, Oia was the scene of postcards, reminiscent of movies like Mamma Mia and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. By night, it was a whole new magic. I couldn't help myself. Caught up in the moment, I stepped into a new Self... and fearlessly kissed the tall, dark and handsome Palamas. The moment was timeless. Before I knew it, dawn was breaking and as if to affirm the magic of it all, Palamas' eyes glowed green against his dark features in the dim morning light. Sunrise.

Part II:
Two days later. Insisting on taking Nicole and me snorkeling, Yianni swung us by a local dive shop, across the street from his parent's restaurant, "Senor Zorba" (also known as the best Mexican restaurant in all of Europe, due in part to its breathtaking view from the caldera cliff where it sits perched, overlooking the volcano and the Aegean Sea. Check out the view! http://www.senor-zorba.gr/flash/ ). Back at the dive shop, a cute dive master from Hungary was giving me and Nicole a hard time for not making time to scuba-dive during our trip to Santorini despite both of us being open water certified. The thought had honestly never crossed my mind, as I had no idea Santorini was a hot spot for it. As we tried on snorkel gear, another cute dive master, this one from Italy, joined in on giving us a hard time. We had already missed the usual morning dive, and I was flying out the next afternoon, so finally I half-jokingly asked "What about a night dive?" Zoli and Dario looked at each other in pleasant surprise, told us we were crazy, then turned to the store owner in what sounded like an animated bartering session. After several minutes of back-and-forth Greek banter, Zoli and Dario announced that the two of them would take the two of us on our own personal, VIP night dive. We would leave in four hours.

Yianni took the four hour window of opportunity to take us snorkeling at a secluded beach on the south end of the island. Having never been there himself, finding the correct access road was quite an ordeal. After several dead ends that would've sent us off the caldera cliffs into the sea below, we found the way. As Yianni maneuvered down the steep switchbacks of loose gravel in his small, rear-wheel drive car, I questioned out loud whether we would be able to get back up the road. Yianni had opted to find out when the time came. Sure enough, not even 1/3 of the way back up the road after snorkeling, our car was stuck spinning gravel and going nowhere on a steep switchback. The three of us made a valiant effort to get the car unstuck, but finally had to abandon our mission and hike out to a main road. We would've had to thumb our way out on the back of ATVs, had it not been for the charming Palamas, who picked us up and saved the day.

Nicole and I made it back to the dive shop with a few minutes to spare while Yianni went off to plan the rescue of his car. Zoli and Dario fitted us with wetsuits before setting off for a bay at the north end of the island near Oia. As we prepared to enter the water from the small port, my eyes followed the caldera cliffs before me from the water to the sky. High up on the precipice I could make out the Art Maison's Castle I had been on two nights before, this time by light of the setting sun. As the four of us descended to the sea floor, Zoli quietly took my hand in his and we set off for a romantic night tour of shipwrecks and sea creatures. Sunset.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it.
I want to have lived the DEPTH of it as well.
-Hana T.