santorini // float your boat
our time in santorini was almost up, but one thing that was still on our bucket list was to take a cruise around the island to watch the sunset. we were so lucky to work with spiridakos and joined one of their semi-private cruises complete with food and drinks. earlier that day, the waters were so rocky that they had to cancel their afternoon excursion but thankfully it was safe enough for us by sunset! we had a scheduled pickup at 3:30pm from our hotel to head down to the marina so andrea and i decided to have a leisurely lunch by the pool. what started out as relaxing, quickly turned into a frantic race to get ready because the car had arrived at 2:30!
now, as much as i would like to say this was not my fault, it 100% was. andrea asked that morning if the pickup time was 2:30 and i "reassured" her it was definitely 3:30. nope. i was totally wrong. so we didn't have time to touch up our hair or makeup and we were barely able to change our clothes. thankfully the driver was so sweet to wait for us...and even better that we were the first passengers being picked up so no other riders had to wait for us (and give us the side eye). as we made our way to the marina, we picked up other riders along the way. but one couple we picked up looked familiar to me and it ended up being my sorority sister, abby!! i just couldn't believe the odds! after laughing about the coincidence, we made it to the boat and we set sail with about 12 other people.
the boat took us around to all of the key points on the island (and some that were only accessible by boat) and even took us right up to the volcano where we had the opportunity to swim in the hot spring! of course i was not quite up for such an adventure, but andrea jumped right in! although in theory it sounds exciting, andrea said it was underwhelming and just felt like you were swimming in lukewarm bath water. so i was glad i didn't ruin my hair! we finally settled in one of the coves near the volcano where we relaxed for a bit. we chatted with some amazing people and i loved getting to know their life stories! one of the couples was celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary, there was a girl who was studying abroad and was traveling around greece with her dad, a handbag designer from the uk, and so many more interesting people! and we got to know them over some delicious food.
