Black Sand Beach

April 26:

Today we had planned to get up early so we could get to a beach by a good hour. This plan was foiled somewhat because Pat was unable to sleep until about 6am. Once he arose we decided to rent an ATV for 24 hours and use it to get to one of the black sand beaches. On our way we managed to get somewhat lost but this turned out to be not entirely bad. In our search for sea level we had somehow made it to the highest point on the mountain. Soon we realized that the top was a military base and the only way down was the way we went up. On our way down we stopped for some photographs of the stunning scenery. 

Once we got down we used our aerial lay of the land to figure out which way we had to go to get to Perissa Beach. There is actually rather good signage on Santorini but many of them have had stickers put on them, which obscure them unnecessarily making them difficult to read while zooming along on a quad-bike. Also of note is that we only rented the one ATV because Pat didn’t bring his drivers license with him. Once we got to the beach it was hot, nearly empty, and beautiful.

After some brief reading I was in the sea for a swim. The water was a beautiful blue and I promised myself the next day I would bring my goggles with me so I could look around underwater. The beach was surprising in that once in the water it was fairly stony and when you got beyond that the floor was seemingly cement, perhaps to stop erosion. Once back on the beach I went back to reading. All the beautiful weather meant that I was zooming though The Blind Assassin. Pat decided he was going to take a jog along the beach before he jumped in the water. The sands colour meant that it was terribly hot but he figured as long as he kept moving his feet would remain unscathed. Once back he went in the water for a bit. We each read for a bit more before we decided to call it a day. It was at this point I realized that the small, light, white rocks I had been messing with were around in larger specimens to. Even the larger pebbles seemed to have almost no weight to them and we realized that these were pumice stones. We collected a few samples then headed back to the hotel. We managed not to get lost on the way though we did take a slight detour to get some food as we had yet to eat that day.

It was pretty late by the time we got back so we went to our room for the night.