After my last run on Crete, where I took an early morning jog along the harbour wall, past the old Venetian fortress, we move to “Santorini camp”. I’m faced with a different challenge here, not to mention the horrendous ocean crossing and sea-sickness we experience. I have never seen so many full sick bags in my life. 350 passengers and I doubt if there was one soul outside the crew who wasn’t affected.
The island of Santorini, or Thira, is the remnant of a massive volcano that erupted with destructive force some 3,600 years ago. In the wake of that explosion the residual crater is 100m to 300m deep and the cliffs rising above the water are 200m high. It’s a steep and rocky world. What this means is that I can do a couple of cool run-swim-run sessions though!
On Wednesday I run down to Armeni Bay below the town of Oia, a tiny jetty, tiny as in 20m long, which you can see on the right hand side of the attached picture (it’s a postcard, but I couldn’t hire a helicopter to show you). At the top of the steep and switch-back cobbled stair-case I’m joined by a black dog with a fetching blue collar with tiny metal bone decorations. She’s pretty keen and scrabbles across the marble lane-way to slow down and make the tight turn at the top where we start our run. Every few steps she takes a look over the edge and I think she’s going to stop but surprisingly she runs with me all the way down, scratching her claws along the 4.5 minute staircase and even steps into the water with me before thinking better of it. It’s nice to have the company actually! You can see the steepness of the cliffs in the second picture here, taken from a boat as we came into Armeni Bay.
The water is so clear it’s distracting! Looking around me I’m focusing on the boat hulls, the jetty wall, the rocks, the anchor points, anything but where I’m going. Within 50m of the shore though, there’s nothing to see. Beneath me, some 100m below me must be the bottom, but it is just azure blue, big blue and it’s somewhat eerie. I’m not sure why, I know rationally that there’s nothing out there to harm me, but nagging at the back of my mind are the following questions:
1) this is supposedly a dormant volcano – what happens if there’s a quake right now, even if it’s small?
2) What if there’s a landslide next to me?
3) What if there’s a gas release below the surface?
These are totally irrational thoughts, but unsettling none the less.
I’m aiming for St. Nikolas, a tiny rock at the end of the island of Thira, sitting beneath the town of Oia. You can see it in the postcard picture in the bottom right. What you can’t see from this angle is the tiny church on St. Nikolas which I’m using as a marker. It’s about a kilometre out to the rock and without hanging around too long, it’s still too quiet and unsettling for me, I return to the jetty to find my old running friend the black dog happily trotting back down the stairs, this time accompanying an American lady who is here for the pictures. We chat quickly as I dry off about the training I’m doing, she thinks I’m a triathlete but I profess I haven’t contracted that illness yet, and she asks if she’ll see me in the papers when we swim the channel; I admit probably not in the pages of her local paper but maybe the Maidenhead Advertiser! Black Dog doesn’t join me as I run back up the stairs, taking 7 minutes to make the ascent. It’s tough and very steep but good training.
On Friday morning I run down to Ammoudi Bay, the port (again, a port on the minor scale) on the left hand side of the picture. This run is a little easier, only 3.5 minutes down and 5 minutes up, and a swim to St. Nikolas rock of a kilometre all up, maybe not even that. It’s more interesting though as I’m swimming with the prevailing wind that comes into the lagoon from the north, it provides more challenge of rhythm with the choppy waves. There are also more interesting rock formations here and more fish that swim with me at the surface but dive down a couple of metres as I draw near. Being on the ocean side of the volcano means that the rock line extends a little further out and I can follow it to the rock, although the drop-off into deep water is still well in view and I get those nagging thoughts again.
Later that day, Lady and I walk down the same sort of steps at the town of Fira to join a boat for the day, we hike the volcano to the main Daphne Crater itself and then, leaving the boat, we walk back up from Armeni Bay’s jetty. All in all, Friday was a good training day.
I know it’s vacation time and I should be relaxing the body but a couple of runs and swims keeps the mind free and the body ticking over. I still then have a bit to do when I get back, but there’ll be a period of 10 days between return and a potential first slot at the Channel which I hear might be 24 September. Fingers crossed for a calm month.
The island of Santorini, or Thira, is the remnant of a massive volcano that erupted with destructive force some 3,600 years ago. In the wake of that explosion the residual crater is 100m to 300m deep and the cliffs rising above the water are 200m high. It’s a steep and rocky world. What this means is that I can do a couple of cool run-swim-run sessions though!
On Wednesday I run down to Armeni Bay below the town of Oia, a tiny jetty, tiny as in 20m long, which you can see on the right hand side of the attached picture (it’s a postcard, but I couldn’t hire a helicopter to show you). At the top of the steep and switch-back cobbled stair-case I’m joined by a black dog with a fetching blue collar with tiny metal bone decorations. She’s pretty keen and scrabbles across the marble lane-way to slow down and make the tight turn at the top where we start our run. Every few steps she takes a look over the edge and I think she’s going to stop but surprisingly she runs with me all the way down, scratching her claws along the 4.5 minute staircase and even steps into the water with me before thinking better of it. It’s nice to have the company actually! You can see the steepness of the cliffs in the second picture here, taken from a boat as we came into Armeni Bay.
The water is so clear it’s distracting! Looking around me I’m focusing on the boat hulls, the jetty wall, the rocks, the anchor points, anything but where I’m going. Within 50m of the shore though, there’s nothing to see. Beneath me, some 100m below me must be the bottom, but it is just azure blue, big blue and it’s somewhat eerie. I’m not sure why, I know rationally that there’s nothing out there to harm me, but nagging at the back of my mind are the following questions:
1) this is supposedly a dormant volcano – what happens if there’s a quake right now, even if it’s small?
2) What if there’s a landslide next to me?
3) What if there’s a gas release below the surface?
These are totally irrational thoughts, but unsettling none the less.
I’m aiming for St. Nikolas, a tiny rock at the end of the island of Thira, sitting beneath the town of Oia. You can see it in the postcard picture in the bottom right. What you can’t see from this angle is the tiny church on St. Nikolas which I’m using as a marker. It’s about a kilometre out to the rock and without hanging around too long, it’s still too quiet and unsettling for me, I return to the jetty to find my old running friend the black dog happily trotting back down the stairs, this time accompanying an American lady who is here for the pictures. We chat quickly as I dry off about the training I’m doing, she thinks I’m a triathlete but I profess I haven’t contracted that illness yet, and she asks if she’ll see me in the papers when we swim the channel; I admit probably not in the pages of her local paper but maybe the Maidenhead Advertiser! Black Dog doesn’t join me as I run back up the stairs, taking 7 minutes to make the ascent. It’s tough and very steep but good training.
On Friday morning I run down to Ammoudi Bay, the port (again, a port on the minor scale) on the left hand side of the picture. This run is a little easier, only 3.5 minutes down and 5 minutes up, and a swim to St. Nikolas rock of a kilometre all up, maybe not even that. It’s more interesting though as I’m swimming with the prevailing wind that comes into the lagoon from the north, it provides more challenge of rhythm with the choppy waves. There are also more interesting rock formations here and more fish that swim with me at the surface but dive down a couple of metres as I draw near. Being on the ocean side of the volcano means that the rock line extends a little further out and I can follow it to the rock, although the drop-off into deep water is still well in view and I get those nagging thoughts again.
Later that day, Lady and I walk down the same sort of steps at the town of Fira to join a boat for the day, we hike the volcano to the main Daphne Crater itself and then, leaving the boat, we walk back up from Armeni Bay’s jetty. All in all, Friday was a good training day.
I know it’s vacation time and I should be relaxing the body but a couple of runs and swims keeps the mind free and the body ticking over. I still then have a bit to do when I get back, but there’ll be a period of 10 days between return and a potential first slot at the Channel which I hear might be 24 September. Fingers crossed for a calm month.
I caught up with the team this morning for a full session in the river. Since i've been away the temperature has fallen from 19 to 16.5 degrees and it's cold. BUT, at least that's the same as the channel and I can reaclimatise.
Happy trails!
Happy trails!
