I’m back in Athens.
I found a dive center just south of Athens that does year round dives. I woke up early, talked to the rental company, searched for Airbnbs, and looked at flights. One flight in the morning, one in the evening. I packed quickly and drove to the airport.
A final view of Zakynthos.
I booked an Airbnb in the last seconds before we boarded. When we landed, an hour later at around 1pm, I hadn’t heard anything back. It took a while to get my luggage. I milled about for 30 minutes and sent another message.
The response I got said the apartment wouldn’t be cleaned until 7:30 that evening. So I had 6 hours to kill.
I found the baggage storage service and gave them my bags for the afternoon.
Then went down and visited the dive center.
Very friendly bunch. Definitely had dives on the weekends. In fact tomorrow’s dive was overbooked! The boat could seat 10, they had 12 going, and two more on a waiting list.
I got on a dive Thursday. I’ll tag along with a class’s final two dives. Then they added me to the list for the weekend. They need 4 divers to schedule boat dives, and 2 divers to schedule a shore dive. Hopefully they’ll find enough. They said they don’t have a problem finding people on the weekends: they plan on hiring an additional divemaster next year it’s been going so well.
I walked the area. Wind surfers were out.
A church was prepping for a wedding.
Had some lunch, walked the full length of the harbor, ducked into a couple shops. Then it was time to head back to the airport to pick up my bags.
On the ride up, I got a message from the dive center. They had an opening tomorrow for a single boat dive. I snatched it up!
Got to the airport, had 30 or so minutes to kill so I wandered. Found something I didn’t expect.
I had a wonderfully mediocre chai latte. Mmm.
Got my bags. Headed to the apartment. Tour of the rooms. Unpack. Sort scuba gear. Load images. Type.
Now I need sleep. Dive at 10am tomorrow! I’m not entirely sure how I’ll get to the shop. There’s a bus, but it’s unclear how to buy tickets. It’s a 20 minute walk, so I’ll do that this time.
Travel 