The island of Santorini, one of the many Greek Islands that draw tourists, is about a 2 hour ferry boat ride from Crete if you take a flying cat. It’s one of those places that give you pause as you marvel at the tenacity of humans for building a home. Dwellings cling to the promontory sides of a volcanic caldera, dressed in blazing shades of white against a blue Aegean sea. It’s this interrupted ring of sheer cliffs, shaped like a crescent that remains from a once solid island, blown into pieces by a volcano 3600 years ago. When the ashes and smoke settled the caldera, filled by the sea, couldn’t quite cover the top of the volcano that rose in the center. Down deep, beyond sea floor to the place where the puzzle block of continents bump and grind to the tune of tectonics, water simmers. It rises to the surface in springs around the volcano. You can take your rest in the hot springs there if you life. Soothing yourself in the sulfidic waters, it’s not likely that many will wonder at nature’s subtle reminder of the destructive force and pressure that she can exert willy nilly on man should he happen to be around at an unlucky time. (It’s this eruption that took out one of the most advanced civilizations, the Minoans, and if you’re fanciful, you can consi