We docked in Mykonos on the morning of the thirtieth. We'd all heard a lot about Mkykonos, the party town, but we didn't expect it to be such a pretty place. All the buildings are painted a blinding white, with deep blue window frames and doors. As in the old parts of Athens, and Venice, it's a warren of tiny, narrow, random streets, filled with mostly kitchy tourist stores and cafes. Our major destination for the day, though, was Super Paradise Beach. To get there, we had to hike through the major part of the main town, then take a bus to Paradise Beach, then wait in the surf for a water taxi. (It seems to be a law of nature that gay beaches are always hard to get to.) They don't have many regulations in Greece, I gather; the small water taxi filled up quickly with about eighty beachgoers, and the sea was no more than ten inches below the bottom of the railings.

A chapel in Mykonos

A pelican in Mykonos - the symbol of the island

But we made it to Super Paradise Beach safely. It was a surprisingly small beach tucked onto an inlet on the rocky coast, and jammed from one end to the other with umbrellas, couches and sunbathers. From the approach, it didn't look like we'd find any space to spread our towels. We trecked to the gay half of the beach, and did manage to find about twenty square feet - just enough for all four of us to stretch out on three beach towels. The beach itself was nothing to boast about; pebbly, grainy, dark brown. We couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

At the Coco Club, above Superparadise Beach, looking very happy after consuming most of my Pina Colada

There was a bar, the Coco Club, up some steps from the beach, and Ben and I went there in search of cocktails. The service was amiably Meditterranean - the cute bar girl took fifteen minutes to make five Mojitos - and all in all, from ordering to receiving our drinks, we waited almost half an hour. But we discovered a little grotto overlooking the ocean, with four beach chairs, and we persuaded Bill and Stefan to tear themselves away from the beach and join us. The D.J. soon cranked up the volume, and people started dancing on the deck next to the pool, and before long, all four of us had changed into the sarongs we'd bought on the way through town, and were dancing away to a jacked up version of the theme from Dallas. It was a great, care-free moment, though I can't believe I was dancing buck naked apart from a thin sarong and a pair of sneakers.

Two sheets to the wind at the Coco Club

A long trek home again from the beach, and back to the ship to dine, nap and get ready for a night on the town. I went from joy to misery in just a few hours. This trip, and the prolonged intimacy with Ben, and the stress of being constantly in such a social environment has played havoc with my emotions. I had an acute attack of insecurity, and had to unburden myself to Ben. I felt like I was cutting myself open in telling him some of the things I told him; I pride myself on being a strong person, and to show my vulnerabilities to him in such a way felt terribly weakening. It made me think he'd cease to respect me, or even worse, pity me. But I did find that telling him helped to ease the stress of my feelings.

By the time it was ready to dress to go out clubbing in Mykonos (we'd been promised that the biggest gay club on the island would be open for a special party), I'd almost completely recovered, apart from a lingering feeling that I somehow had to rebuild my image of strength in front of Ben. When we arrived at the club, we found it to be a tiny place, way too small to host over two thousand gay men from the cruise. The dance floor was smaller than my living room, but the music was stunningly loud. Fortunately, most of the cruise goers never made it to the club, and we made the best of it, and danced for a couple of hours. Late at night, we walked back to the ship through the town, hand-in-hand, shirtless, in our jeans, the breeze feeling delightful against our skin, and, once back in the ship, had the most incredible sex.

Late the next morning, Ben and I got up, and threw open the curtains as we approached Santorini, one of the most magical places I've ever seen. It's made up of several islands, all that is left of a huge volcanic explosion hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and the main island is in the shape of a crescent, with towering cliffs, and the villages perched on their edges on a huge plateau. All the buildings are white, and from the sea, the effect is similar to snow capped mountains.

First glimpse of Santorini, a magical white town perched on a high plateau

The Millenium floating underneath Santorini

The ship was too big to dock, so it spent the day floating in the harbor, and we were taken on shore by tenders, in a choppy sea. We'd chosen to go on a guided coach tour, and it proved a good choice. First we were taken to the island's highest point, inland, to get a good view of the whole island. It was hot and somewhat hazy, not the best conditions for photography.

On the highest point in Santorini

Our next stop was Pyraghos, a small, lazy town (it was the middle of the afternoon so I presume everybody was on siesta). We walked slowly through the beautiful, narrow, winding streets, where around every turn there was a new enchanting view. The tour guide was talking too much, so Ben and I took ourselves off up the side alleys beneath the castle, before rejoining the tour as they all returned to the coach.

Ben pretending to be a biker

As usual, we escaped the tourist crowd to take sexy photos

Perfect form, on Santorini

At the end of the tour (after a snack in Pyraghos), we were dropped in the island's main town, Fira, which was the most magical of all. It cascaded off the edge of the cliffs, looking down at the Calderra and the ship, and the yacht of the Queen of Denmark, protected by a Danish frigate. We shopped a while, and then sat in a cafe overlooking the whole vista, and just took it all in.

At a cafe, looking down on the ship and the calderra

There were several options for getting back to the ship; a cable car directly down to the port; a donkey ride down several hundred perilous steps, or hiking down the same steps. We chose the latter, as being the prettiest choice, and set off down hill. But we hadn't reckoned on the piles of donkey crap, or the herds of smelly donkeys blocking the path, or the isolated donkeys running free either uphill or downhill. So we ended up running the final hundred stairs, fleeing the smell and a pursuing donkey.

Ben knows all the right people, including the President of the gay cruise company, who had the largest suite on board. We'd been invited for cocktails and dinner with him, and some of his other friends and acquaintances. Their suite was beautiful, with a huge deck, two hottubs and a grand piano - like a nice suite in a five-star hotel. We had champagne out on the deck, admiring Santorini at night; it looked like a golden necklace strewn along the cliffs. The moment was even more spectacular as an orange moon emerged from behind the island.

Ben and I had previously had a really good discussion about our varied ways of coping with social situations, and we'd agreed to meet each other half way; he'd be more sensitive to my more introverted ways, and I'd make more of an effort to turn on the charm and be social (which I'm perfectly capable of doing if I chose to). So the dinner went off without a hitch, and we made friends with two of the couples - we've been running into them constantly on the ship ever since.

After several days of wonder, we finally had a just-average day in Rhodes, the next day. Rhodes had been a last-minute substitution for Ephesus (Turkey banned cruise ships for security reasons), and we knew nothing about it. Our ignorance was more than corrected over the course of the day by our unstoppable tour guide, who droned on for several hours as we drove and walked around the island. I learned the history of Rhodes (which is fascinating, after all), in more detail than I cared to (my favorite moment was when the tour guide boasted that Rhodes had a flourishing, advanced culture when Rome was just a small Etruscan village). The stops on the tour were less than overwhelming; the so-called "Valley of Butterflies" (think of a hike through the woods with thousands of tourists, and a few thousand dull-looking butterflies clustered on the trees); and some old Greek ruins.

In the ruins, on Rhodes

Sunset over the Greek Islands

Near sunset on our day of departure from Rhodes, the light was perfect, and we took photos of each other on the balcony. I don't think Ben has ever been photographed in his whole life as much as he has been on this trip.