Palea Kameni Steamboat Wreck (Hot Springs Wreck)

The wreck sits deep inside the Santorini caldera, in the narrow strait between Nea Kameni to the east and Palea Kameni to the west, ringed further out by the caldera walls of Thera and Thirasia — a near-enclosed basin with no open-ocean swell at all, only locally generated wind-chop over very short fetch. The two islets fully block the E-SE and W-NW sectors, leaving two modest fetch windows along the strait: to the north toward the wider caldera basin, and to the south toward the caldera's southern exit. The dominant summer Meltemi (N-NW) funnels down the caldera and pushes chop into the strait from the north, making the N-NNW the most exposed window; a southerly blow can send a smaller swell up from the S. Even then, conditions are usually calm and diveable, and the site's real weather sensitivity is surface boat traffic and Meltemi-driven turbidity rather than waves.