This morning Poseidon pushed us away from the Cycladic islands to the southern part of the Aegean Sea where the group of the Dodecanese islands stand, right on the border of Greece with Turkey. The winds where very strong making our visit to the island of Amorgos impossible so we replaced it with Patmos. We did not know what to expect but after our visit we realized that this had been one of the greatest highlights of this voyage!

We sailed into the harbor of Patmos, which is one of the deepest natural harbors of the Aegean and gazed at the calm sea that was now around us! With tender boat we landed at the port of Skala, which means steps, the ones that lead up to the medieval Chora of Patmos.

Patmos is also known as the Holy island being the place where St. John, or John the Divine, or the Disciple was sent into exile in 95 A.D. and this is where he recorded the last book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse—Revelation. The voice of God was heard…in Greek of course…as Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire thanks to Alexander the Great that had created in the previous years an Empire that reached India.

We visited the cave of St. John and then went up to the main medieval town of Chora. These unique whitewashed houses built of stone were developed around the wall of the Monastery of the Theologian from the 13th century onwards in order for the people to be protected from piracy. The monastery was founded in 1088 by St. Christodoulos, the monk that had identified the cave of the Revelation. He was granted permission by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komninos and this very important document is kept is the museum of the monastery. We visited the church with frescoes of the 11th and 16th century and then a museum where we saw icons painted by Dominikos Theotokopoulos, also known as El Greco.

We spent some time in the small harbor town that was full of nice cafés and shops. We boarded Sea Cloud, had a great lunch and once again the sails where set up by the crew. Marine Archaeologist Rebecca Ingram gave a very interesting lecture about the Bronze Period in the Aegean, and in the evening we had a chance to learn about the amazing story of Sea Cloud followed by a visit to the original cabins that made us feel like the history was still alive …