Agios Isadore, Leros Island

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• Greece

• April 1, 2024

• 20

Port Police and customs at 9:15 am in Lakki.

Took a detour to Agia Isadore church on the way back to the boat yard. 

Agios Isidoros Chapel: Located in the Bay of Gourna, the chapel of Saint Isidore on Leros was built on a cliff about 50 meters from the coast into the sea – a spectacular sight. It is connected to the coast by a narrow bridge, making it easily accessible on foot or by bike. Here, you can admire the most beautiful sunsets on the island - a purely romantic landscape.

They are many legends around this beautiful sea-chapel. One of them has it that the miraculous icon of Saint Isidore, now kept in the church, was caught in the net of a one-handed fisherman. From her rescue from the sea, the icon was so glad that she promised to fulfill the fisherman's wish. He wanted to have a second hand, which she made grow promptly. To show his gratitude, he built the beautiful chapel of Saint Isidore in the place he luckily caught the icon.

Today, this place is known as a romantic spot where many couples celebrate their wedding. If you are exploring Leros by bike, a visit of the Chapel of St. Isidore is worth it. 

Launch date

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• Greece

• April 1, 2024

• 24°

Launch is supposed to happen at 11:30.  We are in the water tied to the dock. Whew. And all went very smoothly. 

Leros

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• Greece

• April 1, 2024

• 25°

April 1, 2024

Yay! All our hard work is finished for now. 

The boat is in the water and we are sailing to Lakki Anchorage to see our friends Eva and Mario from SY Sagitta and go out for pizza, and pet some cats! 🐾🐾 

Leros to Skala, Patmos- 20.9nm

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• Greece

• April 2, 2024

• 24°

Sailed from Lakki, Leros to Skala, Patmos. 

Gave our paperwork to an agent to check us into our Seaman book. 🤞🤞🤞🤞

A cruise ship comes in everyday so it was busy in town.

Patmos has a bewitchingly spiritual feel about it. That's not surprising given that it was here,  in a cave that exiled St. John received the apocalyptic visions that formed sinister Revelations in the Bible.

Pilgrims from around the world visit St. John's cave and the island's monasteries, especially in the whitewashed labyrinth sanctity of hilltop Hora. 

Cave of the Apocalypse, Patmos

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• Greece

• April 3, 2024

• 21°

The Cave of the Apocalypse, the place where Saint John, the theologian exiled in 95 AC and envisioned and wrote the sacred up apocalyptic text lies on the north slope of the hill between the harbor of Scala and the medieval sediment of Chara.

A great deal of confusion and uncertainty surrounds the Book of Revelation. But don't worry, it's not the end of the world. Well, maybe some of it is the bits about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalyse, The Battle of Armageddon and the final defeat of Satan say, but biblical scholars broadly agree that Revelation should in fact be read as a denunciation of the era in which it's author lived.

St. John experienced his Revelation on Patmos at the end of the first century CE making it too late for him to have been either John the Evangelist the author of the gospel according to St. John or John, the Apostle or John the Baptist. Instead, he was simply a wandering Jewish/Christian prophet of whom very little is known. Though he has acquired the titles of John, the Devine John, the Revelator John the Theologian and most simply of all John of Patmos. His actual Revelation took the form of a letter to seven Christian churches in Asia Minor condemning the Roman subjugation under which they then suffered and predicting an imminent apocalypse in which the Roman empire would be swept away.

Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, Patmos

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• Greece

• April 3, 2024

Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian.

Immense 11th century monastery come fortress. It was pretty much all under construction. We walked around the outside but it was all closed up.

The entrance courtyard leads to assumptuously fresco chapel fronted by marble columns taken from an ancient temple. Daily worship is at 3:00 a.m.!! 

Panagia Diasozoussa, Patmos

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• Greece

• April 3, 2024

The holy icon of Panagia Diasozousa is considered miraculous and by patmian tradition was painted by St. Luke the evangelist. 

Hora, Patmos

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• Greece

• April 3, 2024

• 23°

With gorgeous views of the island from its hilltop eyrie enchanting Hora is more than just a whitewashed mountain settlement.

As you wonder, it's incense scented warren of 17th century houses wind gusting through the alleys the Boschian forms of St. John's demons scuddling behind in your imagination. It's easy to see why Hora draws  people back again and again. Allegedly there are more monasteries per square meter here in Hora than anywhere else in the world. 

Patmos Windmills

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• Greece

• April 3, 2024

• 23°

The windmills of Chora

Built in the east of the Holy Monastery of Patmos, on the top of the hill with view of the sea, the three windmills of Chora gave their name to the neighboring district of Mili. From the moment of their restoration in 2010, they can be characterized as another jewel of the island, which was awarded by Europa Nostra.

Windmills (two of which date back to 1588, and the third was built in 1863) fell into disuse in the late 1950s, when the industrial milling replaced the traditional production. The mills in Patmos, as well as in whole Europe, were deserted .

The ruined mills, visible from the sea, moved the Swiss banker and yachtsman, Mr. Charles Pictet, a fervent friend of Patmos. He envisioned them with sails filled with the Aeolus like earthly sailing boats, contributing to both the landscape and the local community, as they had done for four consecutive centuries.

On his initiative and financing, as well as with contributions of individuals and of Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the project of restoration was assigned to the Greek architect Daphne Becket and was completed with the cooperation of people from different horizons, but with the same love and respect for tradition: local shipbuilders, French millers of the eighth generation, Swiss specialists of sailing sails and Greek and French engineers, responsible for the reoperation of the mechanisms. Everyone's purpose was not only to restore the building shell with traditional materials, but also to restore their utilitarian value, their "soul", for them to be dynamic and living organisms, friendly towards the environment.

Today, the first mill reopened as a flour mill, with the aim not only to offer its visitors the image of the traditional flour production technology, but also to assist in the revival of the traditional crafts of flourman and baker and the production of products of the past.

The second windmill, because of the replacement of the grindstone by a generator and the installation of a metal rolling beam with mechanical brake for the waterwheel, is able to generate electricity from wind power. Finally, the plan for the third windmill is water production.

The windmills of Chora are reasonably some of its attractions; they are, however, above all a living monument, a bridge connecting the past with the present and the future.