Sunday, 29th September Apocalypse and Marble
We're making tracks now. We flew past Ikaria instead of stopping - it looked large, very craggy and barren. We halted for a night off a deserted looking island called Fournoi, bounded by reefs. We had a bay all to ourselves - this for us is the last of the Eastern Sporades. Samos will have to wait until next year.

On to our first (and only this year) Dodecanese Island, Patmos. We met up with friends Colin & Shirley on Malo37 Silent Wings, who have been making their way across the Cyclades West to East. Drinks on board their boat and dinner on ours, a lovely chance to catch up on each others' adventures and exchange tips for the times ahead. The following day we made an excursion up the hill (shared taxi up, nice walk down) to the Chora (town or hilltop village), the Monastery of St John and the Cave of the Apocalypse. It was here that John the Apostle had his vision of the Apocalypse and heard the voice of God as a trumpet saying "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia". And so he did. Here. Today the Grotto is surrounded by a chapel founded in 1090, but the cave is very real and where he wrote and the indentations where he allegedly laid his head are still there. The Monastery on top was founded in 1088 in his name and honour and houses a great collection of religious texts and artefacts. It is one of the more beautiful we have seen, and the white-washed houses of the chora that spill out and around it are lovely. The whole place has a vibrant feel and there are people! We have been in the wilds a bit.

Onwards and westwards towards the middle of the Aegean - a minor "channel crossing" of 45nm to Dhenoussa - back off the beaten track and into the wilds, anchoring off a nudist beach. It was perfect sailing - flat sea, blue sky, beam reach, ambling along. It is back to hot and sunny and we are still able to swim off the back of the boat to cool down - luxury!

And today we came to Naxos. Very Cycladic, white cubey houses piling up the hill, topped by a Venetian fortress / castle. There is a huge marble arch standing out on the promontory and the remains of a temple that was started in about 530 BC and never finished - shades of modern Greece? Sometimes called Ariadne's temple, it was actually the portal to a temple to Apollo. Have just watched the sun set over it. A treat!