According to the Captain this morning, we had winds of over 45 knots last night. That explains all the sea spray beating against our balcony door and forward windows on several occasions. We anchor off Patmos at 8:00AM in the lea of the island. This will be a tender port thanks to the wind. Oh, goody! It is raining and windy. What happened to our sunny days?
Actually, we were supposed to dock today, bur the captain is afraid he will have trouble getting out of the harbor with all the wind. This is the first time that the ship has attempted to use its own tenders and, of course, one of them promptly breaks down. The captain is not having a good day! It is 10:30AM before we can head down to the boat deck to go ashore. Once ashore, we rented a small car for €30 ($40US) and toured the island.
We visit the cave/grotto
where St. John is supposed to have received his revelation from God and where he wrote the Book of Revelations.
We then tour the Monastery of St. John 
and their museum, which showed some of the contents of their Great Treasury. The monastery dates from 1093AD and is the richest in the Dodecanese. it has several small chapels with beautifully painted walls.
The manuscripts on display date back as far as the 6th Century AD. One jeweled cross was the gift of Catherine the Great of Russia. Some of the bibles on display from the 1300’s have incredible drawings and script, what an art form! 
After leaving the monastery, we drive most of the main roads on the island. The flowers are in full bloom on the old terraced hillsides
and there are some interesting fishing boats pulled up on the small beaches.
While in the monastery, the sun began peeking through the clouds but the wind continues blowing hard. There is not much to see or do in the main village of Skala
so we returned to the ship about 2:30PM to find that the crew had installed deadlights on our forward cabin windows. Remember, we are on deck five, some 30 feet above the waterline! They are either a day late or they are expecting some severe wave action once we leave this protected harbor tonight. There is also a card in our door saying turbulent weather is expected tonight so the shutters are up. Wonder what they call last night’s weather! We shall see.Back on the ship, we read, nap and do some laundry since there is a free machine. Tonight, “2” has their steak house dinner so we enjoy that once again as we sail toward Mykonos. We have a very nice sunset again while we enjoy our steak dinner and once again, we have no camera. Back in the suite about 10:0PM, the seas begin to pick up, maybe the captain knows what he is doing after all! The waves are really slapping the bow now and there is a big roll, another night for the “bed belts"!
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