Arethusa is a "small ship." The big cruise liners, and even the island ferries, dwarf it. It is designed for no more than 50 passengers, and has a crew of about 20, from the captain down to the cabin boys, cooks, waiters, and engine mechanics. The advantage is that it can dock almost anywhere, up close to the towns we want to visit. The disadvantage is that it bobs like a cork.
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| Arethusa (foreground) is dwarfed by a cruise ship. |
Our cabin was quite nice, the first one, starboard, on the upper deck, right under the bridge, with a nice little private deck outside our sliding glass door. First order of business was a lifeboat drill. Food, as usual, was exceptionally good and much too plentiful. We had a huge welcome dinner served. As we were eating, the ship left port to head across the Mediterranean on the four hour trip to the island of Patmos.
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| Lifeboat drill before setting sail. |
The captain warned that we were headed into bad weather, and that there might be “some pitching and rolling.” That turned out to be something of an understatement! Guys who had never been seasick in the Navy were sick. A retired oceanographer, who spent his career at sea, said he didn't sleep. Neither did I. Mary, who is prone to motion sickness, did not fare well, even on Dramamine®.
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| Food was a highlight. Dessert for our first meal. |
Our morning tour was a bus trip to the top of the mountain where an Orthodox monastery devoted to John of Patmos has been thriving for over 1,000 years. Mary was determined not to miss it, just because she happened to be green.
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| View of Patmos from the mountaintop |
There was a Holy Saturday service taking place at the monastery, because Greek Easter fell a week later than Latin Easter this year. We squeezed in to take in some of that. The tour director also took us through the "treasury" (museum). Mary made it, but could do little more than sit and look pale, and hold onto me as we walked back down hill to the bus. One of the women in our group gave Mary one of her motion sickness patches to wear, but these take awhile to work.
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| Climbing toward the monastery. |
The bus drove us down hill a couple kilometers to visit the Cave of the Apocalypse, where John supposedly received the Revelation. It was decked out in typical, gaudy, Orthodox style. Our tour director read the first few verses of Revelation to give some context, but one has to wonder how they know which of the many caves in the area it might have been -- or if John lived in a cave at all. We went back to the ship to rest a bit.
Around 11:30 p.m. we rallied and went back into the village with the tour directors. They provided us with candles, and we joined hundreds of Greeks in the square as the priests emerged from one of the little Orthodox churches to chant the Easter Gospel in Greek from a small platform prepared for the purpose.
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| Priests recite the Easter Gospel in the town square at midnight. |
As they did so, town’s people set off firecrackers, cherry bombs, and all sorts of other loud artillery in celebration. Everyone chanted the hymn,
Χριστος Ανεστι, "Christ is Risen," as those who had been in the church passed the light from their candles to the candles of those gathered in the square. The priests and a few people went back into the church for the remaining couple hours of the Easter service, but everyone else went home, as did we, back to the ship, but not easily to sleep.
