Today we had a beautiful morning at sea. After breakfast we set sail towards Katakolon. Without very much wind we set all the square sails to catch every available breath of wind. There was enough wind to fill the sails, but still keep the seas calm, so during breakfast we put down the Zodiacs and most of us went out for a unique and exciting circumnavigation of Sea Cloud under sail. Back on board, our guides Effie and Stella gave us a talk on Greek Religion and Culture. By noon we arrived at the small port of Katakolon on the west side of the Peloponnese; a small but busy port.

After lunch we visited Olympia which is only 30 minutes away. Our drive there was a great opportunity to experience the agricultural landscape of this part of Greece, which is lush green since it receives a lot of rain every year.

Olympia is one of the most impressive and important sanctuaries of the ancient world dedicated to Zeus. Every four years ancient Greeks from all over the world gathered at Olympia to worship Zeus. Every time Greeks got together they competed to see who would excel. These meetings required peace so that the roads leading to Olympia would be safe, hence an Olympic truce was proclaimed. The gathering of the Greeks at Olympia was important because they instituted the base of Greek ethnic conscience. The Olympic Festivals provided the opportunity for Greek people no matter where they lived to come together to remember that they were of the same stock, had the same ancestors, worshiped the same gods, spoke the same language.

We visited a beautiful place, well planted and nicely shaded. In this place we have the remains of the ancient temples. We saw the temple of Zeus which housed a statue considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the ancient stadium where the games were celebrated from 776 B.C. to 394 A.D. In that year Christianity was proclaimed as the only official religion, closing all pagan sanctuaries.

Coming back the expedition leader Tom had a nice idea to keep one bus for swimming excursion on a nearby beach that Pati had scouted out for us in the afternoon. We went to the very nice beach Agios Andreas near Katakolon from where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset swim in the Ionian Sea.

Our day was full with nice activities and ended with a beautiful Greek buffet dinner on the lido deck where among other things we had a 40 kg yellow fin tuna!

What a beautiful day we had!