September 2014 One Week Bareboat - Spain, Croatia, or elsewhere?

[SweetSunshine]

Tomasz is correct. I am a female! Good sleuthing skills! You both gave me a good laugh when I realized you assumed I was the man. Gordon, in your defense, probably more men plan sailing trips! I am the planner in this family, though.

I think we're sold on the Greek islands. I wish we had months to explore them. (Would it be tacky to ask our wedding guests to help us with a cruising kitty? ) I'm leaning towards the Dodecanese region but I'm a little nervous about it being too windy(25+). I can handle myself on the boat but I definitely prefer easy sailing (10-20 knots) to what my fiance terms 'exciting sailing.' (Typical woman ) The Cyclades are out, at least at this point in our sailing life. On the other hand, the Ionian Islands seem a little too tame and I worry we wouldn't have enough wind and that there would be a million tourists everywhere. We've also looked into the Saronic coast. Thoughts on what would be best for mid-late September?

[alex_sauvage]

Originally Posted by SweetSunshine

Tomasz is correct. I am a female! Good sleuthing skills! You both gave me a good laugh when I realized you assumed I was the man. Gordon, in your defense, probably more men plan sailing trips! I am the planner in this family, though.

I think we're sold on the Greek islands. I wish we had months to explore them. (Would it be tacky to ask our wedding guests to help us with a cruising kitty? ) I'm leaning towards the Dodecanese region but I'm a little nervous about it being too windy(25+). I can handle myself on the boat but I definitely prefer easy sailing (10-20 knots) to what my fiance terms 'exciting sailing.' (Typical woman ) The Cyclades are out, at least at this point in our sailing life. On the other hand, the Ionian Islands seem a little too tame and I worry we wouldn't have enough wind and that there would be a million tourists everywhere. We've also looked into the Saronic coast. Thoughts on what would be best for mid-late September?

SweetSunshine, I am glad to see that you are leaning towards Greece: I am pretty sure you will enjoy your trip. Last year, I was pretty much in the same situation as you are right now (except honeymoon I have been racing on Lake Ontario for a few years, got my ASA 104 in Florida over wintertime (BTW, did you go with Blue Bay school? My friend just came back from having course with them and loved it) and wanted to do my first barefoot charter in the Med. We looked at Croatia, but decided to go to Greece for a number of reasons: marinas and even staying at town pier can be expensive in Croatia, getting to your boat from North America more complicated and time consuming and possibility to see ancient historic cites in Greece. We decided to sail in Saronic/Argolic Gulfs: sailing is great, winds are reasonable if you go in Sep as we did (chances to get Meltemi in Sep in Saronic Gulf pretty low and you are still close to Athens , so you can easily motor in the worse case) and logistics are simple (you can get direct flight to Athens, take a city bus and in 45 minutes you are at your boat. PM me if you have any specific questions. And check "Sailing Issuess| website: I found it very useful and the owner helped me to find a charter company/boat that we were very happy with.

[DoubleWhisky]

I'm all for Dodecanese - for the honeymoon only the best will do, and the Dodecanese is one of most beautiful and rewarding parts of Greece.
You can arrange the flights with United, Air Canada or Lufthansa. They are StarAlliance member, and Aegean Airlines, serving - between other destinations - the islands of Dodecanese is also the member of StarAlliance.
OneWorld Alliance airlines are also serving the Dodecanese, so British Airways can cater for You with the plane swap in London, I suppose.

Anyway - I sent You PM

All the best

Tomasz

[sansarea]

Hi, Croatia is lovely in September, the weather is great and it is not too crowded.
I have a Beneteau 331 , maybe just right for a young couple. When I am not on the boat I let a charter company rent it out for me.
If you are interested, let me know. I can give you some other information about sailing in Croatia, weather, marinas, good anchorage places, restaurants etc.
Regards
Sanya

[Prairie Chicken]

Very long ago, as a wedding present, we were given a week in the Canadian Gulf Islands on our friends' 31' sailboat. I'd never sailed before. We had wonderful weather that week, and I loved it. I would not have been so enamoured if I'd been cold & wet.

I've often wondered what our lives would have been like if it had been cool & rainy that week....

[athene]

Interestingly, we've actually cruised all three areas of Greece in September (Dodecanese, Ionian and Saronic Gulf) and they all have their charms. It really depends on how much sailing you want to do as against beach-hopping or exploring on land.

Don't think the Ionian is too tame, by the way. We had wind strengths on our sailing days during the last two weeks of September ranging from 10 to 28 knots in 2011, from 8 to 25 knots in 2012 and 6 to 22 knots last year. July and August have a lot of calm days but not September. Also, as long as you avoid Kerkyra (Corfu) it's not over-run with tourists at that time of year.

Finally, though, do bear in mind that Greece is not a very well-organised destination in terms of harbours and mooring facilities. In most harbours you will need to do an anchor moor, which is an acquired skill - especially with any wind. In Croatia, on the other hand, everything is much better organised (some would say too organised). I like to think of Croatia as Greece would be if run by the Swiss ...

Anyway, your decision. You obviously wear the trousers, as I now know ...

GORDON

[SweetSunshine]

Hi all,

Just wanted to give a quick update on how the honeysail went! After looking at all our options, we settled on Greece. We spent five nights on Santorini, relaxing after the busiest week of our lives, before flying up to Athens to charter in the Saronic gulf.

Per a recommendation on this forum, we reached out to Diederik of Sailing Issues (Yacht charter Greece and sailing holidays Greece and Turkey - Marine navigation - Yacht charters Greek islands and Turkish coasts) for chartering recommendations. He helped us choose a 34 foot Beneteau Oceanis (2010) from Sailing Blue. We were originally scheduled to depart and return from Lavrion, but the day we got there we ended up changing it to departing from Lavrion and sailing back into Athens (which worked out very nicely for us, since we were staying in Athens for a couple days after our charter). The people from Sailing Blue were helpful and always responsive, and the boat was in very good condition.

A quick overview of the trip: We left Lavrion and sailed for two hours to the Temple of Poseidon, where we had a beautiful anchorage (although a bit nerve wracking, as we hadn't anchored with so many other boats before!). The next day, we figured out how to use the dinghy (so much fun!) and went to shore to climb to the temple and make an offering to the sea god. I think he was happy with us, because we had great weather the whole trip. We then made our biggest leg of the trip, across the Saronic gulf to Hydra. The wind was a bit light so we alternated between sailing and motoring. Hydra's port was very crowded and very very small, so we chose to anchor two spots nearby instead. One of the locations, just west of Hydra, was listed on the guide as a good anchorage, but the traffic going by all the time made it quite uncomfortable. We then went up to Poros, a beautiful little sailing town, where we performed our first Mediterranean mooring! As luck would have it, the winds were picking up, it was a fairly crowded harbor, and everyone watched as we dropped anchor and proceeded to back up until we ran out of chain five feet from the dock! We bashfully pulled up anchor to retry when the windlass stopped working halfway through. Luckily, my very thoughtful husband had asked where the breakers were (and extra fuses) when we had gotten checked out, as suggested by our racing captain back home. He fixed it within five minutes while I made sure the boat didn't hit anything! After that, we finally completed the Mediterranean mooring and relaxed with some well-deserved sun downers. The next day, we had a great time sailing up to Aegina, where we anchored in a protected cove on the southwest side of the island, snorkeling and reading in the sunshine. The next day, we sailed around the island from south to east to north, to look for an anchorage up there, but we couldn't find anything that felt safe so we doubled back and ended up in Agia Marina at anchor. When we woke up the next morning, all the electronics weren't working. After ten minutes of quiet panic, I suggested that we check the battery switches; turns out my husband had turned them off the day before and forgot to turn them back on! (He claims he hit them in the middle of the night, haha.) We then had a beautiful sail up to Athens (until we hit the ugliness that is the Athens coastline). Since we hadn't sailed out of the marina we were sailing back in to, we were a bit concerned going in and the docks weren't clearly marked so we had to move two times after docking! (We needed the Mediterrean mooring practice though, so it ended up working out for the best).

This was our first trip in a boat of that size by ourselves, and it was amazing. We learned about the dinghy, AUTOPILOT (an amazing feature), more about anchoring, and a little bit of the cruising life. We both walked away happy, a bit more confident, and even more committed to making sailing a life style someday. Thank you all for your help and suggestions! We're hoping to go back and sail the Dodecanese for our 5th wedding anniversary! (And hit Bali someday when we sail the world!)

[Prairie Chicken]

Thanks for the update SSunhine. I'm so happy you had a great time. Unfortunately, now you've had a taste of the lifestyle, you will likely spend the rest of your life saving up for boat, boat bits, boat vacations, etc.