Cyclades - Early June 2011

[searay1colo]

We are planning a bareboat charter to the Cyclades in early June 2011. We plan to depart from Laviron to kea, Kythnos, Sifnos, Milos, Folegrandos, Ios ending in Santorini. We will sail 2 or 3 catamarans. We are looking for suggestions regarding moorings, provisions, beaches and nightlife.

[Jacques2]

Hello,
How long will you be sailing ? Do you mean you intend to do a one way trip till Santorini ? Have you ever heard of the "Imray Pilot Guide for Greece"? Have you ever sailed in the Aegean sea ?
Sorry but I would have a lot of question in order to answer ...

[searay1colo]

We will be sailing one-way, for 7 days. Never sailed the area before, I do have a copy of the greek water pilot, which is a great book. I'm looking for tips from experienced skippers to help narrow down my options. I probably start from lavrion late afternoon and will be returning the boat early morning on the eighth day.

[Jacques2]

1, you can use the "search" engine of this forum (on the tool bar), write Cyclades and you will see there are already a lot of threads and links to blogs concerning your question.
2, IMO, in early june the Meltemi used not to blow, bur..., but, in the Aegean sea, it is always the weather forecasts that decides where you sail or not. It is a very special area... For example, you intend to sail to Folegrandos, a wonderful island indeed. The fact is the port is very very small (have a look at the scale on a map) , with the locals and 3 catamarans, it will be full ! So you will have to moor outside, that I did twice, but only in calm weather.
3, "on the paper" the trip you intend to do looks reasonable for a week, no problem for provisions or beaches (I mean easy to find when on the spot)
4, I Don't really like nightlife, so I cannot help (except that Mykonos is famoust for that..)
5, I don't know if you or your crew will appreciate, but Delos (a few NM from Mykonos) is one a the world famoust archeological site - like Delphes - (Ancient Greek - more than 400 years BC for a part of the site) in a natural maritime wonderful spot...
Enjoy it !

[swagman]

Hi Searay,
We spend June four years back cruising this same area. Sorry to say old blog for that time has lost its pictures but lots of local info on our travels might be useful.
Go to :
Swagmans Sailing Blog
Cheers
JOHN

[DoubleWhisky]

Hello Searay,

For the first time in Cyclades I would rather suggest rather the following itinerary:
1. Kea
2. Siros (Finikas) - Ermupolis, the capital of Cyclades is interesting and well worth a visit itself. The visit can be arranged by rented cars or motorbikes from Finikas (better harbour than plagued by swell Ermupolis)
3. Mykonos - a lot of nightlife, strikingly beautiful island, Delos in close proximity, can be visited in the morning.
4. Paros (Naussa) - good harbour and safe anchorage, beautiful village.
5. Amorgos (Katapola) - for me the most beautiful island in the Cyclades - really must to see.
6. Ios - good sheltered harbour, a lot of nightlife uphill.
7. Santorini

Milos is really interesting island, but You will need two days here to explore - harbour itself is rather not so attractive.
Folegandros - beautiful island, but the harbour is small and rather untenable in any wind. The wind is funelling from mountain gorge straight to the harbour making it really dangerous place to be.
Sifnos - I personally like it very much, but it has small harbour (three cats = crowd), and not sheltered from west winds You can expect in early June.

I'm cruising this area for years - if You have some more specific questions, don't hesitate to PM me.

[Joelrsails]

Due to limited anchoriges in santorini, we left the boat in ios and took a ferry to santorini. Worked out great!

[Frederik V]

Originally Posted by searay1colo

We are planning a bareboat charter to the Cyclades in early June 2011. We plan to depart from Laviron to kea, Kythnos, Sifnos, Milos, Folegrandos, Ios ending in Santorini. We will sail 2 or 3 catamarans. We are looking for suggestions regarding moorings, provisions, beaches and nightlife.

Hello, I can suggest you to go to Myconos (60 miles) on an early start. You go to the great harbour with all facilities, and plenty of nightlife. Remember it is considered as the main gay-island of Europe and many bars are "men only". On Tuesday you go to Serifos and visit the upper town (on foot, or you hire a motorcycle). On Wednesday you go to the eastside of Kythnos, Loutra where you take a bath in the hotsprings that run into the sea in the harbour (when we were there we were the only ones who enjoyed that; amazing that this is not exploited). On Thursday you go to Poros, where there is a lot of nightlife.
On Friday back to Lavrion.

Note : should you go to Kithnos on the West side, you can anchor in Fikiadha - Kithnos (take the east side - bad holding) or you can go to Vathi in the south of the island, but be carefull, don't moore on the - very inviting - pier (even if the sea is flat and no wind!), because from time to time big waves (from the oiltankers or small earthquakes, run into the bay and many boats have already been smashed against the wall (when the waves arrive, it is too late to move; it happened to us, although we were warned ...). And - if you insist to do so - stay at least at 10 meter from the pier, and have your chain tight.

PS : Naoussa on Paros is also very nice place, but the more you go south, the more difficult to go back north if the Meltemi blows (in June 2008 we had a peak of 56 knots entering Tinos from the south ... but this was really exceptional; normally you won't have a lot of wind, except in the late afternoon and around Ikaria)

I hope this was helpfull !
Enjoy your trip !

Frederik

[beneteau-500]

searay if i was planning to do the trip you are doing this is what i would do .

1/ laviron to syros finikas bay

2/ syros to sifnos

3/ sifnos to milos ( can get bumpy in port due to high speed ferries )

4/ milos to folegrandes ( now if you lose a day or two due to weather you can go to santorini from here no probs )


5/ folegrandes to Ios ( ps i dont like Ios myself )

6/ Ios to santorini

[AKMark]

Hi there. I think you might be on your trip already. We recently returned from 2 weeks sailing on a 42 FT Lagoon Cat in the same region. We had a blast, but the weather was "the worst" continuously bad weather that locals could remember. 2/3rd of the 14 days had 30+ knot winds. I had read about the meltemi winds and was thinking, man, I don't want to come back during that period. We were told later that we were out in worse winds than the normal meltemi.

We have video, pics, and lots of words on our blog at:
Greece - Roaming the Aegean Sea

In a nutshell, my advice would be:
1) Learn about Med Mooring. It can be tricky and people materialize out of nowhere and start shouting useful information as well as incorrect advice. We learned to approach the area, then pause everything while we figured out what we wanted to do, then proceed only after everyone was ready and in position.

2) Figure out how to get weather info. Our charter outfit told us to listen to the VHF for weather, but we almost never got useful info from the VHF. The main reliable source for us was the internet:
http://meteo.gr
Windfinder - wind, wave & weather reports, forecasts & statistics / webcams, satellite images, isobar maps, tides
Poseidon System

Almost every island has some way to get on the internet.

We finally got a VHF weather report once, but we couldn't figure it out because they talked fast and used the real Greek pronunciation for places and we couldn't understand it.

We had our most magical moment on Ios, which is funny because it seems to be universally disliked by cruisers. We were there before the main tourist season, though, and it was wonderful.

Santorini was gorgeous to sail thru the crater, and the marina was quite dominated by Cats because the entrance was only 1.8 meters deep. We avoided the touristy parts of the town.

We really like Folegandros, too.

We were stuck in Paros (Parikia) for 3 days by the weather, but enjoyed it as well. No room in the marina, but we anchored on the north side of the harbor. Rented ATVs and had fun cruising the island.

Hope you have a fun time!

[rivonia]

We are a catamaran currently in Ios - anchored in Milopatomas Bay. A long sandy beach with watersports. Lots of space to anchor.

Plenty of restaurants, bars and some nightlife.

Regular buses to Ios port where there is a Carrefour (Mavrinopoulos) for food but you can get basics here.

We also came via Kithnos, Serifos, Sithnos and Folegandros in the past fortnight.

Hope you have an enjoyable week!

[beneteau-500]

hello mark yes it was me and my daughter who you help moor up in Finikas hope you and your motley crew are all well and hope you all finally got the quite nite rotatation right hehehe loved your blog I have now sailed down to nth cyprus

Dale