Just wanted to share our experience with all of you. Last year we sailed Sporades Islands in
Greece. We started May 17 and
ports and bays were empty. We chartered a 34 foot
oceanis monohull from easysailing at easysailing.gr. It was our first
bareboat experience and there was one other
skipper besides myself, total of 4 of us. I crew during on a 30 foot
monohull during local yacht races, so had some basic
boating experience, but last year was my only real cruising skippering experience. 3 weeks later, when we finished the trip, things were getting a little more crowded, but we were fine with our monohull and always found a spot. For example there were two
boat at Koukounaries the first week, and due to a flotilla, about 13
boats there the last week we sailed. We had good enough winds there for our experience – about 10-20 knots and didn't need to
motor too much. We sailed everything between Volos and Skyros. Skyros was great, the port is set up nice and the people were really friendly. Check in in most places was a little bureaucratic taking 45 minutes of calculation for a final cost of 2.17 euros for example. We always had help on docks. It only rained once, in the evening so we didn't care. Easysailing staff were nice and complete. The
boat was well stocked with needed
equipment. The inside pane of glass broke underway one day which we were never held responsible for. I had tore a hole in the
dinghy, and had it
repair at a port, and that was fine with them as well. It was a great trip for us and I think the Sporades is a great area to sail.