Charter in Greece, Tahiti , or somewhere else?

[capnmatt]

We are trying to plan a charter for next June and are thinking either Greece or Tahiti might be good options - subject to COVID restrictions of course. We have chartered many times throughout the Caribbean and want to move on to a new location rather than revisiting the same islands over and over again. I am a fine sailor in most regards, but the stress of consistently med-mooring in tight spaces and dealing challenging anchoring conditions are two things I'd prefer to minimize to a degree while on charter. Would be myself, my wife, 16 y/o daughter, 14 y/o daughter, and possibly my 20 y/o son and his girlfriend. We typically like a mix of nice beaches mixed in with some restaurants/bars and shopping opportunities. Our favorite two islands that we've been to in the Caribbean are Barbuda and St. Barths, so you can see we tend to like the two extremes.

Experiencing the Greek culture sounds appealing as we've never been to Europe. That said, we do plan to purchase a boat in retirement and we'd be more likely to sail the Med than the South Pacific on our own boat, so it might be our only opportunity to charter in Tahiti. On the other hand, if sailing Tahiti is just like sailing any other tropical island then it may be kind of a "been-there-seen-that" type of deal. Being on the west coast, Tahiti and Greece are both about the same in terms of travel-time for us. I think Tahiti has stricter entry requirements at this time, but nine months from now who knows? Looking for input to those two locations in terms of what they offer as well as challenges we may encounter. Also open to other suggestions besides the two listed above. Any thoughts?

Thanks and much appreciated!

edit: I should add that we are looking to do a 2-3 week charter

[Joh.Ghurt]

If you don't want to moor with the anchor, consider Croatia. There you usually have mooring lines attached to the ground you can retrieve from land. This is in my opinion one of the best cruising grounds in Europe, good quality charter fleets (consider chartering with a German or Austrian company eg Pitter) and very good infrastructure.

If you charter in Croatia, it's more fun if you go with a monohull. Catamarans aren't that common in Europe.

You'll need however some kind of certificate of competence (ICC, RYA, some ASA etc) to charter. Better write them beforehand what you need.

[capnmatt]

Thanks for the reply. Croatia is on the list of considerations as well. My business partner has a boat and is sailing Croatia right now - and was in Greece prior to Croatia. I'll chat with him about the two when he returns. On the surface I think we are drawn to the culture and history of Greece, but I've heard great things about Croatia as well.




To clarify, I don't mind anchoring - I just don't really want to deal with overly challenging anchoring while on charter. Things like rocky areas, very deep water, excessive exposure to wind and swell, etc... I'll save those challenges for when we have our own boat. However, as long the majority of anchoring on charter has good holding and is not overly crowded I would be fine. That said, Med-mooring is quite intimidating to me. I've done it one time in the Carribbean and it didn't go extremely well, though we did eventually get situated and didn't do any damage so I guess it was kind of a success. Once again, it is something we'll have to get very competent at when we have our own boat, but not something I want to regularly deal with while on charter.


Also, we are cat sailors and will definitely be looking to charter a catamaran. Guess we'll just have to take what we can get in that regard.


Finally, both my wife and myself are ASA certified through bareboat and I have my multihull as well as coastal nav endorsements as well. It was a long time ago that we got those so not sure of the relevance, but we've chartered regularly since to keep up our skills. I assume ASA is sufficient to charter in most countries that require certification?


Thanks!

[jordanbigel]

Originally Posted by capnmatt

On the other hand, if sailing Tahiti is just like sailing any other tropical island then it may be kind of a "been-there-seen-that" type of deal.

No. It is not that kind of deal.

Having sailed in both the Caribbean and S. Pacific extensively (but not in the Med) I can say without any hesitation that Tahiti & Society Islands are different, and yes, better then the Caribbean - trust me, you have not been there seen that if you've been to the Caribbean.

Tahiti itself is nice, I didn't know they did bareboat charters out of Tahiti, but they used to do them out of Raiatea, and I would recommend that over Tahiti any day, but even if you end up in Tahiti, it will be worth the trip and guaranteed to be something completely different. But Raiatea (and Ta'ha, sister island) are amazing, as is Huahine.

[goboatingnow]

I would recommend Greece over Croatia. Croatia has become very expensive , Greece remains reasonable

As for catamarans. They are like their Greek cats. They are all over the place. Taking up space. Bah

Charters have loads of cats here on their books