The Greek economy may be on the brink of collapse, but the doom and gloom isn't affecting the islands - its outdoor restaurants are packed, bars are pumping and marinas are crowded with schmick-looking yachts.
Obviously, the crisis hasn't kept the tourists away - among the Italians, French and Americans was a healthy contingent of Greeks. Were they escaping crisis-hit Athens to forget about their troubles for a while, or were they the unaffected ones, the non-tax payers with fortunes squirreled away in offshore accounts?
To explore the Greek Islands, we took a 7-day sailing trip on a 50-foot yacht, run by upstart sailing tour company Med Sailors. The group began offering skippered yacht tours in Croatia just last year, and expanded their offering to include Greece this summer.
Travelling in a flotilla of three yachts, with 8-10 people plus a skipper on our boat, we set sail from a marina in Athens. We explored a set of islands in the Saronic gulf, reaching westwards from Athens around to Corinth and down the coast of the Peloponnese - the big hand-shaped peninsula that dangles off the Greek mainland.
Finding Marina Kalamaki, the mooring for the Med Sailors yachts, wasn't easy. But it's probably because we forgot to print off the PDF instructions showing the exact address. The Med Sailors website said the tour left from the Athenian port of Pireaus. We took a taxi there, but it turned out to be a hub for enormous cruise ships, with over 50 separate bays.
Eventually we tracked down Kalamaki, a few kilometres to the south. Finding the exact co-ordinates of the yacht among the hundreds of masts looked impossible - until our friend Ryan, known for his thorough, boy scout-style packing skills, pulled out a pair of binoculars and located the Med Sailors flag hanging off a mast.
Ryan quickly established his credentials as the group's drunk and disorderly sailor. His first question in the group briefing related to the amount of esky space available for beer. Keen to live up to his new-found reputation, he hit the supermarket, eagerly loading up on cases of Mythos, our Greek beer of choice.
Setting sail, we got to know the rest of our group of 8 plus our skipper, Christophe. Aside from us three Aussies, there was British couple Andy and Nat, Sarah, another Brit, Judy, a Kiwi and some other guy who needn't be part of this story. We were on the water for less than three hours when a freak storm blew in - we were just about to dive in the water for our first swim, when the sky turned orange and everything started flapping violently.
At this point we were just about to drop anchor at Perdika on the island of Aigina, but the sea was too rough so we took shelter behind a nearby rocky escarpment. The storm passed, but the skippers were reluctant to stop there for the night, so we continued sailing with the wind behind us until it got dark. We stopped at the town of Methana, a settlement on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a strip of land. It had a nice waterfront strip with rows of tables and chairs, but was an otherwise unremarkable place.
The storm slightly messed up our itinerary for the week, as we weren't supposed to stop at Methana until the way back to Athens, but the Med Sailors crew handled the change of plan smoothly. We didn't really care where we stopped and when, as long there was time to do a little sailing and stop to swim and refill the Mythos esky.
After the freak storm, the weather totally cleared up, and it was all blue skies and plenty of sun. The next morning we attempted sailing - only to discover that the main sail wouldn't unravel properly after being broken by the additional crew member not mentioned in this story. We made do with the jib, or sail at the front of the boat, meaning we fell significantly behind the two other yachts.
This didn't seem to ruffle the feathers our beloved skipper, Chistophe. In fact he seemed relieved when we didn't follow the other boats too closely, and did our own thing. Christophe's renegade vibe was contagious, and soon everyone wanted to moor away from the other boats, and trashed talked the other crews (who were pretty boring groups of 30-somethings anyway).
We quickly established ourselves as the wild boat, naming our yacht "Mythos III". Ryan, often accompanied by Andy and Adam, got the party started early in the day. Once Mythos Time was declared, it was all over. Ryan decided it was his personal mission to get Christophe as wasted as possible - everytime Ryan said "What time is it?" Christophe would have to answer "Mythos time!"
The second night we moored in a marina in the town of Poros, the largest settlement on the island of the same name. Poros, with its collection of white buildings and terra-cotta rooftops lining a hilltop, had a lot of character. At the top was a beautiful watch-tower, offering stunning views of the surrounding islands and mainland.
The next day it was back on the boat for another attempt to pull out the main sail, which fortunately unravelled this time following the expert touch of Christophe. Only a couple of people had really helped with the sailing at this point, whereas others were either permanently drunk or just content to sunbathe and read at the front of the yacht.
At Poros we had stocked up on pool noodles, investing in one for each person on board. Stopping for a swim, we began a trend of elaborate jumps and dives off the boat, and lounging in the water wrapped up in pool noodles, beer in hand and sunglasses on heads. By the end of the week, we had honed these activities to a fine art!
The next day it was a short hop to Ermioni, a little peninsula on the mainland with a marina on one side and cliffside bars and swimming spots on the other. After sunset, we feasted at a restaurant on a pier by the marina that describes itself as "the oldest restaurant in the Saronic gulf." It was easily the best Greek meal I've ever eaten - it may as well bill itself as the "Best restaurant in the Saronic gulf."
After devouring a series of mouth-watering entrees, including plump vine leaf rolls, creamy taramosalata, greek sausage and tender calamari, we were pretty stuffed but our mains were already on the way. Crispy pizzas from the restaurant's woodfired pizzas were delicious, but the lamb Kleftiko that Adam and I shared was simply outstanding. Served in a clay pot with a shank bone poking out, the supple, tender meat was encased in a rich stew and topped with stringy, melty saganaki cheese.
We retired to the boat for drinks and card games. Judy introduced us to an amped-up verson of Snap where there were an array of excuses to slap down on the cards - someone deals a queen, etc. The result was slightly violent - a pile of hands crashing down on the cards every few seconds. The game was abandoned after the first round, on the consensus that it was too stressful!
The next morning we sailed further south, arriving at the hilly island of Hydra in the mid-afternoon. Unlike many islands that are visited by car ferries and have roads and buses and trucks, Hydra has two modes of transport - scooters and donkeys. A series of cobblestoned footpaths connects its quaint town, rising up the hill from the main square in front of the marina.
Up the hill and further around was a spot, aptly named "Sunset bar", offering panoramic views westwards across to the Peleponnese mainland. We ordered cocktails and sat around, waiting for the heavy humid air to dissipate and the sun to set. Afterwards we ate at a restaurant tucked away on a little lane behind the main square. It was set in a charming vine-covered courtyard, and we got a few laughs from the translations - Coq au Vin was Cock in Wine and there was also a Lamp in Lemon Sauce.
Unfortunately, our fun angered the waitress, who maybe thought that we were laughing at her expense for some reason. Things became a little awkward at the end of the meal when she told us all that we had been complete smart-asses for the duration of our visit, even though we were just having fun.
The following morning we travelled northwards, returning to the village of Perdika where we had been unable to moor on the first day. I really enjoyed this leg of the trip as nearly everyone got involved in helping to sail the yacht. Christophe showed us how to tack - move the jib sail from one side to the other to catch the wind, use the navigation equipment and steer the yacht. We had competitions to see who could achieve the highest speed while at the helm - Adam held the record of 9.5 knots.
There was no space at the Perdika marina, so the three yachts anchored together in the bay and we took the dinghy into town. By this point in the trip we had gelled into a pretty cohesive unit, and we had an amusing dinner at a waterfront restaurant which consisted mainly of a series of drunken toasts to various things. "to Christophe the Great!" everyone cried, smashing our glasses together. The other, boring crews looked on aghast - we had firmly cemented our reputation as the noisy, drunken sailors.
Our final stop was Aigina, a little further around the island from Perdika. The weather had been heating up towards the end of the week, so we sought refuge in an air-conditioned bar. I had not really planned on drinking but felt compelled to as the cocktails were priced about the same as a fruit smoothie.
One strawberry mojito turned into several, and by the time I knew it, Ryan was ordering rounds of Jagers and it was only 4pm! The bar, instead of kicking us out, sent out free Kamikaze cocktails with multiple straws for us to share. We then placed a bulk order of pork and chicken Gyros for a sunset feast to mop up the alcohol.
That night, most of us slept in a hotel on dry land to escape the heat. The cosy cabins of the yacht were pretty stuffy and airless at night, especially if you were a couple! The next morning we motored back to Athens, stopping for one last nostalgic pool-noodle-and-sunglasses swim before arriving back at the marina.
Obviously, the crisis hasn't kept the tourists away - among the Italians, French and Americans was a healthy contingent of Greeks. Were they escaping crisis-hit Athens to forget about their troubles for a while, or were they the unaffected ones, the non-tax payers with fortunes squirreled away in offshore accounts?
To explore the Greek Islands, we took a 7-day sailing trip on a 50-foot yacht, run by upstart sailing tour company Med Sailors. The group began offering skippered yacht tours in Croatia just last year, and expanded their offering to include Greece this summer.Travelling in a flotilla of three yachts, with 8-10 people plus a skipper on our boat, we set sail from a marina in Athens. We explored a set of islands in the Saronic gulf, reaching westwards from Athens around to Corinth and down the coast of the Peloponnese - the big hand-shaped peninsula that dangles off the Greek mainland.
Finding Marina Kalamaki, the mooring for the Med Sailors yachts, wasn't easy. But it's probably because we forgot to print off the PDF instructions showing the exact address. The Med Sailors website said the tour left from the Athenian port of Pireaus. We took a taxi there, but it turned out to be a hub for enormous cruise ships, with over 50 separate bays.
Eventually we tracked down Kalamaki, a few kilometres to the south. Finding the exact co-ordinates of the yacht among the hundreds of masts looked impossible - until our friend Ryan, known for his thorough, boy scout-style packing skills, pulled out a pair of binoculars and located the Med Sailors flag hanging off a mast.
 |
| Storm brewing |
Setting sail, we got to know the rest of our group of 8 plus our skipper, Christophe. Aside from us three Aussies, there was British couple Andy and Nat, Sarah, another Brit, Judy, a Kiwi and some other guy who needn't be part of this story. We were on the water for less than three hours when a freak storm blew in - we were just about to dive in the water for our first swim, when the sky turned orange and everything started flapping violently.
At this point we were just about to drop anchor at Perdika on the island of Aigina, but the sea was too rough so we took shelter behind a nearby rocky escarpment. The storm passed, but the skippers were reluctant to stop there for the night, so we continued sailing with the wind behind us until it got dark. We stopped at the town of Methana, a settlement on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a strip of land. It had a nice waterfront strip with rows of tables and chairs, but was an otherwise unremarkable place.
The storm slightly messed up our itinerary for the week, as we weren't supposed to stop at Methana until the way back to Athens, but the Med Sailors crew handled the change of plan smoothly. We didn't really care where we stopped and when, as long there was time to do a little sailing and stop to swim and refill the Mythos esky.
 |
| Christophe hoists the Australian flag |
This didn't seem to ruffle the feathers our beloved skipper, Chistophe. In fact he seemed relieved when we didn't follow the other boats too closely, and did our own thing. Christophe's renegade vibe was contagious, and soon everyone wanted to moor away from the other boats, and trashed talked the other crews (who were pretty boring groups of 30-somethings anyway).
We quickly established ourselves as the wild boat, naming our yacht "Mythos III". Ryan, often accompanied by Andy and Adam, got the party started early in the day. Once Mythos Time was declared, it was all over. Ryan decided it was his personal mission to get Christophe as wasted as possible - everytime Ryan said "What time is it?" Christophe would have to answer "Mythos time!"
The second night we moored in a marina in the town of Poros, the largest settlement on the island of the same name. Poros, with its collection of white buildings and terra-cotta rooftops lining a hilltop, had a lot of character. At the top was a beautiful watch-tower, offering stunning views of the surrounding islands and mainland.
 |
| Idyllic Poros |
At Poros we had stocked up on pool noodles, investing in one for each person on board. Stopping for a swim, we began a trend of elaborate jumps and dives off the boat, and lounging in the water wrapped up in pool noodles, beer in hand and sunglasses on heads. By the end of the week, we had honed these activities to a fine art!
The next day it was a short hop to Ermioni, a little peninsula on the mainland with a marina on one side and cliffside bars and swimming spots on the other. After sunset, we feasted at a restaurant on a pier by the marina that describes itself as "the oldest restaurant in the Saronic gulf." It was easily the best Greek meal I've ever eaten - it may as well bill itself as the "Best restaurant in the Saronic gulf."
 |
| Best Greek meal in the Saronic gulf |
We retired to the boat for drinks and card games. Judy introduced us to an amped-up verson of Snap where there were an array of excuses to slap down on the cards - someone deals a queen, etc. The result was slightly violent - a pile of hands crashing down on the cards every few seconds. The game was abandoned after the first round, on the consensus that it was too stressful!
 |
| Hydra |
Up the hill and further around was a spot, aptly named "Sunset bar", offering panoramic views westwards across to the Peleponnese mainland. We ordered cocktails and sat around, waiting for the heavy humid air to dissipate and the sun to set. Afterwards we ate at a restaurant tucked away on a little lane behind the main square. It was set in a charming vine-covered courtyard, and we got a few laughs from the translations - Coq au Vin was Cock in Wine and there was also a Lamp in Lemon Sauce.
Unfortunately, our fun angered the waitress, who maybe thought that we were laughing at her expense for some reason. Things became a little awkward at the end of the meal when she told us all that we had been complete smart-asses for the duration of our visit, even though we were just having fun.
 |
| View from Hydra's Sunset Bar |
There was no space at the Perdika marina, so the three yachts anchored together in the bay and we took the dinghy into town. By this point in the trip we had gelled into a pretty cohesive unit, and we had an amusing dinner at a waterfront restaurant which consisted mainly of a series of drunken toasts to various things. "to Christophe the Great!" everyone cried, smashing our glasses together. The other, boring crews looked on aghast - we had firmly cemented our reputation as the noisy, drunken sailors.
 |
| It's Jager time! |
One strawberry mojito turned into several, and by the time I knew it, Ryan was ordering rounds of Jagers and it was only 4pm! The bar, instead of kicking us out, sent out free Kamikaze cocktails with multiple straws for us to share. We then placed a bulk order of pork and chicken Gyros for a sunset feast to mop up the alcohol.
That night, most of us slept in a hotel on dry land to escape the heat. The cosy cabins of the yacht were pretty stuffy and airless at night, especially if you were a couple! The next morning we motored back to Athens, stopping for one last nostalgic pool-noodle-and-sunglasses swim before arriving back at the marina.
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| Mythos III crew |
Seriously though, I enjoyed reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteHow can i know more about the Greek Islands ?
Sailing Greek Islands | Athens boat charter