Greek Sailing- Mykonos to Athens

[mattpaduch]

Im looking at doing an 8 day trip from mykonos to athens in august and have a few questions:
- Are there many swimming and snorkelling opportunities? Will we be pulling into secluded beaches and have time for a swim or is it predominantly pulling into port and doing land based activities?
- Do we stay overnight in ports, or will we be pulling up anchor at particular places/beaches?
- The greek islands is famous for its beauty including crystal clear waters and coastline- is this likely to be the same on the mykonos to athens trip or is this more likely to be experienced around santorini and kos? i.e. do you experience better scenery on the other trips which focus more on the islands?

Thanks

[ExplorerWannaBe]

I went the opposite direction but the trip should essentially be the same.

1. Lots of opportunity to swim, not so much for snorkeling. I got some scuba in at Kythnos -- there may be snorkeling as well, you can do an Internet search on Kythnos and find out. We did snorkel in Sounion Bay -- very nice reef area and beautiful swimming conditions. You will generally pull into a port and it's up to you what you want to do -- you can generally rent cars (take your driver's license) or scooters (need a motorcycle license for these) and run over the islands including taking stops at beaches. Departure and arrival times are dependent on your skipper and fellow crew members. Our skipper liked to get up before dawn and get going so we'd generally pull into port right after lunch and have a lengthy afternoon to explore but other skippers or crew like to sleep to mid-morning so wouldn't arrive into port until 4 PM or later. I prefer the former schedule but it can be somewhat moot since the Greeks usually take siesta in the afternoon.

2. You generally anchor in ports. The one exception was that we chose to overnight at Sounion Bay so we could hike and see the sunset from the Temple of Poseidon.

3. All three legs from Athens to Kos have plenty of crystal clear waters and beautiful coastline. The scenery isn't any better on one leg than another, just different. The Mykonos-Athens trip focuses just as much on the islands as the other legs -- in fact, you may have a better shot at seeing more islands on that leg since you're in more protected waters. On the Mykonos-Santorini trip we had to lay over at Naxos for 3 days due to meltimi winds and on the Santorini-Kos trip we laid over at a smaller island, again for 3 days. On the Athens-Mykonos run, we hit a different island every day except for the day we spent at Sounion Bay. I especially liked Syros for the different views.

[cynthiac]

@mattpaduch if you need any assistance in searching for availability or the booking process, please don't hesitate to contact me - jenniferl@gap.ca

[elodie]

Hello
I have a question about all these sailing trips in Greece. Is the boat a true sailing boat, going with the wind, not with the engine? Thanks for answer.
Elodie

[ExplorerWannaBe]

elodie, the vessel is a 50-ft sailing yacht so yes, it's a true sailing vessel. How much you're able to use the sails versus the engine depends on whether you get good winds or not. We had a number of days when we had to use the engine but we had a few truly awesome sailing days.

[kittykat416]

Hello
I have a question about all these sailing trips in Greece. Is the boat a true sailing boat, going with the wind, not with the engine? Thanks for answer.
Elodie

I did the 10 day Santorini loop cruise in Sept 2010, and if I recall, we used the engine at least 50% of the time.