In early May the Bareboat team paid a visit to Greece. We checked out Alimos Marina in Athens, Korfos, our new Sailing Holidays base in the Saronics and had a fantastic sail in the south Ionian, while of course taking in olive groves along the way!! Over the next few blogs you will be able to experience what we did! Enjoy!

Wednesday, 21st May - Arrival in Athens

On arrival at Athens airport we head out and jump into the rental car we have booked to take us part way on this trip. The journey time to Alimos Marina is 30 minutes, so it's a quick and easy transfer. It's dark when we arrive, but the marina is well lit and extremely easy to find your way around. At Alimos Marina as well as the usual facilities there are some restaurants and also a hotel, so if you were to arrive early it's very easy to find somewhere to relax. However if you fancy venturing out on your first night it's well placed to go and eat at a local taverna. It’s interesting to note that we went to eat at a local taverna just before midnight and it was still open (as was Pizza Hut!). We got stuck into some tzatziki and stuffed tomatoes - delicious!

As good yachties should, we stayed on a yacht in the marina that night.

Thursday, 22nd May - Alimos Marina, Athens

We wake up to bright sunshine, blue skies and the wonderful sight of lots of boats! There are shower and toilet facilities at Alimos Marina, so we head over to the shower blocks and get ready for the day ahead. By now we're all absolutely starving so head on over to Di Noches, a cafe at the end of Pier 6 and have breakfast in the sun! Highly recommend the omelette....massive and a good choice of fillings! Alimos Marina has a range of places to eat and drink, so you won’t go hungry!

After breakfast business begins, so we head over to meet with our first yacht charter company. There are basically three broad meetings we have; firstly with the Base Manager to discuss the maintenance and service schedules of the yachts; secondly to physically look over the yachts themselves; and finally to meet with the office staff to discuss transfers in particular, but also boring stuff like accounts. Firstly it’s off to talk with Nikos Vlachakis, the base manager at Alimos Marina for our partner Kiriacoulis. The Kiriacoulis office is easy to find, just opposite Pier 2. Once there we have a meeting with Nikos where we go over a few of the important service elements of their bareboat operation. These included going over the check-in process, the maintenance schedules and the on-the-water service facility.

After this meeting we’re off to look over the yachts. This is a hugely important part of the process as it gives us the opportunity to see the actually state of the yachts being chartered to our clients. Part of the Bareboat Sailing Holidays team is Alistair Moore, he’s a yacht surveyor with tremendous sailing experience including being Head Engineer on the late Sir Peter Blake’s Seamaster, a base manager for various round the world yachting campaigns, a Swedish match racer as well as a man who just loves to sail! Alistair’s job is to lead the inspection of the yachts so we can get a really good feel for what yachts we like, and those we don’t. Even within a single companies fleet may be yachts that we will and will not charter to our clients, particularly with the 3-5 year old yachts.

Over the next three hours we looked over approximately 12 different yachts, across the make, age and size spectrum. We do try to focus on the older yachts, as they are the least likely to be at a standard that we are comfortable with. Of particular interest are the state of the sails and rigging, overall wear and tear and the condition of the engine (particularly the engine bay bilge, oil level and quality, water levels and belt condition). Generally the yachts are very good, though there are certainly a number of yachts that we won’t be recommending to our clients.

After checking out the yachts and having another chat with Nikos we head over to meet the girls at the head office. It's great to put names to faces and also gives us the chance to talk face to face. It’s important for us to focus on these relationships as we are the voice for our clients and people do tend to respond better when they know who you are! We discuss transfers, invoices and other administrative detail…

After a busy day we head back to the boat to get changed ready to head out to Glyfada, an area that we recommend our clients visit on their first or last night. We get in our Italian motor (Fiat Punto - but sounds impressive as an Italian motor) and drive to Glyfada, which is only 15 minutes away. Around the main area there are lots of restaurants and bars to take your pick from. So we have a wander around soaking up the atmosphere and delicious smells, before hunger gets the better of us and we head into a restaurant and get stuck into more tzatziki. After checking out a few of the local bars we head back in the Italian motor to the marina. This is the last night on the boat at the marina before we begin our trip to Lefkas town, swinging by the Saronics on our way.

May 23rd – The Saronic Islands

First thing the next morning we meet with Lila from Nomicos Yachting to go over a few things. Of course we’re all hungry again, so we head over to Di Noches for breakfast with Lila. Again it’s important to keep the relationships with the yacht owners strong as it helps to avoid problems further down the track.

The sun is shining and the sky is blue, and we have to get into a car....We’d much rather be out at sea, but unfortunately the plan is to drive the coast around the Saronic Gulf region so we can get a good feel for the bays and ports our clients may visit on their holiday.  So the Italian motor is humming and we cruise on out of Athens. On our way there we stop by the Corinth Canal, which is amazing. The colour of the canal is an azure blue and truly breathtaking. While on the bridge over the Corinth Canal we see a boat coming through beneath us, when I say beneath I mean a long way down! Have a look at some of the photos to the right…

After checking out the Corinth Canal we head to the small port of Korfos. Here we visit Gianni, a small taverna owner who coincidentally flying our flags! We stop for a few photo opportunities and generally take in the atmosphere. Over the hill we visit Old Epidavros, and to our amusement see a number of Sailing Holidays boats mooring up! It's the guys from our Saronic flotilla who have made the three week sail down from Corfu. The lead crew (Ewan, Nick and Alex) are as surprised to see us as we are them... All the boats begin to come into port and everyone has a big smile plastered on their face. We have caught them midway through their flotilla and everyone is enjoying themselves and getting into the sailing way of life.

We bid our good byes to the crews; we'll be catching up with them on Monday at their base in Korfos for turnaround day. We hop in the car and continue our journey over the hill to Old Epidavros and then down around the coast to see the islands of Poros, Hydra and Septeses.

Finally, around mid-evening we arrive at Nafplion, which was the capital of Greece in the 1800s. It's a gorgeous port side town and has a magical quality about it. With nowhere to stay we spy a travel agent, who is able to get us a bed for the night in a B&B in the centre of town. The streets here are full of hustle and bustle, and in true Mediterranean style it doesn’t get busy until later. It's a great place to people watch, as the restaurants have seating outside and often keep adding tables as the night goes on! Yachts are able to moor up along the town quay right out in front of town.

May 24th - The day of the big drive to Lefkas Town

It's an early start for us from Nafplion, as we need to get going towards Lefkas Town. The car comes purring (or is it more wheezing!) along with Alistair behind the wheel. It's another glorious day, the sun is out and the skies are blue with no signs of clouds! You can't get better than this!

Anyone who has driven or been driven in Greece knows that they can have, what you might call an entertaining way of driving! We experienced it, and by the end Tim was a good 'Greek' driver, so we did really feel like one the locals!

Our journey towards Lefkas took us along the Gulf of Corinth to Patra, where you can choose to cross via the ferry or the bridge. We chose the bridge, an amazing piece of work....so much so that I actually filmed it! From Patra you can see the Gulf of Patras, which is a branch of the Ionian Sea. We have had several clients actually sail from the Ionian to Athens so it’s good to see this area.

Around midday we arrive at Lefkas Marina and met with Kiriacoulis. The marina is quite large and modern, again nice and easy to find where you need to be. We are delivering a 46ft Bavaria today to Sivota, where one of our clients is to pick it up. It's a brand new boat, literally, so I have a suspicion that the family on flotilla will be pleased!We meet up with the shore crew in Lefkas marina, which gives us the opportunity to go through the checking-in process that our clients undertake for every charter.

We also have a good look over the yachts based in Lefkas marina (going through the same process we went through in Athens) and also head to town to survey the different supermarkets, cash machines and cafes.

Our sail down to Sivota is fantastic! There is some good wind (up to 20 knots), and you guessed it the sun is shining and the skies are blue! We have another 'can't believe our eyes moment' when on our sail across to Sivota we spy a Sailing Holidays lead crew boat....and it's Emma, Nick and Ewan. Emma works in the office over the winter and certainly wasn’t prepared to see us bearing down on her in a big 46 footer! Sailing toward them we can see somewhat bemused looks on their faces, until they realise who it is… We arrange to see them at Sivota and head off again into the blue yonder to take photos of some of the bays and boats in our vicinity. While we’ve been here before it’s good to refresh ourselves on the sailing area.

We arrive with smiles all round, Sivota is the spiritual home of our big sister company Sailing Holidays. It's starting to get busy when we arrive, as it's turnaround for some of the flotillas tomorrow. We meet up with Emma and the guys and head out for dinner. It's a great atmosphere, as the guys who are shore based are there as well.

May 25th - Sivota, Lefkas Island

Today we wake up and the yacht is moving!! Actually moving, but it's all ok as it’s just the shore based crew moving the Bavaria across the other side of the quay ready for its flotilla.

There's an air of excitement and energy today, as it is turnaround day! All the boats are being checked by the engineers, being cleaned, being prepared.. it really is all go! We are more observers today, it's good to see what happens on turnaround. Something you can't sometimes appreciate when you're back in London.

The time has arrived and the clients are here! We see them all being shown to their boats and the lead crew introducing themselves. Its great to see, everyone looks happy and are quick to get into the holiday spirit. The lead crews do their briefings on the boats, one by one. There are some clients who are joining midway through a 2 week flotilla, so they have their briefing then its time for them to sail! The rest of the guys who have come down today will have tonight in Sivota then will be setting sail tomorrow.

It's a quiet night tonight, we catch up with Nick from the Sailing Holidays Corfu base and take it easy. Tomorrow we have to drive up from Lefkas to Korfos to meet up with Saronics lead crew.

May 26th - Turnaround day in Korfos

Wake up feeling refreshed and pleased to see that yes it is still sunny! Today is going to be a hot one...kind of grateful for the air conditioning!

After getting a lift to Lefkas marina we pick up the car to begin the journey. We have chosen a different route to get back to Patra, taking the slower but more scenic route. Turning right out of Vonitsa onto the coastal road I think we have chosen well. The Ionian is beautiful, and looking out of the water is second only to actually sailing among the Islands. Every which way there are great photo opportunities, and Tim with his super duper camera manages to capture them (Tim: with various degrees of success!).

We arrive in Korfos and scoot down to see the guys, they are in the middle of the preparation for the clients. Everything is running smoothly, which is always a good sign.

At 9pm we head down to the base where the clients will be arriving. Everything is in order and Ewan, Alex and Nick are itching to start their next flotilla. What Alex does not know is that her parents are coming out to surprise her! The usual details have been kept away from her by Ewan and Nick, so when they get off the coach she is completely surprised! It's great to see and she can't quite believe it.....she keeps asking the guys how they did it?! But that's a secret.....

Nearly all the clients on the Saronics flotilla have been with us before so they know the drill, and are eager to get sorted on board. They have their briefings on board and then come into the taverna for some food. Most people have a quick bite to eat and then head into their cabins to get a good nights rest for the beginning of their holiday!

Tonight's our last night before we have to fly home tomorrow, so we have a catch up with Janine and Mick from the Sailing Holidays Corfu base. Then we head back to our home for the night, ready for the drive to Athens.

May 27th - Flying back to London

Today is our last day.... Before we drive to Athens we head down to say bye to the Sailing Holidays crew. We catch them doing their morning briefing and everyone is in good spirits. They have beautiful weather for their first day, and according to weather reports it's just going to get hotter and hotter.

We listen in to part of their briefing before we have to head off to Athens airport for our flight. So that's it, we take one last trip in the Italian motor to Athens.  Everything is checked in and we're good to go........ we arrive in London and its raining.

Hmmm, typical.