Cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

[MapisM]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Early summer is a good time to be in Carloforte. There are a couple of festivals in the town at that time of year with fireworks and merriment and during our 2 summers there, the weather seemed to be very settled at that time of year.

Seconded.
And just in case the OP is interested, while the "tonnara" is deployed (around beginning of May - mid of June), it's also possible to dive inside it, surrounded by hundreds of huge bluefin tunas.
Tonnara is the IT name (of which I don't think there's an EN equivalent) of a complex and very wide nets structure, inside which the passing tunas get trapped, but can still swim freely till they are actually caught.
A very unique and surrealistic experience, well worth making.
It's only open to certified divers though, and obviously together with an authorized instructor.
Not because it's a difficult dive, but they only allow small groups, to avoid disturbing those big animals - of which there can be MANY around: I wasn't joking when I said hundreds!

 

[MapisM]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Don't know the south of Sardinia at all so your feedback re the various marina options is fantastic and will save me a lot of gaffing around! Seems to me that Carloforte might be the place to be based for 4-6 weeks in the early summer, will think about that as I map out the various summer legs, visitor arrivals/departures etc...

Glad to help as much as I can, just shout!

 

[MedMilo]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Seconded.
And just in case the OP is interested, while the "tonnara" is deployed (around beginning of May - mid of June), it's also possible to dive inside it, surrounded by hundreds of huge bluefin tunas.
Tonnara is the IT name (of which I don't think there's an EN equivalent) of a complex and very wide nets structure, inside which the passing tunas get trapped, but can still swim freely till they are actually caught.
A very unique and surrealistic experience, well worth making.
It's only open to certified divers though, and obviously together with an authorized instructor.
Not because it's a difficult dive, but they only allow small groups, to avoid disturbing those big animals - of which there can be MANY around: I wasn't joking when I said hundreds!

Sounds amazing, we keep tanks etc on the boat and do lots of diving so that would be a special experience for us for sure!

 

[MedMilo]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Glad to help as much as I can, just shout!

Very much appreciated, thank you!

 

[Nick_H]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

If anyone's interested, here are prices for 20 year leases in Levkas, and annual service charge.

Transport links aside, I think Levkas is the best option as it's in the middle of the the prime cruising area with Paxos, Antipaxos and Corfu to the north and a string of islands down to Kefalonia to the south. It has a pleasant old town with some nice restaurants, and there seems to be a number of service contractors around.

I don't know about flights though

 

[Hurricane]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

If anyone's interested, here are prices for 20 year leases in Levkas, and annual service charge.

Transport links aside, I think Levkas is the best option as it's in the middle of the the prime cruising area with Paxos, Antipaxos and Corfu to the north and a string of islands down to Kefalonia to the south. It has a pleasant old town with some nice restaurants, and there seems to be a number of service contractors around.

I don't know about flights though

Good prices, Nick but it seems to me that Levkas is very difficult to get to - even in the summer.
Unless anyone knows a good route.
I'm quite prepared to take longer than most to travel out to the boat.

 

[Tranona]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Good prices, Nick but it seems to me that Levkas is very difficult to get to - even in the summer.
Unless anyone knows a good route.
I'm quite prepared to take longer than most to travel out to the boat.

Levkas is no problem in the summer as there are direct charter flights to Preveza from many UK airports. Also internal flights from Athens, but tend not to link well with flights from UK. Bus or taxi to Levkas. In the past there have been seaplane flights from Corfu, but not sure if they are running next year. As mentioned above the bus is very convenient - that is what I use when I kept my boat in Levkas. Overnight flight to Athens, airport bus to Athens terminal. In levkas in time for lunch

 

[Hardmy]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Preveza airport opens around 15 May and shuts down around 15 October. This may change since Fraport has recently taken over the management. Locals say, it is planned to extend the offer.

Till then, visiting the boat in the winter means taking a one-way rented car (costs about €100 on top of the rental fee) from Thessaloniki. It's a 3-4 hours drive, on a very modern highway with few traffic. Impressive scenery all the way long, mountains capped with snow, traffic signs "caution bears" and so on...

 

[scubaman]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Re. cruising around the San Pietro island / Sardinia, here are a couple of vids to give OP some idea of that stunning area. These have been posted on here before but just in case you have missed them.

Beautiful editing by MapisM (hope you don't mind me posting this, P!).



Marina Sifredi



Stunning caves at Mezzaluna

 

[Pinnacle]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

I'm sure he won't mind at all!

 

[MedMilo]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Wow, incredible footage! Looks like a very beautiful part of the world… had no idea!

 

[MapisM]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

hope you don't mind me posting this, P!

Of course not - quite the opposite, in fact. Thanks for your support!
Sometimes I assume that what has already been discussed is well known to us all, but obviously that's only true for those who lived those moments - or followed them here as they happened.
For others like MedMilo who didn't see the threads back then, it can be interesting to post some pointers to the most interesting parts! :encouragement:
Apropos, when I posted the previous link to Hurricane thread, I forgot this other one which you posted at the end of the same summer 2015, which is also worth a look for the OP.

Btw, it still amazes me how good you were at handling the drone for the very first time, when you came here - a great hand (and eye) indeed...
...even if you managed to improve your technique further in your latest productions, I must say.
In fact, this video of yours is the one that gets my vote as the best boat drone clip of the year!
The scenario is further north enough to qualify as completely O/T in a thread dedicated to the Med, actually.
But I can't think of anything better to watch, in a cold Dec 31st!
Looking fwd to more of the same for the new year!!!

 

[scubaman]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Thank you P, you are being too kind!

You are right, those videos and cruise reports posted by many forumites are a godsent on dark winter evenings.

And sort of in line with the original topic, I still think it would be great to have a dedicated sticky for cruise reports. After the poll I posted on the matter some time ago, I exchanged several emails with Stef and was told that the matter would be looked into urgently. I never heard anything back. It's their forum but still...

Must send them another mail...

A thread like that could be very useful to the OP, for instance.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Re: Central/Eastern Med - cruising plan for 2017 and where to leave boat next winter?

Thank you P, you are being too kind!

You are right, those videos and cruise reports posted by many forumites are a godsent on dark winter evenings.

And sort of in line with the original topic, I still think it would be great to have a dedicated sticky for cruise reports. After the poll I posted on the matter some time ago, I exchanged several emails with Stef and was told that the matter would be looked into urgently. I never heard anything back. It's their forum but still...

Must send them another mail...

A thread like that could be very useful to the OP, for instance.

Definitely worth chasing up. It would be a huge positive, so many of these cruise reports quickly slip away and can be difficult to find using the forum search facility. A real shame when considering all the effort that goes in to creating them.