Suitable mooring in Greece to meet a Courier van from UK? near Athens maybe?

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CatCouple

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Afternoon all. We are making our way from Antalaya Turkey to The Canaries via Greece ( Route likely to be Dodecaneese , Cyclades, Athens then if necessary Corinth canal) . We need to meet up with a courier in June coming from the UK carrying some of our personal possessions , spares and equipment that we need for our Atlantic crossing. Does any one know of a suitable Marina,Yacht club or mooring where we can wait for say a week while the van arrives. Would have to have space for a 46' Cat in June. Needs to be on the mainland or easily accessible by road if an Island. Around Athens would be convenient but maybe the Ionian? Could be an anchorage or mooring as we could ferry our boxes via the tender. Any suggestions?
Thanks
CatCouple
 
CatCouple said:
Afternoon all. We are making our way from Antalaya Turkey to The Canaries via Greece ( Route likely to be Dodecaneese , Cyclades, Athens then if necessary Corinth canal) . We need to meet up with a courier in June coming from the UK carrying some of our personal possessions , spares and equipment that we need for our Atlantic crossing. Does any one know of a suitable Marina,Yacht club or mooring where we can wait for say a week while the van arrives. Would have to have space for a 46' Cat in June. Needs to be on the mainland or easily accessible by road if an Island. Around Athens would be convenient but maybe the Ionian? Could be an anchorage or mooring as we could ferry our boxes via the tender. Any suggestions?
Thanks
CatCouple
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Your courier will almost certainly use one of the ferries from Italy which will stop at either Corfu, Ignoumenitsa or Patras. Find out where he is disembarking and then make a choice of meeting points. There is enormous choice of either town quays or marinas in the Ionian. Get a copy of Rod Heikell Greek Waters pilot which will give you a good feel for the area.
 
Preveza. You could pull in to cleopatra marina, tie up at preveza waterfront for free, the 'town marina' for a few euros or anchor off Preveza Marine or Aktio marina and use their jetties to meet, spend a few nights and then head west to Italy.

Alternatively Levkas, upmarket marina, more expensive but town more accesible then either Preveza Marinas.

Or go north to Gouvia marina on Corfu if the courier is already on his way there.

A lot depends on the couriers routing I suppose.

Alternatively the 'whitevanman' does Corfu, preveza,levkas regularly from the uk.
 
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Thanks for that, lot of Ionian fans it seems. I have sailed up there and Nidriri Preveza Lefkas Vilho etc would work just seemed to me that what would take 4 hours by van will take me several days and cost me an arm and a leg to go through the Canal which why I was thinking somewhere around Athens ( where I have never sailed). having now read the posts about taking on Crew in Athens maybe levrion might work?
 
If the courier is prepared to go to Athens then you have again plenty of choice both places to anchor off and marinas to go into to collect your goods. If you don't plan going to the Ionian not a lot of point going through the canal, although if you have not done before it's a great experience.
 
My boat's near Athens now and the yard tell me there's often a problem getting parts out from England or France - they get lost in Greece. Definitely Corfu, Preveza, Levkas, Nidri; that's the familiar delivery route from England. There are places in each that will reliably take delivery if needs be.
 
CatCouple said:
Thanks for that, lot of Ionian fans it seems. I have sailed up there and Nidriri Preveza Lefkas Vilho etc would work just seemed to me that what would take 4 hours by van will take me several days and cost me an arm and a leg to go through the Canal which why I was thinking somewhere around Athens ( where I have never sailed). having now read the posts about taking on Crew in Athens maybe levrion might work?
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Why go through the canal , just take the southern route , lots of safe anchorages and much cheaper . And once in the Ionian there are plenty of place to wait without using Marina .
 
Ferry landing points from Italy: Corfu, Igoumenitsa (short ferry ride from Corfu), Patras. All have suitable yacht mooring facilities. Corfu has adequate English speaking yacht support; the other two are more ethnic.

Near Athens; Lavrion or Alimos marina. Both about 3 hours from Patras, 5 hours from Igoumenitsa. Yacht charter centres, large amount of engineering and yacht support with adequate English.

Southern Peloponnese; Kalamata marina. 3 hours from Patras, 5 hours from Igoumenitsa. Busy town, reliable American speaking engineering support, just adequate yacht support.

Ionian, Levkas/Nidri; 2 hours from Igoumenitsa. Busy yacht charter centre, large amount of English speaking yacht support and engineering support.

It's not so easy to find good support for yacht electronics outside the Athens area - though I may be a bit out of date on that.

My web site (jimbsail.info) gives more detail of the sites mentioned and links to marina web sites - where they exist!
 
Some good suggestions.Much appreciated all. Thanks Jim B big fan of your website used it extensively in the Cyclades last year. Could update you on Santorini if you wish. I think we will get a UK white van man to deliver either to Lavrion or Kalamata. It might be we need something from a big city or pick up crew so Lavrion would work well. Kalamata would be a more direct route on our westabouts trip to Scicilly Malta Tunisa Gibraltar and Canaries.
 
CatCouple said:
Some good suggestions.Much appreciated all. Thanks Jim B big fan of your website used it extensively in the Cyclades last year. Could update you on Santorini if you wish. I think we will get a UK white van man to deliver either to Lavrion or Kalamata. It might be we need something from a big city or pick up crew so Lavrion would work well. Kalamata would be a more direct route on our westabouts trip to Scicilly Malta Tunisa Gibraltar and Canaries.
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Be careful that you do not enter Olympic marine .
 
CatCouple said:
Thanks Jim B big fan of your website used it extensively in the Cyclades last year. Could update you on Santorini if you wish.
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Thanks! Would much appreciate update on Santorini.

Best way is "create new account" so you can log in and add "comments" to the relevant pages - and see the comments others have added. Some of which are very revealing!
 
""My boat's near Athens now and the yard tell me there's often a problem getting parts out from England or France - they get lost in Greece.""

Maybe I have been lucky but five loads of boat bits I have sent to Greece over the last two years have arrived intact and on time. Have used "Parcel Hero & Parcel Monkey" before but the last lot was with "Rand Logistics" and at a good price, arrived fine.
 
DaiB said:
""My boat's near Athens now and the yard tell me there's often a problem getting parts out from England or France - they get lost in Greece.""

Maybe I have been lucky but five loads of boat bits I have sent to Greece over the last two years have arrived intact and on time. Have used "Parcel Hero & Parcel Monkey" before but the last lot was with "Rand Logistics" and at a good price, arrived fine.
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To be fair, I haven't tried to get anything delivered out, but have just taken their word for it. However, past experience in getting items to out of the way places has not been good, and I now invariably wait until I'm in a major destination.

The following is a typical experience, not in Greece, but when I was trying to get a spinnaker delivered to Tenerife many years ago, taken from our blog. 'XYX' is one of the 'household name' international parcel companies.

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"As a voyaging cruiser, the very last thing you want is to be stuck in an out-of-the-way place waiting for parts to be delivered. This is the reason why cruisers are often obsessional about carrying spares. We were to get an early lesson in this in Tenerife.

"We had totalled our old spinnaker in Portugal, so ordered a new one in England, to be delivered to us in the yard at Los Cristianos, Tenerife, our final destination in Europe. The new sail was now ready and we asked for it to be sent delivered by XYX’s express five day service, costing an extra £65.

"After a week we called XYX with the tracking number. “Sorry, it will be arriving tomorrow”. Two days later, “It’s on the lorry and will be with you this afternoon”. Over the next week we got variations on “It is still in England”. “It has been held up in customs”. “Santa Cruz marina hadn't heard of you, so it was sent back”. Then, at long last, the courier showed up with a package. It was hoary with age and quite plainly not a spinnaker. The cover sheet had our names and tracking number scribbled on, but stuck on underneath was a proper label with a different name and tracking number. If XYX couldn’t find the right parcel, then perhaps we would stop bothering them if they gave us a parcel they did have?

"Of course we wouldn’t accept it. This time when we rang we were told that as we had refused the parcel it had been sent back to England. Please would we trouble them no further.

"Furious, we demanded to know the address of the XYX depot in Tenerife. “Zgrzbl” muttered the voice, reluctant to give anything away. Our limited Spanish didn’t help, and the Canaries dialect made it worse. After a few false guesses we said “Do you mean San Cristóbal de la Laguna?”. “Si, Zgrzbl” came the irate reply. That made sense because the town is right by the airport. We asked the street, but no further information would be offered.

"Nevertheless, armed with this much, we hired a car (another £30) and drove to San Cristóbal. Here we asked Tourist Information where we might find XYX. No-one knew. Maybe try the Civil Guardia barracks? Off we went again and found the barracks. Outside was helmeted paramilitary, with black eyeshades and a large sub-machine gun, on patrol. He didn't look like a kindly bobby accustomed to providing tourists with street directions. “Where is XYX?” we plucked up the courage to ask. He showed no signs of having heard, but when we asked again he summoned a local bystander with a brook-no-argument gesture of his gun. Words were exchanged, and to our surprise the bystander pointed it out. It was a building the size of an aircraft hangar in an alleyway opposite.

"Inside, XYX’s enormous warehouse was all but empty. There, lying in solitary splendour right in the very middle of the floor, was our spinnaker. It would be there to this day if we hadn't hunted it down."
 
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DaiB said:
""My boat's near Athens now and the yard tell me there's often a problem getting parts out from England or France - they get lost in Greece.""

Maybe I have been lucky but five loads of boat bits I have sent to Greece over the last two years have arrived intact and on time. Have used "Parcel Hero & Parcel Monkey" before but the last lot was with "Rand Logistics" and at a good price, arrived fine.
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When I have had parts delivered to Italy Croatia and Corfu the trick it seems is to have the same man and van who picks up from UK to be the one to deliver to you. Found this site www.anyvan.com you post the job and wait for the quotes I am going to give it a try. Couriers get feed back scores from satisfied clients.
 
DaiB said:
Maybe I have been lucky but five loads of boat bits I have sent to Greece over the last two years have arrived intact and on time. Have used "Parcel Hero & Parcel Monkey" before but the last lot was with "Rand Logistics" and at a good price, arrived fine.
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Yes, that's our experience too. We had a new inflatable and a Red Flash battery shipped by the dealers and sent two small-ish boxes using one of the on-line carriers. All four arrived in Leros as expected. We had a problem with another one which was quite a big box, too large for air and the carrier didn't have road transport to Leros but didn't bother telling us. We lost a couple of weeks before they sent it back to us but that was of no consequence.
 
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