Where would be your ideal Med mooring if you had to choose?

mjkinch1

mjkinch1

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Following on from Powerskippers post, I have been thinking about different locations in the Med that would be a great place to have a boat. There are so many, and I doubt for one minute that we can get close to visiting them all, so given the collective experience of the forum where would your ideal Med base be for your boat and why?
 
I would say as a chap who has to work for a living to support this boaty lifestyle then you need to look at the whole package.

Transport from home to nearest airport that will get you to your destination as near as poss and cost effective, so no silly places where the airport is 60 miles away from the boat.

A place where you can have good yard services incase of the emergency that no doubt wil happen.

Somewhere where there is some nightlife but not Magaluf!.

A reasonable cruising ground that is not 80 miles to the next marina.

The biggest thing is mooring costs, to me thats the biggest part of boating as I can do al the running stuff myself, I wuld have a much bigger boat if say for eg I was on a trott mooring on the Hamble for £200.00 per month.

So to round it off, Either mainland Spain or the Balearics would do me nicely, best to try and join a yacht club and take advantage of a cheaper mooring though its probably dead mans shoes these days.

Nice to see you back on the forum Martyn.
 
having set off from Poole in the general direction of istanbul (slowly) our plan was that if we found anywhere we really liked the look of we would stop and make base for a while. So far we have discounted the South of France ( beautiful but too overcrowded) Northern Italy (too expensive), Southern Italy( ports of call far too far apart) but have taken a shine to the Ionian islands of Greece and have taken a year's mooring in Gouvia, Corfu. It ticks all the boxes mentioned above .i.e.
#1superb cruising destinations within easy distance such as Paxos, Diapondia Is., Keffalonia, Zakynthos, Greek mainland etc.
#2 affordable base marina with all facilities.
#3 airport 20 euro taxi ride away and plenty of cheap(ish) flights.
#4 fantastic weather and VERY sheltered water in immediate vicinity if outlook a bit dodgy
#5 affordabe and enjoyably low key tavernas in virtually every port of call no matter how small.
#6 friendly natives
#7 free or incredibly cheap harbours when away from base marina

should keep us occupied for a while!
 
I spoke to someone about Gouvia at SIBS and it looks great but unfortunately the flight situation from the North of England is not brilliant. If I could find flights I think I would certainly be looking seriously at it
 
Martyns and Pauls comments re flights is a good one- the ideal med base would need to be accessable with reasonable flights through the year? Do you think that needs to be an important consideration, or do major flights mean full marinas?
 
Not sure of your question. You can find the best mooring in the Med but if you cant get to it then whats the point.

Ease of travel has go to be the prime consideration if what you seek is a boat that you can visit when you want to.
 
re flights. best deal to Corfu are from gatwick. we need B'ham L'pool or Manchester and do OK, but in winter you have to go to Athens and get an internal flight. Easier IMHO to leave the baot till spring. They have a pretty wet winter anyway.
 
We use our boatr for long weekends as well as extended holidays and the frequency of flights from the North is very poor.

Also, we like a bit of winter sunshine so winter flights are important to us
 
Empuriabrava on the Costa Brava.

Girona airport is about 3/4 hour away with Ryan air offering daily flights.
Perpignan airport about 1 hour away ryan air and Easy jet

My mooring is arranged privately and costs around £2000 per year including electricity and water.

Pleanty of places to explore: France is only about 20km up the coast and you could even get to Barcelona on a good day!

http://www.marinaempuriabrava.com/english/index.html
 
Great thread for discussion!
I have spent most of my working life in the Western Med as professional M.Y. crew.
I was based in Antibes, but I wasn't paying the bills! I find South France is now over-crowded, over exploited and over-priced. Add to that the rather pretentious nature of the clientele, and its not the best of the bunch.
Balearics are just superb, but for the same reasons as above, probably no longer the best choice.
If you like South Spain, (and I don't particularly) there was a really nice extension to the marina at Mazarron being developed. The staff were fabulously helpful and rates were cheap. Not sure if places would be available long term or for sale.
I'd be inclined to agree with blueglass. Ionian islands are centrally placed, and much quieter and, more friendly. I lived on Paxos for a year and it was heavenly. Can be a bit breezy for us motor yachties, but secret is to leave early and get where your going before lunch! (Same can be said for much of the med really)
Corsica is another possibility. I was in Maccinagio marina in May, and there has been an extension built there that was empty, may be some scope there too. Good access to all cruising areas from there.
A little further away, but without doubt some of the very nicest cruising areas, try either Croatia or S. Turkey, from Bodrum around to Fethiye and the islands is spectacular as long as you don't want miles of golden sands!
I doubt there will ever be the perfect location, but isn't that the point of owning a boat?!
Contact me direct for any other professional advice!
 
As always depends on your priorities. Our top priority was somewhere with calm winds most of the time, and that rules a lot of the med out. Then it had to be accessible, which means regular flights and a short drive from the airport to the marina. It also had to have good cruising, nice anchorages, and we wanted to be based in a marina with plenty to do on non boaty days.

That's why we chose Antibes, the weather is just amazing, 9 good boating days out of 10, from May to October. There are daily flights from Brum throughout the year (or at least there were, they've just stopped them for the winter due to the credit crunch /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif), the flights are short and cheap, nice cruising and plenty of restaurants in the town. There are lots of places to visit in the area, but there is a real problem with visitor berths. The other downside is that its quite expensive, and that's resulted in everyone in the area trying to get it on the act whether they have the necessary skills or not, so it's hard to find competent people to do any work on your boat

I think we'll stay another couple of years, then maybe try Greece
 
You need

Plenty of flights from different UK airports
Secure full service marinas
Island geography so you can always hide from the wind somewhere
Loads of attractive anchorages
Developed maintenance and service networks
Cheap booze and food
English widely spoken

Er, that'll be the Balearics /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Or possibly Croatia or maybe the Greek islands
 
There are some great suggestions, but as everyone correctly points out you need to have reasonable access via flights, the greek islands look good, but flights may be an issue from the Northwest. Antibe also sounds a good place.

I was thinking of trying Croatia and around that area, but the flights are lacking, it does seem that the most popular areas such as the Balearics are popular for the very reason they tick so many boxes, but it would be nice to see somewhere else or spot the 'new' balearics.

I will do some more research on the areas mentioned in the posts and see what I can put together.

Any other suggestions?
 
Marina Baie des Anges, Good facilities, well sheltered, and only twenty minutes from Nice Cote d'Azur airport. Plenty of cheap flights with EasyJet /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
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