Until Covid arrived we used to do a sailing flotilla holiday every year or two; however with travel restrictions, testing, the potential of quarantining etc, it has taken us until now to get back into it again. At last!

So we were excited to be off once more on a flotilla sailing holiday accompanied by Paul’s sister and brother-in-law, Glynis & Tony, both of whom had come sailing with us before.

Paul has his ICC certificate and is also a certified RYA Level 2 and Day Skipper. I am a certified RYA Level 2 also, and Competent Crew (or “Incompetent Crew” as I like to joke).

We have sailed before with Neilson (who we did our RYA training with, over in the Greek Ionian back in 2004), Sailing Holidays and Sunsail. We have a slight preference towards Sailing Holidays as they, like Neilson, include the flights and transfers, but also have a choice of some lovely newer yachts with more “mod cons” and all with self-furling sails, which (as long as they don’t jam), makes things nice and easy. In addition the price drops a fair bit with more people on the yacht, whereas (for some unknown reason) with Neilson it’s around about the same price per person with 2 or 4 sharing.

This time, however, we opted for Neilson as they are now offering inclusive flights from more local airports including Edinburgh, which is quite handy for us (a 50 minute drive instead of 3.5 hours to Manchester). They were also happy to arrange for Paul & I to fly from Edinburgh and for Glynis & Tony to fly from their local airport, Manchester, making the travelling easy for all.

The flights were with Jet2 and included hold luggage (though we didn’t all need this as the cabin baggage is a generous 10 kgs) but there was no guarantee of being seated together, so it was quite a bit extra to select our seats (£120 return for two of us as we went for extra legroom exit seats).

Travel went well, no long airport queues, no delays from/to Edinburgh and only a slight delay from Manchester. We picked up some duty free on our way out, including a great offer of 6 bottles of Hardy’s Sauvignon Blanc for £18! The transfer on arrival was quick with little hanging around, as there was one coach per flight. Half an hour on the coach and we arrived at the Neilson base in Vounaki (which also happens to be one of the Beach Clubs).

The yachts generally aren’t ready until around 5pm, so we left our luggage only taking towels, suncream and swimwear, and headed up to the infinity pool after doing the necessary documentation in the marina office.

Glynis & Tony arrived from their (slightly delayed) Manchester flight about an hour later and joined us by the pool. By 5pm, we still hadn’t had notification that the yacht was ready, so we wandered down to check. Sure enough, it was ready for us and our suitcases had already been loaded on.

We usually opt for a larger yacht when there’s four of us, but this time, as it had been four years since our last sailing, we decided to start smaller. The yacht we booked was a two cabin Dufour 325, which is approximately 33 foot long. Glynis & Tony opted for the stern cabin this time, and Paul & I took the bow cabin. Both were fine, though, as usual, it was a game of contortion to get out without disturbing the other person if you needed the loo in the night!

On our first (arrival) evening, we headed into town (Paleros) for an early dinner. The rep on the coach had recommended a restaurant, so we headed there and had a lovely meal, accompanied of course, by some wine (for the “girls”) and beers (for the “boys”). Then back to the yacht to share a bottle of wine before having an early night.

The next morning, our first briefing was at 9.30am, where we found out that we were headed to Sivota on Lefkas for our first flotilla night. Joey, the First Mate (otherwise known as the Host or Hostess on previous flotillas) was organising a G&T (gin & tonic as opposed to Glynis & Tony) pre-dinner get together for just 5 Euros each, which I believe everyone opted in to (although with 14 yachts in our flotilla – which is pretty big – it was hard to tell if everyone came.) The rest of the lead crew consisted of Rob (the skipper, who was also a musician and entertained us in the evenings with singalong songs on his guitar), Trace (the engineer) and Geo (an instructor who was instructing during the day on one of the flotilla yachts, and with the lead crew in the evenings).

We had quite a long wait after the briefing before we could set off, as the Greek port authorities were apparently still going through the paperwork and hadn’t yet given the go-ahead. In the end I think it was around 12.30 or after when we finally got to set sail. It was a fairly long passage, and they wanted us in early to get a mooring space with the group, so we didn’t get time for a swim / lunch stop (or for very much sailing either as the winds were light, so it was quicker to “motor sail” for most of it). What was more frustrating, was that as we arrived the wind had picked up nicely and we could have had a good hour sailing outside the bay, but instead we had to keep circling outside the harbour (as did everyone else) until it was our turn to moor up.

However, we finally got moored, had a quick shower and before we knew it we were drinking G&T’s on the pontoon, then heading over to Delphinias taverna for our first group meal (and very nice it was too). After dinner Paul & I had a wander around the very pretty small town (village?), which we had visited before on other flotillas, then had a drink in the Olive Press bar, before heading back to the yacht for another relatively early night.

The next day (Tuesday) our briefing was again at 9.30am, which was a little late as once again we had quite a long passage to sail – this time to Ay Eufemia on Kefalonia. It took quite a while to get everyone off, I think it was after 11am for us, so once again we were limited in time for lunch / swim stops. We did anchor up in a nice bay for a quick lunch, but didn’t manage a swim. However, we got some decent sailing in this time, as we did to varying degrees on all days but one (when it remained flat calm the whole day despite the thunderstorms – more on that later).

Our entertainment on Tuesday evening was “quiz night” and we did quite well, at least on the Abba “name the song” section! By the time the quiz was over, it was a late meal in the same restaurant for most of the group (I think a few ventured elsewhere to eat).

Another 9.30am briefing on Wednesday (with another long passage) led a couple of us to ask if they could possibly do the briefings earlier to allow more time for sailing (as opposed to motoring), lunch and swim stops (eventually they did this, once, on the second last day – oh well, better than not at all…)

Our next stop was Poros, also on Kefalonia. Again, we got some fairly good sailing done, plus a lovely lunch/swim stop on the way.

Poros itself was ok(ish), but none of us (on our yacht) were that keen on it as a town, as it was also a ferry port, and there were lots of buses, cars and lorries going to and from the big ferry boat nearby. It just didn’t have the same chilled atmosphere of the places we’d been used to visiting on previous Ionian flotillas. Luckily the lovely waterside bar near the quay was a saving grace, and after going in for drinks, we decided to eat there too, as they did salads and burgers.

To quote a review someone on our flotilla wrote on Feefo, “the beauty of the Southern Ionian is the small towns and quays, which could not be fully exploited with such a large group” – i.e. we had to go to places where they could fit us all in, or that was the way it seemed. The route and overnight stops certainly wasn’t the “typical” one still advertised on the Neilson website.

Thursday started out with sunny spells, but there was very little to no wind. At some points it was flat calm. We had another long passage, this time to Big Vathy on Ithaca. This is a popular flotilla stop, and usually the biggest town visited. Often the flotillas moor up outside of the town (about a kilometre out), but this time we were on the town quay. Greece has fairly recently introduced mooring fees (either that or we just haven’t moored at places that have them before), but they are not expensive (which they shouldn’t be as they don’t tend to include anything that you would get elsewhere – such as water, toilets, showers or shore power). Big Vathy cost 4 Euros, and the most we paid on the flotilla was 8 Euros. When moored at a Taverna’s pontoon, it was free, although you were expected to eat there as a group – which was usually lovely anyway.

Back to the passage from Poros to Big Vathy, well the closer we got the more overcast it became. Still no wind, but soon we heard thunder, getting louder the closer we got, and then some rather dramatic lightening, all soon followed by rather heavy rain. The thunderstorm put on quite a display for us, and lasted pretty much up until we were entering the bay for Big Vathy. This was the only day that we never got the sails up, but not because of the thunderstorm, only because there was no wind.

At Big Vathy, Glynis & Tony joined the group meal, but Paul & I fancied getting a take away pizza and some wine/beer to eat on the yacht. Luckily by then the rain had stopped, so it was lovely just to sit up on the deck and have dinner.

On Friday, we finally got an earlier briefing, at 9am (that’s when we found out that we weren’t the only ones to have requested this). So we finally got away quite sharp, ready for another long passage to Abelike Bay on Meganisi. This was the best day’s sailing!

We headed over to One House Bay on the island of Atoko for lunch. It was very pretty, and the wind, though mostly force 4, did hit force 5 at times. It was a fantastic sail on a beam reach to get there and we almost made 8 knots, being steadily 6-7 knots.

In the bay, it was still very windy and a bit choppy, so none of us went in for a swim. Instead we just enjoyed the view whilst having lunch on the deck.

As we left the bay and headed up towards Meganisi, quite a swell picked up and was coming at us side on, so the yacht was doing a fair bit of rocking/keeling. We only put out the headsail, to try to steady the boat and limit the rocking, then as wind died down, we had to turn the engine on and do some motor sailing. Arriving near Abelike Bay, the swell had dropped and the wind had picked up enough to get around 3-4 knots with both sails up, which allowed us to turn the engine off and again enjoy the “sound of silence”.

Mooring up, we were lucky to get in stern-to on the taverna’s pontoon. Both Abelike and Sivota (on the first night) were the sort of places we had hoped to spend more overnights at. Abelike is in a bay with only one taverna, so it is very quiet and peaceful. It was still hot in the sun, so we took a 15 minute walk over the hill to have a look round Little Vathy (another pretty place, which we had visited on previous flotillas) and have some ice cream. Back at the yacht, we used the Taverna’s showers for 2 Euros and then went into the garden for the cocktail competition.

We did well in the competition, considering it was near the end of the holiday by then, so we just used what little booze etc that we had left. Glynis made up our cocktail, which gained us 2nd place, and the best for taste (the competition based it on taste, presentation and the name you gave it).

The group meal was nice afterwards, and everyone was in good spirits after having such a good sail earlier on.

Saturday was our final sail and lunch / swim stop. Again it was very windy and quite choppy in the bay where we anchored, so we didn’t go in for a swim despite being tempted, just enjoyed our lunch on the deck. It had been calm and very hot out at sea before we anchored and we were all desperate to swim, but we got cool quickly during anchoring – the wind seemed to be coming off the land, and died down a few hundred metres out.

We arrived back at base in Vounaki around 3pm, and headed up to the infinity pool for a dip. Then we had our final group meal / BBQ as the sun went down.

All in all, it was a very good flotilla. Only the late briefings (which would have been fine if it were shorter sails) and choice of some of the overnight stops were not as we had hoped, but the main thing was that we got some good sailing in, so we’re now ready for another one next year.

If you enjoyed reading this blog, have a look at our flotilla web pages written earlier –
Greek Islands Flotilla Sailing (2004 onwards…)
Croatia by road, yacht and catamaran
Amalfi Coast flotilla

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