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Yachts at anchor in the Ionian

Greece · 7 nights · Saturday to Saturday

Ionian Islands,
the Lefkada loop.

Seven short hops around the southern Ionian: Meganisi, Ithaca, Kefalonia, Zakynthos and back. Whole boat, your own skipper, nobody else aboard.

Day by day, Saturday to Saturday.

A loop of the southern Ionian, out of Lefkada and back to it. Seven short legs — 12 to 30 nm a day, two to five hours under way — with land in sight the whole week and shelter never far off. Mornings are usually calm and the breeze fills in after lunch, so the sailing happens in the afternoon and the anchor goes down in time to swim. Nights are split between quiet bays with nobody in them and harbour towns where you step off the boat straight into supper. People come for Odysseus and stay for the water: over the pale limestone seabed, in this light, it turns a turquoise you will not quite believe until you are swimming in it. The coast is cut into dozens of small wild coves and pebble beaches with no road down to them, sea caves and grottoes you can take the dinghy into, and two of the most photographed beaches in Greece — Myrtos on Kefalonia and Navagio on Zakynthos — which you reach from the sea, the way they are meant to be seen.

Lefkas Marina and the canal at dusk On the foredeck nets on the way down to Meganisi Meganisi and the islets off its north shore from the air Supper ashore: grilled prawns, squid and saganaki

Boarding is in the afternoon at Lefkas Marina, on the inside of the canal that separates Lefkada (wiki, map) from the mainland. The first leg is short on purpose — about 11 nm down to Meganisi (wiki, map), the green island east of Lefkada with three villages and three small ports: Spilia below Spartochori, Atherinos below Katomeri, and Vathy (wiki, map). The night is spent not in a town but in Ormos Abelike, a deep wooded inlet on the north-east coast with several arms to choose from and room to anchor well clear of anyone else. No road comes down to the water. What you hear after dark is the wind in the pines and the odd goat bell on the hill — which, after a day of travelling, is the point. Dinner is a short ride in the dinghy across the bay to Minas, the family taverna in the southern cove: fish and seafood off the grill, and the rest of the Mediterranean kitchen behind it.

Papanikolis sea cave on the south tip of Meganisi, a boat inside the entrance One House Bay on Atokos from the air: white pebble beach and yachts at anchor over turquoise water Vathy, Ithaca from the air: the narrow entrance and the town around the closed bay The bronze statue of Odysseus on the Vathy waterfront, the town behind it

Out of Abelike and round the top of Meganisi into the channel that runs between it and Lefkada — a mile of flat green water with Skorpios (wiki, map), the Onassis island, sitting in the middle of it. You pass close enough to see the boathouse and the planted slopes; the island is still private, so this is as near as anyone gets. Down the west coast of Meganisi the cliffs get steeper, and at the southern tip is the Papanikolis cave, a sea grotto tall enough to take the dinghy inside. The name is a Greek submarine that, the story goes, hid in here during the war. From there it is open water south to Atokos (wiki, map), an uninhabited rock of an island with one white house and one perfect bay below it: a white-pebble beach, water that goes turquoise over the sand, and time for a long swim and lunch on board. The last leg is across to Ithaca (wiki, map), Odysseus’ island. The entrance to Vathy (wiki, map) is the classic Ionian trick: a narrow neck that opens into one of the largest natural harbours in Europe, with the town spread around the far end of it. Because the bay is almost closed, it stays flat whatever the afternoon breeze is doing outside. On the waterfront, the first to meet you ashore is the island’s own legend: a bronze Odysseus, home at last, standing on the rocks above the quay. The night is alongside on the quay, with the tavernas twenty steps from the boat.

Gidaki beach on the east coast of Ithaca, white pebbles and turquoise water under the cliffs Filiatro beach, Ithaca, a wide pebble bay south of Vathy Poros, Kefalonia: the town beach and tavernas seen from the water Aragia beach south of Poros, a long white pebble sweep under the mountain

A beach day. Out of the inlet and along the east coast of Ithaca, which is where the island keeps its best water: one white-pebble bay after another, cut into the cliffs, most of them with no road down and nobody on them. First Gidaki, the one the locals name when you ask — a long curve of pale stones and a sea that goes from turquoise to deep blue within a few strokes of the shore. Then Filiatro, wider and a little livelier, for a swim and lunch on board with the boat lying still in the cove. When the afternoon breeze fills in, you leave Ithaca behind and cross to Kefalonia (wiki, map), the largest island of the Ionian, with its mountain filling the whole horizon ahead. Poros (wiki, map), on the south-east coast, is a small working ferry and fishing port under a gorge in the cliffs — not a resort, which is the point: good shelter, a short quay, tavernas that feed the ferry crews. The long pebble beaches south of the port are a ten-minute walk, and the evening swim is right off the town beach.

Kato Lagadi beach south of Poros: white pebbles, a rock overhang and turquoise shallows Agios Nikolaos, Zakynthos from the air: the small harbour, the quay and the islet across the bay Yachts stern-to on the quay at Agios Nikolaos, Zakynthos Three catamarans at anchor under the white cliffs of the Blue Caves, the Skinari lighthouse above Supper in a taverna at Agios Nikolaos: grilled lamb, chips and salad

The morning stays on Kefalonia. A few miles south of Poros the coast breaks into small white-pebble coves under overhanging rock, and Kato Lagadi is the one to anchor off: shallow, glass-clear water over pale stones, a strip of beach with nobody on it, and a rock ledge to jump from. Then the one real crossing of the week — open water, land astern and land ahead, the mountain of Kefalonia dropping behind you and the cliffs of Zakynthos (wiki, map) rising out of the haze. The landfall is Agios Nikolaos on the north-east corner of the island: a small harbour wrapped round a bay with an islet across its mouth, yachts stern-to on the quay, a handful of tavernas and no town to speak of — the quiet alternative to Zakynthos town. It is also the departure point for the Blue Caves along the Skinari cape, which you can take in with the dinghy or the boat itself before supper, when the tour boats have gone. This side of the island is where the loggerhead turtles and monk seals live, so the skipper keeps the engine down close inshore.

Yachts anchored in a cove walled by white limestone cliffs, west coast of Zakynthos The white cliffs of the Skinari cape from the air, yachts anchored below the caves Navagio beach from the air: the shipwreck on the white sand, yachts in the turquoise bay An empty cove under the west-coast cliffs of Zakynthos, white pebbles and turquoise water A group in matching pink T-shirts on a pebble beach, their two catamarans anchored behind

An early start, and the reason for it is the west coast. Round the Skinari cape past the Blue Caves, then south under a wall of white limestone that drops straight into the sea, and into Navagio (wiki, map) — Shipwreck Beach, the most photographed piece of coast in Greece. From the road you see it from a platform on top of the cliff. From the sea you anchor in the bay, take the dinghy to the sand, walk round the rusted hull and have the place nearly to yourselves, because the tour boats from the town arrive late in the morning and you are already there. There are smaller coves along the same coast with nobody at all in them, so the swim stop after Navagio is wherever the group likes the look of. Then across the strait to Kefalonia and up to Sami (wiki, map), its main east-coast port, in a wide bay under the mountains. The evening swim is at Antisamos, the long white-pebble beach on the far side of the headland, and the night is on the town quay.

A taverna table under a tree on the shore at Sami, the bay and mountains behind Inside the Melissani cave: rowing boats on the clear lake under the collapsed roof The view from Mount Ainos over the fir forest to the coast of Kefalonia Myrtos beach from the cliff road: the white crescent and the turquoise bay An old stone lighthouse on a headland at dusk, the mainland mountains behind

A day with a land half. Kefalonia is the one island of the week too big to see from the water, so the morning is for a hire car from the quay — the skipper books it the evening before — and three things within an hour’s drive of each other. First the Melissani cave (wiki, map), a couple of kilometres up the road: an underground lake whose roof fell in thousands of years ago, where you are rowed across water so clear the boat seems to hang in the air while the sun comes straight down through the hole above and turns the cavern blue. Then up Mount Ainos (wiki, map), the highest point in the Ionian, through a forest of black fir that grows nowhere else, to a summit where the whole island and half the Ionian lie under you. Then the road along the west coast to the lookout above Myrtos (wiki, map), the white crescent between two cliffs that is on every poster of Greece, seen from the one place it should be seen. Back aboard by mid-afternoon, and north up the Ithaca channel and across to the south tip of Lefkada. Vasiliki bay funnels the afternoon thermal wind — it is one of the best-known windsurfing spots in the Mediterranean, and the best sailing of the week is usually the last two hours into it. The port itself is a village quay with a ferry berth and a line of tavernas along the water.

Porto Katsiki: surf on the pebbles and the white cliff falling into turquoise water Last swim stop: the catamaran at anchor off a white pebble beach, the group in the water The group lying on the pebbles at the water's edge, seen from the drone

The last day starts with the best beach on Lefkada. If the wind allows, you round Cape Lefkatas (wiki, map) — the white headland Sappho is said to have thrown herself from — to Porto Katsiki (wiki, map), a strip of sand at the foot of a sheer cliff that people drive an hour and walk down a hundred steps to reach; you arrive by water, anchor off it and swim in before the day trippers. If the west is too lumpy, the swim goes to Agiofili, the small cove just round the corner from Vasiliki. Then back along the south coast and up the sheltered inside channel, past Sivota and Nidri, the same green water you started in on Saturday, and through the canal to Lefkas Marina by late afternoon. The boat stays alongside for the night, with water, power and the town a five-minute walk away, so the last supper is in Lefkada and nobody packs in the dark. You step off after breakfast on Saturday.

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