The question arrives in different words every week. Where should we go if we have never done this before? Is a week near Athens a real charter or a compromise? Will my parents be comfortable? I answer all three with the same water, and this is the honest case for it, with the numbers I used to make it.
The Saronic Gulf page holds the itineraries and the yachts; this piece is the argument. Every rate below comes from the Greek Charter Index and the cards of the yachts named, and every wind figure from a public reanalysis you can check yourself.
Is the Saronic Gulf good for a yacht charter?
Yes, and for a first crewed week in Greece it is the ground I propose before any other. The gulf opens forty minutes from Athens airport. Aegina is 18 nautical miles from Alimos marina, Poros 25, Hydra 35 and Spetses 50. The whole week is about 130 miles and no day needs more than three hours under way. It sits in the lee of the Peloponnese and Attica, so the Meltemi that gives the high-summer Cyclades their edge arrives here softened. Hydra has no cars and no high-rises; Spetses keeps the same scale; the bays at Dokos, Bisti and Zogeria have no road to them. What it does not have is the white-village postcard, and I say that before anyone books it.
How windy is the Saronic compared with the Cyclades?
I have told clients for years that the Saronic is the calm one. This week I checked it against ten years of data rather than my own memory. The figures below are from the ERA5 reanalysis, 10 metre wind, every hour from 2016 to 2025, read through the Open-Meteo archive for a point off Aegina and a point off Mykonos. The afternoon figure is the average between 13:00 and 17:00, when a charter yacht is actually moving; the last column is the share of days whose strongest hour reached 22 knots, the bottom of Force 6.
Saronic Gulf, off Aegina. May: 8.9 knots in the afternoon, Force 3, Force 6 on 1 day in 100. June: 8.8 knots, Force 3, 1 in 100. July: 9.2 knots, Force 3, 1 in 100. August: 9.7 knots, Force 3, 1 in 100. September: 9.3 knots, Force 3, 2 in 100. October: 8.4 knots, Force 3, 3 in 100.
Cyclades, off Mykonos. May: 11.7 knots, Force 4, Force 6 on 10 days in 100. June: 13.4 knots, Force 4, 13 in 100. July: 17.1 knots, Force 5, 32 in 100. August: 16.9 knots, Force 5, 23 in 100. September: 14.7 knots, Force 4, 20 in 100. October: 13.5 knots, Force 4, 15 in 100.
Two honest caveats. A reanalysis is a gridded model and it smooths the gusts that funnel through a channel, so the Hydra passage on a strong day blows harder than a grid point says; read the table as the relation between the two seas, which is what matters when you choose a ground. And Force 5 is not bad weather: on a 24 metre sailing catamaran with a professional crew it is a fine afternoon. It is simply not what a family with a six-year-old, or a party that wants lunch laid on deck every day, asked for. The Cyclades against the Ionian is the other half of that comparison.
How far apart are the islands, and how long is each leg?
From the house distance table: Alimos to Aegina 18 nautical miles, Aegina to Poros 18, Poros to Hydra 12, Hydra to Spetses 25, and Spetses back to Alimos 50 if you run it in one go, which nobody does. A sailing catamaran at 8 knots takes a little over two hours on the Aegina leg and about three on the Spetses leg; a motor yacht at 20 knots does the longest of them in a little over an hour. The distance and time calculator runs any pair of ports at any speed. The practical result is a week in which the yacht moves in the morning, is at anchor by lunch, and the afternoon belongs to the water.
Where do you board, and which harbours and anchorages does the week use?
Boarding is at Alimos marina, Athens, where nearly every yacht on this list has her own berth, or at Flisvos for the larger motor yachts; both are about forty minutes from the airport by road, so a party landing at noon is aboard by mid afternoon. Aegina and Poros take a yacht on the town quay, and the Poros inner channel, 4 to 6 metres over mud, holds in any wind. Hydra harbour is the night everyone remembers, stern-to in 8 to 12 metres of sand, arranged with the port authority ahead of arrival; Vlychos and Bisti are the Hydra anchorages for the swim. On Spetses the evening is Baltiza, the old port, and the swim is Zogeria among the pines or Agii Anargyroi on the west coast. Dokos, the bay below the theatre at Epidavros and Ermioni fill the afternoons in between.
What does a Saronic Gulf yacht charter cost in 2027?
The same rate card as anywhere in Greece, because a yacht carries one weekly fee wherever she goes: a fully crewed yacht charter in Greece starts from EUR 17,000 a week for a 15 metre sailing catamaran with her captain and cook, about EUR 22,000 all in with APA and VAT, and from EUR 17,500 for a crewed motor yacht of 18 to 21 metres, about EUR 24,000 all in. The Saronic difference is in the APA: with legs of 12 to 25 miles and most nights at anchor, the fuel and berth lines land at the low end of the 20 to 30 percent band on a catamaran and the 30 to 40 percent band on a motor yacht, and whatever is unspent comes back at the end of the week against receipts. Greek VAT is invoiced at the yacht's certified rate, 5.2 to 12 percent, and the crew gratuity of 10 to 15 percent of the base stays at your discretion. One price per yacht, never by the head.
Which yachts suit the Saronic?
The ones based at Alimos whose crews I would spend the week with myself. Under sail, the Lagoon 51s BABALU, launched 2024 with a captain, cook and hostess for eight, and EFFIE STAR, launched 2025 with five cabins for ten, both at EUR 17,000 to 22,000 a week; PI 2 from EUR 17,000 and Summer Star at the same band complete the entry to the crewed catamaran fleet. Under power, Explorion, an Aquila 54 with a chef for eight at EUR 21,000 to 28,000, is the power catamaran for the five-night week to Hydra. For a motor yacht week, LADY L at EUR 17,500 to 20,000 runs the gulf at 20 knots, SEA U, a Riva 72 for six at EUR 21,000 to 24,000, is the elegant week for a couple with friends, and SEA YA at EUR 24,000 to 28,000 the fast one; the Saronic motor yacht page sets them out. All per yacht per week before APA and VAT, from their own cards.
When is the Saronic at its best?
From April to October, a longer season than the Cyclades because the gulf is sheltered and the water close to Athens warms early. June and September are the months I keep for the people who ask my own opinion: warm water, light wind, every taverna open, and most rate cards 15 to 25 percent below July and August. July and August are the calmest peak-season weeks in Greece, which is why a family with young children is routed here when the Meltemi is blowing across the Aegean, and why the five-night week sells to parties who can only spare the long weekend.
A five-night Saronic programme, day by day
Board at Alimos in the afternoon and sleep at anchor off Aegina, 18 miles, with the first swim before dinner. Day two, Poros and its inner channel, 18 miles, dinner on the quay. Days three and four, Hydra, 12 miles, because nobody leaves Hydra after one night: the harbour for the evening, Bisti or Vlychos for the day. Day five, Spetses, 25 miles, Zogeria for the swim and Baltiza for the evening. Day six, the run home with a lunch stop at Dokos or Ermioni, and the bags handed over at the marina the next morning. The seven-day week from Hydra and the seven-day week from Athens add Epidavros, Porto Cheli and the Peloponnese coast to the same bones.
When is the Saronic the wrong choice?
When the party has one picture in mind and it is Mykonos, Paros or the Santorini caldera: the Saronic will not give them that, and a week spent wishing you were somewhere else is a wasted week. When the sailors in the party want the Meltemi on a reach rather than an afternoon breeze. When the point of the week is distance, five islands and 40-mile legs. Then the Cyclades from Athens, or for calm water with longer passages the Ionian from Lefkada or Corfu, and a crewed sailing holiday on either. I say which ground fits before I say which yacht, and the Saronic is the one I am happiest to recommend to people who are not sure.
Tell me the dates, the party and the mood, and I will come back with two or three yachts that fit the Saronic, each with the week all in and the five-night terms if that is what the calendar allows.
