Back home in New Zealand, this posting takes us up to second week October.
We’re very impressed with Lefkas marina. It’s very sheltered because it’s accessed from the Lefkas canal, so immune from any waves or surge caused by gales and storms.
It has capacity for 620 boats, including up to 45 metres long, but we’ve seen very few boats here above 20 metres, and mostly much less. The hardstand has capacity for 280 boats.
It’s much smaller than Turkey’s Marmaris Yacht Marine marina, and has a great relaxed “feel” about it. For example there are two travel lifts here, but we’ve hardly seen them move; whereas at Marmaris they’re going all day and well into the night. It’s also decidedly cleaner here with less general litter and junk lying around.
The technical facilities seem to be good, and we’re using Sailand, a firm recommended by a local professional British yachtsman and surveyor – so far, so good.
The marina has several bar/cafes and the interesting town of Lefkas, with many shops and restaurants, is only ten minutes walk. There’s also an excellent bus service from Lefkas to Athens and other destinations, as well as an airport at Preveza with flights to many parts of Europe.
Lefkas Marina is slightly dearer than Marmaris, and the cost for us is Euro 480 (about NZ$762) per month including time in the water, time on the hardstand (same cost), lift out, lift in, high pressure wash, propping charge, hire of steel supports, electricity and water and 23% VAT.
We found one other Nordhavn here – a 47, but they have now set off for Gibraltar and an Atlantic crossing.
We met up with A1Yachting’s local representative, Yvonne, who has been a great help. We’ve used A1 in Greece a lot for both regulatory and technical issues, and found them to be excellent. To re-cap the regulations and our situation, under the Schengen Treaty cruising visitors from outside the EU can only stay in Greece for 90 days in any 180 day period. However we were able to circumvent this by clearing into Greece as a professional captain and crew – which gave us a 180 day visa. Nevertheless, because we’ve been in Greece for longer than 90 days we still have to pay a cruising tax calculated on the vessel length – in our case 13.95 metres x Euro 14.67 per metre, plus 23% VAT. For us this comes to Euro 251.72 (about NZ$400) for three months. Although this sounds quite a bit, it’s not bad when you consider that it’s Euro 2.77 (about NZ$4.40) per day to stay in this beautiful area. We think it’s a little unfair that this tax still has to be paid while boats are on the hardstand, but that’s how it is, so no point in fretting about it – Greece needs the money!
Next posting will start to deal with end of season and winter lay-up technical issues.
We’re very impressed with Lefkas marina. It’s very sheltered because it’s accessed from the Lefkas canal, so immune from any waves or surge caused by gales and storms.
It has capacity for 620 boats, including up to 45 metres long, but we’ve seen very few boats here above 20 metres, and mostly much less. The hardstand has capacity for 280 boats.
It’s much smaller than Turkey’s Marmaris Yacht Marine marina, and has a great relaxed “feel” about it. For example there are two travel lifts here, but we’ve hardly seen them move; whereas at Marmaris they’re going all day and well into the night. It’s also decidedly cleaner here with less general litter and junk lying around.
The technical facilities seem to be good, and we’re using Sailand, a firm recommended by a local professional British yachtsman and surveyor – so far, so good.
The marina has several bar/cafes and the interesting town of Lefkas, with many shops and restaurants, is only ten minutes walk. There’s also an excellent bus service from Lefkas to Athens and other destinations, as well as an airport at Preveza with flights to many parts of Europe.
Lefkas Marina is slightly dearer than Marmaris, and the cost for us is Euro 480 (about NZ$762) per month including time in the water, time on the hardstand (same cost), lift out, lift in, high pressure wash, propping charge, hire of steel supports, electricity and water and 23% VAT.
We found one other Nordhavn here – a 47, but they have now set off for Gibraltar and an Atlantic crossing.
We met up with A1Yachting’s local representative, Yvonne, who has been a great help. We’ve used A1 in Greece a lot for both regulatory and technical issues, and found them to be excellent. To re-cap the regulations and our situation, under the Schengen Treaty cruising visitors from outside the EU can only stay in Greece for 90 days in any 180 day period. However we were able to circumvent this by clearing into Greece as a professional captain and crew – which gave us a 180 day visa. Nevertheless, because we’ve been in Greece for longer than 90 days we still have to pay a cruising tax calculated on the vessel length – in our case 13.95 metres x Euro 14.67 per metre, plus 23% VAT. For us this comes to Euro 251.72 (about NZ$400) for three months. Although this sounds quite a bit, it’s not bad when you consider that it’s Euro 2.77 (about NZ$4.40) per day to stay in this beautiful area. We think it’s a little unfair that this tax still has to be paid while boats are on the hardstand, but that’s how it is, so no point in fretting about it – Greece needs the money!
Next posting will start to deal with end of season and winter lay-up technical issues.
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