Any suggestions for a winter place in the Ionian Islands, Corfu or whereabouts? We are planning to spend the 2015 summer cruising south from Croatia to the Ionian Islands and I am thinking of leaving the boat around Corfu for the winter 2015-2016. Thanks,

Yes, Simon, please do. Malta has been mentioned by a few members and Aleria needs work on her teak deck! Thanks.

Vice Commodore, OCC 

Daria,
My partner at work overwintered very successfully in Malta for 3 or 4 seasons. I think he managed to negotiate a reasonable marina rate and had some work done to his teak deck very cheaply. He found it a good base to explore all of the Med. Not sure which marina he used but I can find out if needed.
Simon

I am posting this thread from the Facebook page here so we dont lose it. Some great information here. Please feel free to add to this.

Question to all familiar with the Med....What 's the best/least costly place to leave a boat in the Med for the winter? We 'll need a short haul to paint the bottom but can stay in the water or on the hard. We 'll be flying back home to Ireland in between sailing a month or so at a time. It 's a 57 foot ketch.
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Nancy Knudsen Tunisia? Finike(Setur) Marina in Turkey?

Nancy Knudsen
svblackwattle@yahoo.com
July 3 at 10:05pm • Unlike • 1
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Dimitris Liaroutsos I can propose very good/safe/reasonable priced places in Greece for leaving your boat out of the water
July 3 at 10:46pm • Edited • Unlike • 1
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David Smith Spain or Portugal (Algarve) would probably be the cheapest. Marina del Sole Cagliari in Sardinia is safe and cheap - but it looks very rustic and different.
July 4 at 4:09am • Unlike • 1
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Pete Jobson At anchor
July 4 at 8:00am • Like
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David Heath I like the town of Finike, Turkey, because I like the town. It is also a good marina, but if you just want to park the boat, then the surrounding features are not as important. I think that the link for calculating prices here is at
http://www.seturmarinas.com/en/index.php...

But, I cannot open that page right now. Many marinas have online price calculators.

You are probably already familiar with all of the following suggestions. But just in case…

Obviously be sure that you 're getting a quote for the marina that you think you are. Our marina is a chain, and I think the prices vary quite a bit by location. And it is probably good to get a confirmation email that you have calculated everything correctly, before you change your life around, to go there. Some marinas have hidden fees, and double check what currency they are basing their fees on.

We stayed one winter at Almerimar, Spain, for the low cost. We stayed on board most of the winter, and enjoyed it, but it certainly is not my favorite location for tourist things. Our winter in Ostia Marina, near Rome, and our winters in Turkey, have been dramatically more fun. But if you are off the boat… You may not care.

Almerimar calculated on our true, overall length, with perhaps even a little fudge factor added on. And then they round everything up, or they tell you that they don 't have any berths left in that size range but they could fit you into the next larger size price category. Their prices were so low that that was OK for us. If in doubt, ask them to measure it with a tape measure. Some boats even remove davits, bow anchors, etc. to make their boat shorter. But, we did not get to use our documented length.

Every other Marina that we have been in has used our documented length and width.

Our Marina here, includes water and electric in the price. Many marinas charge large extra fees for those. I use that electricity to do all my cooking, and not have to buy propane. So, it saves me money. If you are gone, and off the boat, that may not matter. However many of our friends stayed at, "an inexpensive marina" that was in a remote location, that is hard to get to buy public transportation. And, by the time they added on paying for water and electric, it cost more than our convenient and much nicer marina. This was a common mistake in the area around Rome and in Marmaris.

Also our marina allows you to do your own work in the haul out or in the marina. Many marinas prohibit it entirely, or charge a large fee if someone comes in from outside the marina. If you do want to hire all of your work done, Marmaris, has a lot more technical services. But, most things can be found here in Finike.

I was able to stay aboard my boat on the hard here. Many marinas that we have been in, absolutely forbid that.

And, I am amazed at how many Mediterranean marinas are unsafe in the wintertime. Most of the slips in the marina at Ostia, were okay in the winter storms, but many berths had incredible surge. Portomao, Portugal had extremely dangerous surge, back in 2005. Hopefully they have fixed that now.

Do what you can to make sure that your Marina will be safe for your boat. Not all are.

And, your boat is large enough that many marinas only have a few places they can put you. Don 't leave this too late in the year, or they will be sold out.

We live in complicated times.

Setur Marinalari - Price Calculation
www.seturmarinas.com
Setur Marinas Operation Management Kalam?? 90 216 346 23 46 ? L.o.a(m) * Beam(m)...See More
July 4 at 8:35am • Edited • Unlike • 1
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Bob Horne We wintered in Matero near Barcelona which was very good.
July 4 at 8:37am • Unlike • 1
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Daria Blackwell Tunisia sounds quite interesting, as does Turkey, although it seems that a couple of places in Spain have the benefit of being easy to get in and out of by air. Barcelona is intriguing and not too distant to get to from Ireland. Thanks for all the ideas. I will be checking each one of them out. We should probably re-post this on the Forum so we don;t lose the information.
July 4 at 3:17pm • Like
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Jim Thomsen Almerimar was safe and cheap when we were there in 2007. We will leave our boat in West Istanbul Marina this winter for 2000 euro for 6 months.

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Aisling 1 has been in the Mediterranean since the summer of 2007, when we sailed Halifax Nova Scotia-Azores-Bayona and into the Med. We have been as far east as Turkey but last summer we began gradually moving back toward the west. This summer we are exploring the Adriatic and Aisling will spend the winter in Marina di Ragusa, Sicily.Plans for next summer are not finalized, but we will probably continue west, hopefully with some time in Sardinia and the Balearics. We 'd love to meet some other OCC members!

Vice Commodore, OCC