Corfu Sailing Blog - Our Low Down on Sailing From Corfu

A member of our team enjoyed a sailing trip to Corfu earlier this month and shares his experience, hints and tips in this useful blog.

Day 1

We flew with BA from Heathrow to Corfu and arrived in Corfu old town to stay in the nice, boutique Cavalieri Hotel, over looking the sea and the Old Fortress of Corfu. After checking in we enjoyed a dip in the extremely warm sea and salt water public pool close to the hotel, before enjoying a pleasant al fresco dinner in the Limoncello restaurant in the centre of the old town and then some shopping in the bustling, pedestrianised streets. The Venetian influences and similarities to the old town of Dubrovnik, where we had sailed from in 2023, were striking.

Day 2 – Gouvia Marina

After breakfast, we explored the impressive, Venetian Old Fortress of Corfu and then caught a taxi to Gouvia Marina to enjoy lunch and swimming in the Marina pool for the afternoon, while waiting for our yacht to be ready. The Sunsail team called us around 4pm and we boarded our yacht. Our shopping, purchased from an online provisioning provider was already loaded onboard for us and a very friendly Sunsail technician gave us a comprehensive briefing on our catamaran. A delicious seafood dinner was then enjoyed in the Olympia Mare restaurant in the Marina, which we thoroughly recommend.

Day 3 – Gouvia Marina to Petriti

We departed the Marina relatively early and headed south towards that evenings destination of Petriti, a fishing village around 16nm down the Corfu coast. We made good time, motor sailing down towards Petriti and went just past Petriti to a large bay called Ormos Levkimmi and anchored for lunch, meeting up with our friends who had chartered a Jeanneau 44 from a different, local charter company. Everyone, including the kids, enjoyed a couple of hours snorkelling, swimming and paddleboarding (we’d hired 3 SUPs from Sunsail, which had been inflated and loaded into our yacht for us for our arrival on Saturday).

After everyone had enjoyed the water for a couple of hours, we headed to Petriti, where we had a berth pre-booked for both yachts.

We arrived in Petriti and anchored stern too with the assistance of the local team. Petritj harbour provided both electricity and water and mooring fees were quite reasonable, at around 40€ for a 40ft yacht, including a 12€ electricity and water card. Petriti is a busy fishing village, with several working fishing boats based from the village. The restaurants reflected the fishing heritage of the village, mainly being fish restaurants and our experience of the restaurants we visited was pretty positive, with good food and good service. We ate at the Limanaki Fish Tavern that evening, with the friendly staff serving us delicious sea food at a very reasonable price. We would recommend Petriti as a stopover. We would add that many yachts anchor just outside of Petriti harbour and use their tenders to come ashore and so you don’t have to miss out on the charm of this Greek fishing village if you can’t secure a berth.

Day 4 – Lay Day in Petriti

Our 4th day saw a 5-month drought finish with a spectacular thunder storm and torrential downpour that lasted several hours. Local residents were delighted and we decided to spend an additional day in Petriti, fishing, snorkelling and paddleboarding, as the local forecast was looking windy and challenging. As we were due to spend the night at anchor at the notoriously chaotic bay of Gaios off Paxos, we decided to play it safe and stay in Petriti for a 2^nd night and enjoy another dinner at the Limanaki Fish Tavern.

Day 5 – Petriti to Antipaxos

We made an early start the next morning, as we wanted to make the 22nm mile trip to Antipaxos, skipping the previous day’s destination of Paxos and getting down to Mongonissi to anchor for lunch, before heading down to Antipaxos for the evening. Mongonissi is a nice area at the southern tip of Paxos and was an easy and pleasant anchorage.

We had a restaurant booked at Voutoumi beach that evening and were given good advice to arrive around 4pm to secure an anchorage. This is the time the tourist boats up anchor and head off back to Corfu, leaving plenty of space for those ready and waiting. Our friends anchored just off Voutoumi beach and we anchored in shallower waters very close by just off Mesovrika Beach.

We took tenders and paddleboards to Voutoumi beach for an early dinner, which was extremely pleasant. Voutoumi has a lovely sandy beach and the restaurant is just a 1 minute walk away. After dinner we made the return trip relatively early to have everyone back onboard by nightfall, as some rain and wind was forecast.

Day 6 – Antipaxos to Sivota

After the rain the night before, we woke early to a beautiful morning and spent some time swimming in the bays and enjoying the two sandy beaches of Voutoumi and Mesovrika. We had a fair way to go to our next stop at Sivota and had been warned that the tourist boats would reappear around 1030hrs and so we made a stat before then.

The trip from Antipaxos to Sivota was around 18 nautical miles, with no wind at all. We motored nearly the whole way there and anchored for lunch by a group of 3 islands just by Sivota. This was a popular area for anchoring, with many yachts, powerboats and tourist boats in the area. However, with many bays and coves provided an abundance of areas to anchor and we found a good anchorage easily for lunch and enjoyed some swimming, fishing and paddle boarding.

One of our group had secured us moorings at the private beach club, Karvouno Villas. The moorings at Karvouno were free, as long as you ate in the villa restaurant, and had good last lines and a water supply to refill the yacht with (for a fee of 10 Euros). The private beach front  was excellent, with very sheltered waters and a sandy beach that created excellent conditions for swimming, snorkelling and paddleboarding. We also took our tender round to Sivota Marina, which had some good shops and one of our group also spotted a diving business and booked for two of our group that were PADI qualified to join a dive trip the next morning.

We had the restaurant at the Karvouno Villas booked that night, which was quite good, although didn’t quite live up to the promise of gastronomic delights claimed by the website.  

Day 7 – Sivota to Mandraki Harbour

Our penultimate day saw an early start for those going scuba diving. While the rest of us enjoyed breakfast and the facilities at the Karvouno Villas. We were allowed to stay on the moorings until gone noon and then we headed out to rendezvous with the dive boat close to where we were anchored the previous day. After a successful boat to boat transfer for our divers, we headed off towards Mandraki Harbour while enjoying tales from the divers of encounters with Octopus, Moray Eels and many types of fish.

The 3 hour motor to Mandraki was slightly frustrating, as one of the only decent breezes we encountered built up when we only had a couple of miles to go to Mandraki and as we were running late there was no time to get the sails up for what would have been a great sail.

There was some nervousness about Mandraki Harbour, with it being so close to Corfu Town, but it proved to be a great place to stop. The marina was run by the Corfu Sailing Club with a great little marina with good lazy lines and with good facilities, including water, electric, a nice little bar and an amazing restaurant, where we enjoyed the best meal during our entire trip to Corfu. The showers and toilets were a limited and the berthing was expensive, at over 110 Euros for a 42ft catamaran and 60 Euros for a 44 foot monohull, but it was worth it.

After dinner we wondered into Corfu Old Town for shopping and ice creams, which was just a few minutes walk from the marina.

Day 8 – Mandraki Harbour to Gouvia Marina

We took the advice of the handover technician to beat the crowds and refuel at Gouvia that morning, rather than battle it out with dozens of other yachts in the afternoon. There were no queues and the advice proved to be very good, allowing us to drop by, refuel and head out for some more time on the water before our return to the marina that evening.

However, one of our few mistakes followed. We headed north and anchored in Dasia Bay, not far from Gouvia. After setting anchor we noticed the large hotels in the distance and then were constantly passed by by powerboats pulling tourists on inflatables and parasails. It wasn’t a very relaxing or scenic bay and we wouldn’t recommend anchoring here, or in the next bay up called Ipsos Bay. We headed back to Gouvia Marina where we received a warm welcome from the Sunsail team, a good technical debrief and customer care visit. We then enjoyed use of the pool and had our last evening meal back at the Olympia Mare restaurant.