Sailing Mediterranean 2024: Highlights and Lessons from a Year at Sea

on December 31, 2024

Summary of 2024 season Sailing Mediterranean

Today, the last day of 2024, many of us reflect on the passing year. We will also try to sum up this time. 2024 was our second season at sea, sailing and living aboard our yacht “Tranquility”. It is hard to believe that time flies so quickly! After all, it was not long ago that we were looking for a floating home.

Summary of 2023 season

After the first year of sailing, we also wrote a short summary, which you can read here. We focused on the first impressions, challenges, surprises and disappointments of this lifestyle. You can find a full description of our sailing in 2023 on our blog in Modules:

Modules describing further legs of our 2023 journey will be published soon.

2024 season Statistics

But let’s go back to 2024 – let’s start with some numbers!

We started the 2024 season on March 1 in Preveza, Greece and ended on December 2 in Almerimar, Spain. We spent it entirely in the Mediterranean Sea. During this time, we sailed a distance of 3,967.5 nautical miles, visiting 56 islands in 5 countries. We sailed around Greece, Italy, France and Spain and for the first time we arrived in Malta. We docked in 32 different ports/marinas and anchored in 92 different anchorages. At the end of the season, our total distance sailed is 8677.5 nautical miles since we have owned “Tranquility”.

Sailing Mediterranean in 2024 – Overview

As planned, we spent our second season sailing in the Mediterranean. After a very intense first year, when we sailed from Sweden, through Poland, around Europe and finally reached Greece, we decided to take 2024 slowly. We planned much shorter distances, longer stops in one place and adjusted the time frame to sail at our own pace, relax and not rush anywhere. The plan also included more diving – after all, we have our own dive compressor!

Since our favorite sailing region so far is Greece, we spent most of the season there. In fact, including the end of 2023, we spent a total of 10 months in Greece. That’s quite a lot, in that time you can sail almost halfway around the world!

It wasn’t until September that we sailed to Malta, where we spent 2 weeks. The next stop was Sicily, this time its eastern and northern coast, along with the Aeolian Islands. In mid-October, we sailed to Sardinia, La Maddalena Archipelago and briefly stopped in Corsica. We spent the first half of November in the Balearic Islands, and then sailed to mainland Spain, where we hauled out our yacht on December 2.

Let us now share with you the best moments of this season. Later, it will be time for those that we won’t remember nicely and that didn’t go according to plan.

Highlights of Sailing Mediterranean in 2024

Off-season, spring sailing in the Ionian Sea.

We started the 2024 season in March in the Ionian Sea. And it was great! The area, which is very, very crowded during the season, was basically to ourselves, apart from a few other yachts. The bays and ports were empty, places where anchoring is usually not allowed – accessible. Beautiful weather, peace and quiet – that’s all we needed after a busy winter in the boatyard. And although it was hard to fill up water in the ports, shops and restaurants were closed, and renting a car was out of the question, we spent a wonderful, peaceful time in a place that is usually not calm.

The Ionian Sea is a particularly crowded region of Greece in the summer season. This is due to the much more stable weather than in the Aegean Sea. There is no local, strong Meltemi wind here, which can thwart sailing plans in the Aegean Sea. There are plenty of companies and charter bases here, and the region, again compared to the Aegean Sea, is not that large. Additionally, the bays are small and deep, which also limits the amount of space available for yachts.

For those of you looking for peace, we advise against this area in the summer. Early spring and autumn are perfect! However, if you are looking for bustling ports, lively restaurants and taverns, and your yacht is not self-sufficient in electricity and water, then sailing the Ionian Sea off-season may be problematic.

Sailing in Sporades Islands

The Sporades were an unknown part of Greece to us. We had sailed in other areas before we bought a boat and knew what to expect. We planned to sail to the Sporades, which are located in the northern part of the Aegean Sea, at the end of May, so as not to battle against the Meltemi wind on the way north later in the season (the Meltemi wind always blows from the north). It was a very good strategy.

The Sporades charmed us with their lush vegetation, picturesque towns, peaceful bays and… marine life! It is not without reason that the largest marine national park in Europe “Alonissos-Northern Sporades” was established here. It is also the oldest park in Greece. We did a lot of diving, snorkeling, swimming and hiking. We wandered around the towns and enjoyed Greek cuisine in tavernas. The islands also offer many cycling paths. The atmosphere was enhanced by the music of Abba that was playing in every tavern, because it is here where famous “Mamma Mia!” was filmed. We also didn’t miss the famous church on a rock from the last scene of the film.

Sporades offer lots of different activities

We stayed in the Sporades much longer than planned. In the coming weeks, a more detailed article about sailing around this archipelago, along with information about the National Park, will appear on the blog. The next one will be specifically about diving in the Sporades, so stay with us!

Avoiding the crowds while sailing Mediterranean

The undoubted success of our sailing around Greece in the summer was efficiently avoiding the crowds, flotillas and the huge number of charter boats. In the high season, we moved away from the places where the charter bases are located, choosing islands that are not attractive for a 2-week tourist or poorly connected to the rest of the world. The strategy worked very well. Thanks to this, we avoided many unpleasant situations at crowded anchorages and ports, we had more peace and quiet and did not have to listen to questionable quality music coming from partying catamarans in the evenings.

Diving in the Mediterranean

As I mentioned earlier, this season we started diving more. And all thanks to the installation of a diving compressor on our boat, which gave us freedom and independence. You can read about this project here:

How to choose the best Dive Compressor for Your Boat?
Installing a Dive Compressor on Deck: A Step-by-Step Guide

We no longer have to go back to the diving center to fill our tanks! Although the Mediterranean Sea is not one of the most interesting diving spots in the world, we wanted to dive as much as possible. Our goal was to develop a diving system from a yacht, because it looks completely different than diving with a diving school. And we achieved this goal – we know what works, what doesn’t, what we still need to improve and what our limitations are. We hope that thanks to this training, organizing diving will not take us much time when we are in really interesting diving spots in the world!

But don’t get me wrong – we also did a lot of very interesting dives in Greece! When it comes to life under the sea, we definitely recommend the Sporades mentioned above. We also dived on several interesting wrecks and on the island of Amorgos, where the iconic “Big Blue” was filmed. And although 30 years after the film was made, the reality underwater is far from what we saw in the movie, we are still glad that we managed to dive in this special place. Longer videos from the dives will be available soon, shorter reels are available on our Instagram and Facebook pages.

Sailing Mediterranean back to Sicily

Returning to Sicily, especially to our beloved Syracuse, was a wonderful moment. Everyone has such places where they feel exceptionally good. Ours is Sicily, and especially Syracuse. We spent a month in Syracuse in 2023, partly due to the hospital adventure with Tomek’s appendix. And even though the experience wasn’t the most enjoyable, we knew we wanted to come back!

This time, in Syracuse, we were surprised not by an appendix, but by the G7 summit, which gave us the opportunity to visit the largest ship of the Italian Coast Guard. We met up with friends from a year ago, ate huge amounts of the best pizza in the world and watched the sunsets at one of our favorite anchorages in the entire Mediterranean. We also visited Noto, Taormina, crossed the Strait of Messina and sailed the northern coast of the island. Will we come back again? Definitely, any time.

Successful fishing when sailing Mediterranean

The second season at sea was also the time to start fishing! We always knew we wanted to do it, unfortunately the first year we didn’t have capacity to prepare. We were busy with other aspects of sailing full time. Also, we had no fishing experience and still have little! But the important thing is that we started, of course with the help of guidebooks, the Internet, friends and sailors we met along the way. Fishing in Greece was very disappointing. We didn’t catch anything for several months!

Things took a different turn when we left Greece. On the way to Malta we were catching tuna every morning and evening until there was no room in the freezer. Catching (and eating) the first fish after months of trying was a huge joy! After that we were catching fish regularly (tuna and mahi mahi). Our record so far is a tuna weighing 7.6 kg! We feel great satisfaction that we are able to catch good quality fish ourselves, properly gut it and have the freshest possible dinner. This is another step towards our complete self-sufficiency, while not taking part in mass-scale industrial fishing.

Aeolian Islands

Another place that impressed us was the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. And what delighted us the most was the view of the lava eruption from the Stromboli volcano, which we watched from our yacht! And although we have seen volcanoes erupting in our lives, this was the first time we saw a lava eruption, and from the front row. Of course, the Aeolian Islands are not just Stromboli. The entire archipelago is made up of volcanic islands, covered with lush, green vegetation. There is definitely a lot to do here! The only downside was quite strong swell entering the bays from passing ferries and open sea, regardless of the wind direction. We did not sleep well here.

Lows of Sailing Mediterranean in 2024

So let’s move on to the less successful adventures of 2024. But still adventures!

Storm hits in the port of Kalamata

During our April stopover in Kalamata in the Peloponnese, a storm and sandstorm hit the port. And there would be nothing strange about it, if not for the fact that the forecasted maximum of 20 knots of wind turned into over 50. The weather surprised everyone. Many sailors left their yachts and went on trips, because the forecast was good. We were doing the laundry. When the increasing wind and waves began to jerk our boat and push us against the concrete quay, the mooring line broke. Before we could react, we were pushed onto the stairs (also concrete).

Fortunately, the whole situation did not end with serious damage. The fender strip did its job and took the impact, without damaging the hull. Along with the wind came a sandstorm and apocalyptic yellow air. It’s a good thing we’ve already been through this in our lives, because otherwise we would have been sure that it was the end of the world. The whole thing lasted until the early evening hours, and we, sitting with the rest of the terrified and hungry sailors on the quay, were just adding next tires on the rails to protect our homes. Now we talk about it as another interesting adventure, but at the time we were not laughing. And we still have to fix this fender strip – this is one of the projects for this winter.

Continuous Meltemi wind

2024 was an exceptional year in terms of weather and we can expect that due to climate change, each subsequent year will be exceptional as well. The meltemi wind occurs in the Aegean Sea in the summer. But not this time. The first meltemi blew in February! And in the summer it was only worse.

The meltemi was stronger and lasted longer, and the breaks between the next hits were shorter. At one point, our sailing came down to finding another sheltered anchorage where we could hide from the meltemi for 3-4 days. On days with less strong winds, we would move on, explore a bit, and then look for another sheltered bay again. And when this pattern repeats for 1 or 2 months, it becomes really tiring. Additionally, when the wind is blowing 30-40 knots, we are unable to get off the boat, dinghy to land or even swim around the boat, let alone dive. Sometimes we felt trapped in a small shell that was constantly being torn by the wind. If it weren’t for our friends visiting later, I think we would have sailed out of Greece earlier, because the constant meltemi really tired us out – mentally and physically.

Did we stay in Greece too long when sailing Mediterranean?

This point is related to the previous one. Despite our love for Greece, Greek food, people and nature, in retrospect we notice that 10 months in one country is definitely too long for us. And although we know that there are people who sail in Greece their whole lives, we still need more frequent changes of landscape. This slower and calmer season has shown us that we do not like living too slowly and too calmly either and we need more stimuli, changes and activities.

As I wrote earlier, the Meltemi wind tired us out and limited the number of activities we were able to undertake. And this landscape – we definitely need to change it more often. At the beginning I wrote that in 2024 we visited 56 islands, most of which are Greek islands. And although they are all beautiful, it is still difficult to find and see something new and different after the twentieth, and this is what we are looking for when sailing around the world.

Unfortunately, the season is not endless and our long stay in Greece shortened our time in Sardinia and Corsica. We definitely ran out of time for these islands.

Diving in Malta

What we were really looking forward to in 2024 was diving in Malta. Malta is a very popular diving destination, famous for its caves and wrecks. The perfect place for us, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, already at the research stage it turned out that diving from a yacht would not be easy there. The bays are exposed, very often the swell from the open sea enters them. This makes it much more difficult to organize diving from a yacht on your own and fill the cylinders. There are also few places where you can safely leave the yacht, because the anchor does not hold well on the rocky bottom. Many diving sites are located on the open sea, where we are unable to reach with our dinghy. Those that remained were not particularly interesting. These are usually wrecks sunk for the needs of divers, and we prefer those with real history behind. Life under the water was also not impressive.

And although Malta is undoubtedly a very interesting destination for deeper, technical diving, it was very disappointing for us. And diving from a yacht on your own in Malta has to be limited to just a few uninteresting places, which are also very dependent on the weather.

Although diving in Malta was not successful, staying in Valletta was magical!

Summary of Sailing Mediterranean in 2024

In 2024, we sailed 700 miles less than the previous year. We sailed in a smaller area, with a slower and calmer pace. But despite this, the year was full of wonderful adventures, picturesque places, lovely people we met and new activities. First of all, we started diving a lot again and we learned how to fish. We also found out something about ourselves – that this slow life that many people seek is not for us.

So we encourage you to stay with us for another year, because the plans are very ambitious and a lot will happen!