Greece · Crete & the Libyan Sea
Yacht Charter Crete
Crewed yacht charter in Crete — Chania, Balos, the roadless south coast, and the crossing to the Cyclades.
Crete is three hundred kilometres long, and that single fact decides almost everything about chartering here: this is not an archipelago you circle in a week, it is a coastline you take a section of. The north side holds the harbours and the Venetian towns, Chania and Rethymno among them, and it is the side the roads and the airports serve. The south side, in the lee of mountains over two thousand metres, has coves with nothing behind them and villages reachable only on foot or from the water, which is the half of the island most visitors never see. What Crete does not have is a resident charter fleet, so the yacht is brought here from elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean for your week — and the wind does the rest of the planning.
One end of the island, not all of it
Three hundred kilometres means Crete divides into a western week and an eastern one. The west is Chania, Balos and Elafonissi, the Samaria gorge and the roadless villages of the south-west. The east is Agios Nikolaos, the Elounda gulf and the fortress island of Spinalonga, and it is also where you are already halfway to the Dodecanese. The middle of the north coast, around Heraklion, is a working commercial port and a passage rather than somewhere to spend a day. Attempt both ends in seven days and you have bought a delivery trip with swimming stops.
For most parties the western week is the stronger one. Chania for the first evening, dinner along the Venetian mole under the lighthouse — although the old harbour itself takes small craft and little else, so a yacht of this size lies at Souda or anchors off and sends the tender in. Rethymno, an hour or two east, is the same idea on a smaller scale and the better first night if the boat has come in from that direction. Then north-west to Balos, a lagoon so shallow that you anchor outside it and go in by tender; the compensation is arriving before the trip boats and the coaches. Elafonissi is round the corner in the south-west, pink sand and a protected reserve, and the same rule about depth applies.
Samaria is the one thing on this island a yacht does better than any other way of travelling. The walkers are driven up to the plateau after breakfast, come down the sixteen kilometres of gorge on foot, and the boat is waiting at Agia Roumeli at the bottom while everyone else queues for the scheduled ferry out. Two caveats, and they are real: the gorge is open from late spring to mid-autumn and closes when the river is up, and Agia Roumeli is an open roadstead rather than a harbour, so the pick-up needs settled weather. It also costs whoever walks a whole day, which suits parties happy to split up for one and not those who want everyone aboard.
The meltemi decides the itinerary
In July and August the meltemi blows from the north for days on end, and on Crete that has a specific consequence: the side of the island with the harbours and the towns is the exposed one, and the north-west corner around Balos is the first anchorage to become untenable. Any plan that has to round the western end on a particular day in August is a plan that will be rewritten. That is not a defect in the itinerary; it is the reason to build the week with slack in it.
The south coast sits in the lee of the White Mountains, which helps and also complicates. The wind spills off two thousand metres of rock in gusts that arrive from nowhere, and there is very little between one anchorage and the next — Loutro is the one bay on that shore that genuinely holds in a blow, which is why the village exists and why it still has no road. A captain who has worked this coast before is worth more here than in the Ionian, where getting it wrong costs you an afternoon rather than a night.
June, September and the first half of October are the honest recommendation. The meltemi is lighter, the sea south of the island stays warm later than almost anywhere in Greece because the coast faces Africa, and Balos and Elafonissi in September are recognisable as the places in the photographs. August is entirely possible with a crewed yacht, but the order of the week belongs to the weather rather than to you, and an operator who hands you a fixed route for August is not describing this island.
Which yacht, and where it comes from
No yacht in this fleet is based in Crete, and we would rather write that plainly than let a page imply otherwise. These waters are covered by six large crewed yachts working the eastern Mediterranean — Aquarius and Sanctuary among the motor yachts, North Wind under sail, with Antheya III and White Pearl for smaller parties — and one of them is positioned to Crete for your charter. Positioning takes days rather than hours, which is the practical reason to enquire well ahead, and the commercial reason a Cretan week is usually built around a movement the boat is making anyway.
It is also why the Cyclades keep entering the conversation. From the north coast of Crete it is roughly seventy miles of open water to Santorini and the southern Cyclades — a long day or an overnight. A one-way week that starts in Crete and finishes in the islands, or runs the other way round, spends that crossing instead of paying for it twice, and gives you the island and the archipelago without repeating a mile. For a first charter in this part of Greece it is the shape we propose most often.
For the Cretan coast itself the motor yachts are usually the right tool: the legs are long, the shelter is thin on the south side, and speed buys you the ability to move when the forecast changes. Aquarius at forty-six metres and Sanctuary at forty-three are the larger end of that; Antheya III and White Pearl, at thirty-five and thirty-four, take a smaller party into the south-coast bays on less draught. North Wind sails, and sails well in the Aegean summer breeze. Clase Azul, the forty-eight-metre gulet, we would steer you away from here — she belongs in the sheltered Lycian bays and the Dodecanese, not on an exposed island shore with hundred-mile passages between anchorages.
Practical notes
- No yacht is based on the island: one is positioned from the eastern Mediterranean for the week, so allow more notice than a Cycladic charter needs
- Embarkation at Chania (Souda Bay), Heraklion or Agios Nikolaos; Chania and Heraklion both have direct flights from much of Europe in season
- Three hundred kilometres of coast — a week takes the western half or the eastern half properly, not both
- The meltemi blows hardest in July and August and shuts the north-west corner first; Loutro is the only reliable shelter on the south coast
- Balos and Elafonissi are shallow and protected: the yacht anchors off and you go in by tender
Reached from: Chania (Souda Bay), Heraklion and Agios Nikolaos
Where to dine
A table by the water
Chania old harbour
ChaniaVenetian tables along the mole, under the lighthouse. You dine late and watch the port.
The tavernas at Loutro
LoutroA village on the south coast with no roads: you arrive on foot or by sea.
Rethymno old town
RethymnoVenetian and Ottoman streets, with Cretan cooking done properly.
What to do
Anchorages & excursions
Balos lagoon
A very shallow lagoon between three shores, with pink sand. From the sea you beat the coaches.
Elafonissi
Pink-sand beach in the far south-west, a protected reserve.
The Samaria Gorge
Sixteen kilometres of gorge ending at the sea in Agia Roumeli, where the boat collects you.
Spinalonga
A Venetian island fortress at the mouth of the Elounda gulf, Europe's last leper colony until 1957.
The fleet
Yachts available for Crete
Vessels that operate here, from flagship motor yachts to smaller crewed boats. Every rate is quoted on enquiry.
Itineraries
Yacht charter itineraries in Crete
What a week here actually looks like, day by day.
Good to know
Questions we are asked about Crete
- Is there a yacht based in Crete?
- No, and we would rather say so than let you find out later. The yachts covering these waters are six large crewed vessels working the eastern Mediterranean, and one of them is positioned to Crete for your charter — you board at Chania, Heraklion or Agios Nikolaos. In practice it means two things: enquire further ahead than you would for the Cyclades, and expect us to build the week around a passage the boat is already making.
- Is a week enough for Crete?
- For half of the island, yes, and that is the right way to use it. West gives you Chania, Balos, Elafonissi, the Samaria gorge and the villages of the south coast. East gives you Agios Nikolaos, Elounda and Spinalonga. Both ends in seven days is a passage plan rather than a holiday, and the middle of the north coast is not what you came for.
- Should we combine Crete with the Cyclades?
- Very often, yes. It is about seventy miles of open water from northern Crete to Santorini, so a one-way week — Crete to the Cyclades or the reverse — uses a crossing the yacht would otherwise make empty. You get the largest island in Greece and the archipelago in one charter without sailing the same water twice.
- How much of a problem is the meltemi, and when should we come?
- June, September and early October are the calmer months and the ones we recommend; the sea here stays warm later than in the rest of Greece. In July and August the meltemi can blow hard for several days, and on Crete it closes the north-west first — Balos in particular. It does not stop a well-found crewed yacht, but it does reorder the days, and the south coast has only one bay, Loutro, that reliably shelters you while it passes.
- What does a yacht charter in Crete cost?
- Rates depend on the yacht, the week, and how far the boat has to be positioned to reach you, so we quote on enquiry rather than publish a figure that would be wrong for almost everyone reading it. Send us your dates, your party size and whether you want to finish in the Cyclades, and we will come back with a proposal.
Destinations
Nearby destinations
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Enquire about a charter in Crete
Tell us your dates and how many of you there are, and we will come back with the right yacht and a full quotation.