Cruising

Cyclades - Sailing with a family group aboard a Pahi 53

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Article published on 26/05/2023

By Gilles Ruffet

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published inn°190july / aug.

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Sandrine runs a website dedicated to travelling as a family. Here, she recounts a trip with her tribe in Greek waters on a Wharram catamaran with a skipper. What a delight!

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Who: Sandrine and... 10 members of her family, from 3 to... 80 years old
Where: Paros, Greece
Multihull: Pahi 53
Blog: www.voyagesetenfants.com

Here we are in Paros, in the magical Cyclades: whitewashed houses and blue roofs in a sunbaked land. The next day, we discover our catamaran and our skipper. The idea of this cruise, since we have the boat all to ourselves, is to do whatever we want - or almost. We leave Paros, and four hours later, we arrive on the island of Siros. The older and younger ones bathe at the anchorage near the small port of Finikas, before going for a walk in Ermoupoli. At the anchorage, the night was calm, without any pitching. We then headed to the deserted island of Rineia, and then to the small bay of Ornos on the island of Mikonos. On the third day, after getting up very early, the skipper hoisted the sails. He didn’t want to wake us up, but he eventually had to use the engine as there was not enough wind. But it is also nice to see the sea early in the morning. The stopovers succeeded one another, each one more beautiful than the last: Delos and its UNESCO World Heritage site, then Naxos, which we visited without the children - this is the advantage of being in a tribe: there are always volunteers to look after the little ones. Koufounisia will remain the family favorite from our cruise, with its turquoise waters, the white and blue village - a truly magical bay with swimming, beach and sandcastles. The cruise continued: Amorgos, Katapola and Schinoussa, with the famous monastery perched on the rock of Amorgos. Then it was time to sail back to Paros. Our best memories? We would never have gone on a catamaran with just the four of us, because I am not particularly interested in sailing. But with 10 people, and when we were preparing the trip with our tribe, we realized that the idea of a cruise on a catamaran caught everyone’s imagination. And indeed, after having tested it, it is a dream come true: jumping from the boat and swimming in the crystal clear waters, taking the dinghy to go ashore, seeing the dolphins swimming with us under the catamaran’s trampolines, enjoying and taking a nap every afternoon, admiring the sunsets in the Lesser Cyclades, lying on the trampolines looking at the stars and anchoring in deserted bays... what could be better?

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