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Route · 7 days · round-tripYacht charter route · Ionian

Zakynthos round-trip.

Sail a week around Zakynthos: Keri caves, the Navagio shipwreck, the Blue Caves at Cape Skinari and Marathonisi turtle bay, starting from Zakynthos Town.

The route

Day-by-day route

Click any pin on the map or any day in the route summary below to see that day's stop, story and photos.

Keri
Day 1

Zakynthos Town → Keri Bay

A gentle 12-mile run south under the island's lee to Keri Bay, timed for an afternoon dinghy tour of the sea caves.

Distance

8 NM

Sailing

~1.6h at 5 kn

At a glance

Route at a glance

Best season

May – mid-October (peak Jun – Sep, calmer winds)

Duration

7 days

Departure

Zakynthos

Sailing area

Ionian

Route summary

Click any day to jump back to the map and see its photos, narrative and mooring tip.

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The full story

Day-by-day journey

Named anchorages, mooring notes and things to do for every leg of the week — the map follows along as you scroll.

Day 1 / 7
Keri
1
Day 1

Zakynthos Town → Keri Bay

We usually cast off from Zakynthos Town mid-morning and point the bow south. The first leg keeps the island to starboard, so the water stays flat and the breeze rarely climbs past a comfortable twelve knots on the beam. By early afternoon the cliffs at Cape Keri come up on the bow, rising a sheer eighty metres from a sea that darkens to ink beneath them. Keri Bay is where you drop the hook. Ashore, the natural tar springs at the head of the bay have been seeping pitch since antiquity, and the lighthouse walk up the cape opens a long view across the strait to the Peloponnese. Save the dinghy for golden hour: run it into the caves on the point, where the light bends through the limestone arches and floods the pool an unreal blue. Order saganaki at a cliff-edge taverna and watch the sun go.

Things to do

Dinghy into the Keri sea caves

Walk up to Keri lighthouse viewpoint

Swim beneath the limestone arches

See the natural tar springs

Flame-lit saganaki at a cliff taverna

Mooring tip

Anchor free on sand in 5 to 8 metres; holding is excellent, but back down hard to check the set, as weed patches lurk along the eastern edge. In August the bay packs with day-boats by early evening, so drop the hook before four if you want room.

Koukla
2
Day 2

Keri Bay → Porto Koukla

Barely a passage at all, this one. Six miles of easy reaching east brings you to Porto Koukla, a quiet corner of the south coast that the charter fleet mostly sails past. The draw here is underwater. Thick meadows of posidonia carpet the shallows in three to five metres, and a mask and fins will usually turn up octopus, bream and the odd shy moray tucked into the grass. The pine-shaded coast road runs flat in both directions, which makes for a good dawn jog before the heat settles in. This stretch of coast sits well away from any resort glare, so the night sky here is genuinely dark; stay up past midnight and the Milky Way arcs right down to the masthead. Eat simply and eat local, and let the boat swing quietly on her lines.

Things to do

Snorkel the posidonia meadows for octopus

Paddleboard to a quiet pebble cove

Order bianco fish stew on the quay

Midnight stargazing over Laganas Bay

Dawn run along the pine coast road

Mooring tip

Take a lazy line on the small quay for a modest fee, but slots are few and go first-come. The berth faces south, so if a southwest swell gets up overnight, fall back four miles west to anchor on sand in Keri Bay. Expect nothing here beyond fresh water.

Vromi
3
Day 3

Porto Koukla → Vromi Bay

Read the forecast twice before you commit to this one. Rounding Cape Keri puts you on the exposed west coast, where chalk walls climb two hundred metres for the best part of twenty kilometres and there is nowhere to duck in if the weather turns. Rockfall is common enough that stretches of the shoreline are now buoyed off. Vromi is the single sheltered notch on the whole side, a north-facing inlet with deep sand under the keel. Tender round the corner to Navagio itself, the crescent of pale sand where the freighter Panagiotis has lain rusting since it ran aground in 1980. Land by dinghy for the photograph, but keep clear of the cliff base, which sheds stone without warning. Falcons wheel along the rock faces overhead. Toast the day on deck with a glass of Verdea as the light goes amber.

Things to do

Tender into Navagio Shipwreck Cove

Photograph the rusted Panagiotis wreck

Watch Eleonora's falcons on the cliffs

Swim below the two-hundred-metre chalk walls

Sunset glass of Verdea on deck

Mooring tip

There is no quay at Vromi, so anchor free on sand in 8 to 12 metres tight against the south wall for shelter from the north. The bay is wide open to the west and southwest; leave at the first hint of a southerly, and if the wind backs overnight run back east round Cape Keri to Porto Koukla.

Agios Nikolaos
4
Day 4

Vromi Bay → Agios Nikolaos

The long haul north round Cape Skinari is the last of the open-water work, and it eases the moment you clear the point. Under the lee of the headland the wind drops away and the run down to Agios Nikolaos settles into a lazy beam reach. The morning's excursion is the Blue Caves on the cape, a run of sea grottoes where sunlight bounces off the white rock underwater and turns the whole pool a hard cobalt. The little glass-bottom boats work the circuit out of Skinari, but you can do it yourself with a dinghy, a torch and a snorkel. Agios Nikolaos is a working fishing harbour, its blue-domed church the one landmark on the front. Walk the half-hour up the hill to the old Skopiotissa monastery if the legs need stretching. Rabbit stifado, slow-cooked with onions and cinnamon, is the plate to order under the vines.

Things to do

Snorkel the cobalt Blue Caves

Hike up to Skopiotissa monastery

Rabbit stifado in a vine-shaded courtyard

Coffee under the blue church dome

Sunset photo from Cape Skinari

Mooring tip

Berth stern-to or on a lazy line at the Agios Nikolaos quay for a small fee; slots are limited, so phone ahead in August. The harbour shelters well from the prevailing north but chops up in a southeast blow; if it fills, anchor a mile south at Makris Gialos on sand in 5 to 7 metres.

Tsilivi
5
Day 5

Agios Nikolaos → Tsilivi

Nothing taxing today. Twelve miles down the sheltered east coast with the thermal on the beam, and the wide bay at Tsilivi opens up by mid-afternoon. The anchoring is as simple as it gets: clean sand in four to six metres, good holding, shelter from everything bar a southerly. The point of stopping short of town is what lies behind the beach. Tsilivi is the closest hop to the Venetian walls at Bochali on the ridge above Zante Town, where the whole island lays itself out below you in one sweep. Push further inland and the mountain villages around Volimes make the local cheese and ceramics; carry a wheel of ladotyri, matured in olive oil, back down to the boat. Come evening, the promenade is a quiet stroll, and the tavernas at the south end put out the better plates.

Things to do

Swim the long Tsilivi sand crescent

Drive up to Bochali for the panorama

Tour the Volimes mountain wine villages

Buy ladotyri cheese at the market

Sundowner on the seafront promenade

Mooring tip

Anchor on clean sand in 4 to 6 metres with good holding, well tucked from the north and northwest. Nothing here breaks a southerly, though; if one is forecast, shift five miles down to the Zakynthos Town quay for the night. Expect no shore services in the bay.

Marathonisi
6
Day 6

Tsilivi → Marathonisi (Laganas Bay)

Ten miles takes you round the southeast tip and into Laganas Bay, the single most important loggerhead nesting ground in the Mediterranean. Marathonisi, the little uninhabited islet the tour boats call Turtle Island, is the anchorage, but this is a national marine park and the rules bite. Drop the hook only on the south side, well outside the buoyed exclusion line; the north end is off-limits to protect the nests. No jet skis, no wakeboards, and no amplified music after ten at night through the May-to-October season. Between June and August the turtles come up to breathe every ten or fifteen minutes, close enough to the boat to watch from the cockpit. The sand crescent on the islet's south end is the backdrop everyone photographs. Save dinner for the tavernas under the cliffs at Limni Keriou across the water.

Things to do

Watch loggerheads surface off the cockpit

Swim the south-end Marathonisi crescent

Snorkel the limestone caves nearby

Photograph the islet at golden hour

Dinner ashore at Limni Keriou

Mooring tip

Anchor on sand in 4 to 6 metres off the south end of the islet, always outside the buoyed nesting zone; the protected north end is closed to boats. It holds against the north and northwest, but shift two miles west to Limni Keriou if a southeast swell builds. Park rules ban jet skis and cut music after 22:00.

Zakynthos
7
Day 7

Marathonisi → Zakynthos Town

The last leg is a gentle eight miles round Cape Gerakas and back up the coast to where the week began. Pelouzo Islet, a lone rock a mile offshore, makes the final swim stop, with deep water over pale sand and the kind of clarity that earns a last photograph. Zakynthos Town was flattened by the 1953 earthquake and rebuilt close to its old form, so the arcaded seafront looks Venetian even though the stone is barely seventy years old. Take the evening volta through Solomos Square at the north end, then find a bar under the bougainvillea for a farewell drink. Order souzoukakia, the cumin-scented meatballs that came over with the refugees from Smyrna, at a taverna up on the Bochali hill. Berth on the town quay by six, and let tomorrow's flight wait.

Things to do

Last swim off Pelouzo Islet

Evening volta through Solomos Square

Souzoukakia at a Bochali hill taverna

Honeyed baklava from a harbour bakery

Hand-back briefing at the town quay

Mooring tip

The town quay is free and takes you stern-to, though it sits exposed to the south and southwest, so double your stern lines should a southerly get up overnight. Be alongside by 18:00 Friday so the technical check-out is finished, then sleep aboard and clear the boat by 09:00 Saturday. It's a quarter-hour ride south to the airport.

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