Greece, Ionian Sea
Cruising Log of Greece: Ionian Sailing
Contributed By: Elan Caspi
Introduction
We sailed with Sunsail's "Vounaki Flotilla" in June 2003. There were four people on our boat - My wife Genia and I, our daughter Maya, and her friend Martha, both aged 25. I chose the Ionian, and the Vounaki Flotilla, because our crew had little experience. I've been sailing for just two years and the others had practically no experience at all. This area of the Ionian is considered easy and the Vounaki Flotilla itinerary stays away from any potentially challenging waters. My wife and I had sailed with a flotilla before and really liked the concept. It removes much of the uncertainty in a sailing vacation in unfamiliar waters, and the immediate support when the inevitable problems arise is a huge help. We chartered a Gib'Sea 33. More about the boat later.
June 8
We flew from New York a day ahead of time, planning to sleep ashore one extra night to give us a chance to get over jet lag. We had rooms reserved in Paleros, the town next to Sunsail's Vounaki marina, but things didn't work out quite as planned. We arrived in Athens and waited several hours for our connecting Olympic flight to Preveza, only to find out at checking that the day's flight had been canceled. After much aggravation and absolutely no sympathy from the rude Olympic Airways staff we ended up at a hotel on the outskirts of Athens. The Tropical Hotel in Olima by the coast was new, fairly pleasant, and almost empty. I canceled the hotel reservation in Paleros and notified Sunsail that we'd arrive a day late.
That evening we took a long walk looking for a restaurant. We ended up at a large outdoor café at a seaside park. We had our first of many servings of tsatsiki (yogurt, cucumbers, and a lot of garlic), and I had what turned out to be the best chicken souvlaki of the whole trip (souvlaki is meat and vegetables grilled on a skewer).
June 9
After breakfast at the hotel we walked to a near by Internet café to update friends and relatives about our progress. Then we went to the beach. The girls went for a swim in the very cold water. It's a pity, I thought, that we won't be able to enjoy swimming that much during our cruise. Then a bus ride to the airport and a late afternoon flight to Preveza. We expected to find someone from Sunsail waiting for us when we arrived, or at least a pre-arranged taxi, but no one was there. (Why else would Sunsail ask us for our exact flight information and arrival time?). We found a cab on our own. The driver wasn't familiar with the Vounaki marina, but we found it after one wrong turn. The Sunsail staff greeted us warmly and led us to our boat, Thunderball. We had a relatively huge amount of baggage because we planned to follow the cruise with another two weeks' vacation. The boat had very little storage space, so the port settee in the saloon became a permanent baggage area.
Later we walked to Paleros for dinner. It's a 20-minute walk along the beach, part of it on a dirt road. The whole way is lit with decorative streetlights, which make it pleasant if not romantic. We walked past the Tomorrow taverna and its smiling hustling waiter and ended up at Dionysos. The open-air taverna was pretty full with cruisers like us. We wanted to stay as cool as possible, so we took a table on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. The food was good. Dinner for four was 60 euros, which is more or less what we paid for all our dinners.
June 10
I got up early in the morning and walked to Paleros again at 7:30 to buy a few things for breakfast. It was getting pretty hot already. (All through the week the daily temperatures rose to about 95 (35 Celsius), which is warmer than the typical 85 I had seen in the weather forecasts.) The only place that was open before 8 was the bakery. I got some bread, milk, and a few other things. After breakfast we split tasks. Maya stayed with me for the boat briefing and preparation. Genia and Martha went to buy provisions at the marina store. We had learned a lesson from our BVI cruise six months earlier. We bought three times as much food as we needed back then. This time we got it just about right. We knew that we'd be able to replenish our supplies almost every night. After the boat briefing and shopping we to the daily chart briefing where we were introduced to the flotilla's lead boat crew : Jim the skipper, G the mechanic, and Bryony the social coordinator. We also met our fellow crews. There were eight boats in the flotilla, five Gib'Sea 33s and three Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 35s.
That morning I programmed my handheld GPS for the day's route, from Vounaki Marina to Nikiana. It's a Garmin Etrex Legend. A wonderful little piece of technology into which I had downloaded the complete marine charts for the area. I 'never leave home' without my GPS. All waypoints are plotted and the navigation feature is set to tell me exactly where to go. Nikiana is not marked on the chart, so Jim gave us an approximate location at the briefing. I programmed my best guess into the GPS. I took some time to teach Maya and Martha a few crewing skills - lowering and raising the anchor, tying a few knots, operating the winches, throwing a line. They (and Genia) continued to learn all through the cruise, were quick and willing to learn, and made a pretty darn good crew.
We left the dock close to noon. There was a light breeze, 5 or 7 knots (the boat didn't have a wind gauge). We made our way at about 3 knots. About half an hour out of Vounaki a pack of frolicking dolphins appeared about 100 yards off our beam. Everyone scrambled for their cameras and the inevitably disappointing dolphin pictures. The breeze weakened gradually until it died completely half way to Nikiana. We motored the rest of the way and arrived at 3pm. It was a short 8 NM sail. I chose not to make any detours because I had caught a cold somewhere along the way, it was hot, and I was feeling exhausted. Better to make it a short day.
We were the first flotilla boat to arrive at Nikiana. The lead boat (Ariadne) was already there. The tiny harbor was full despite the early afternoon hour so Ariadne, which had anchored in mid-harbor with a stern line to the eastern quay, had us raft alongside her. Later on, each of the flotilla boats rafted to port of the previous boat until we had a block of nine boats, sharing three stern lines, in the middle of the harbor. My guess at the GPS coordinates of Nikiana was right on. If you ever want to go there and can't find it on the chart, go to N 38¾ 45.6' E 20¾ 43.3'.
Bryony invited all the crews to a punch party ashore at 7pm. The girls and I used the shower facilities behind the local taverna, for 2 euros each. Such facilities were available at every town we sailed to. Genia preferred to take all her showers on the boat. We had a group dinner at the same taverna. All four of us ordered chicken souvlaki. It was awful - very very salty and dry. Genia and I left dinner early because I wasn't feeling well. I had a cold, I was still jet lagged, and I felt dehydrated and feverish despite drinking a lot of water. The girls stayed behind and had a good time with the Ariadne crew who were about their age, and others. They stayed out late almost every night.
June 11
I got up at dawn, as I did every day during our cruise. The air was completely still and the water smooth as glass. I shot a 360-degree video panorama of the harbor, which I did every morning afterwards. Looking at my videos later, I realized that it would be better to take them when there is more activity going on. Shooting at dawn is beautiful but kind of sterile. The daily briefing was at 8am each day. Genia and I went and let the girls sleep late. After the briefing we went shopping for some vegetables and water. We walked through an alley away from the harbor and came to Nikiana's main street. It felt strange walking in our squishing wading moccasins, like strangers from Waterworld coming to a land-based civilization.
Our destination for the day was Little Vathi on Meganissi. I planned the route by way of Skorpios, the island owned by the estate of Aristotle Onassis. Our cruising guide "Ionian", by Rod Heikell (4th Ed.), which is indispensable for Ionian cruising, contains a detailed description of Skorpios, and we tried to cover it all. At our morning departure from Nikiana there was no wind. (There was no wind in the mornings during the whole week). We motored south along the Levkas coast. As we approached the northwest corner of Skorpios, with Nidri to starboard, we were in the most tourist-infested area of the cruise. There were speedboats, some towing paragliders or huge inflatable rafts, and a large tour boat carrying people for a view of Skorpios. No one is allowed to land on Skorpios but the water all around is unrestricted. We entered a tiny harbor at the northeast corner of the island, where Onassis is buried. We couldn't see his grave from the water and anchoring was not allowed. We went east to the main harbor of Skorpios where Onassis had docked his yacht Christina. We anchored there for lunch close (too close) to large submerged concrete ramp. Later we continued around the east of the island, and saw Jackie Onassis' beach hideaway. There were about a dozen boats anchored in the little bay in front of the house. We motored around a small headland to another bay that is separated from the first by a very narrow sand spit. We anchored and the girls jumped in for a swim. The water was pleasantly warmer than they had experienced in Athens. After that stop the wind had picked up enough to finally do some sailing. We had a fast beam reach to Little Vathi in 10-15 knots, and were able to sail directly into the bay on a deep broad reach. Our sailing distance for the day was 12 NM. Ariadne's crew led us to tie up alongside the quay at the southwest corner of the harbor. With the breeze coming straight down the bay and the waves slapping against the quay, it was a very rocky place. Our boat, and all the others, looked like carousel horses bobbing up and down. Just to our stern an ancient catamaran had its engine running to charge up its batteries, gurgling through its exhaust pipe as it dipped in and out of the water. Across the road a Greek fisherman was using a circular electric sander to strip the paint off an old boat. I couldn't imagine a noisier rockier anchorage. We went to the Rose Garden Café to cool off with ice cream and used their internet café a PC on a table under the trees, to contact the outside world. The only pay phone in town was out of order. Jim promised that things would quiet down later, and they did. By dusk it had turned into a quiet idyllic place. Two large fishing vessels had their crews mending colorful nets, preparing to cast off as night came. We had an excellent dinner at George's Taverna (they don't take credit cards). The girls hung out till 3am.
June 12
Early in the morning I walked around to the east side of the harbor looking for an airplane that had crashed in the water long ago. Someone had said, or so I thought, that it was a relic from World War II. I couldn't find it. I came back to the boat and then found someone to tell me exactly where to find the plane. When I went looking again it was easily visible just twenty feet from the shore with its prop almost sticking out of the water. I don't know how I missed it the first time. Clearly it was no WWII relic but just a plain old single engine Cessna. Still, it's the best tourist attraction Vathi has to offer.
Our destination for the day was Sivota on the south of Levkas. There were a few recommended attractions along the way. We motored through the morning calm around the north of Meganissi, turning south into Meganissi Strait (Stenon Meganisiou). We anchored in a tiny bay on the east side of Nissos Thilia, 1 mile into the strait. Genia and I took the dinghy ashore. We had to watch out for the many little sea urchins, which have a nasty sting. We swam around and I did some snorkeling, although there wasn't much to see but seaweed on the bottom. We stayed there for lunch. After lunch there was enough of a breeze to raise the sails. We tacked five times into the southerly breeze until we reached the southern end of the strait and the wind died. We continued along the shore of Meganissi looking for Papa Nicolis' cave. We came upon a large cave roughly where the chart said it should be and decided that was it (we were wrong). The three women climbed into our tiny dinghy and rowed into the cave while I stayed with the boat - it was too deep to anchor. We then motored over to Levkas looking for another cave. This one has a very low entrance that opens into a large chamber, and it's full of bats. I saw a cave on the shore but its location didn't match the one Jim had pointed to on the chart, so we motored on looking for the cave at the 'right' spot and couldn't find it. It was getting late as we motored on toward Sivota. A bit of a breeze picked up but I decided that it wasn't worth raising the sails for a half-mile of sailing. As we came in to Sivota, Jim was on the quay signaling us where to dock. Our first Med mooring went smoothly with Jim helping me steer the boat with his hand signals and telling us when to drop the anchor. Our distance for the day was 16 NM.
Sivota has a larger harbor than the previous places we visited. It's also every popular. There were several dozen boats there, some anchored in the middle of the bay. There were also several tavernas, supermarkets, and a souvenir shop. The only pay phone in town was out of order. At the souvenir shop we saw a postcard that proved without a doubt that we had not been to Papa Nicolis' cave. The following day was planned as a free sailing day, so we got our daily briefing that afternoon to cover the next two days. Several alternatives were suggested as destinations for our free day.
June 13
We chose Fiskhardo on Cephalonia as our sailing destination for the day. We had to get the boat's registration which is normally held by the flotilla's lead boat. They said the harbor police at Fiskhardo would check the papers and charge us a 4-euro fee. (They never showed up). Before going there we were determined to go back and find the cave we missed the day before. We motored out of Sivota (no wind as usual) and headed east toward the cave. This time we found it easily. The entrance is about 15 feet wide but very low. You have to duck in the dinghy to get in, and you shouldn't try it if there is any kind of swell. The girls took the dinghy into the cave first. Then they took over the boat and Genia and I took the dinghy in. The cave opens up inside to a chamber large enough to fit a house. The air was filled with the squeals of bats. The water was a deep blue from the light streaming in through the entrance. Too bad we didn't have a flashlight, or maybe it's good that we didn't because the sight of thousands of bats might be scary. In any case, this cave is well worth a visit. Its GPS coordinates are N 38¾ 37.5' E 20¾ 43.2'.
We then headed toward Fiskhardo, 12 NM away. The air had a yellowish haze, probably coming with ÒScirocco" winds from the Sahara to the south. The breeze was very light, maybe enough to maintain 2 knots of boat speed. It would take us too long considering that someone had told us we had to get there by 3pm to find a berth. So on we motored. We stopped for lunch 5 miles into our journey, turning off the engine and drifting for a while. After lunch we motored on for a bit, then the breeze picked up. We raised the sails and motor sailed for a while, and finally there was enough wind for us to sail the last two or three miles. We arrived at Fiskhardo close to 4pm and there were still plenty of open spaces at the quay. Total distance for the day was 16 NM.
It was my first time to Med moor all on my own, and it wasn't easy. I picked a spot on the south side at the end of a row of a dozen boats. The spot was where the quay bends at an angle (see Heikell's book, page 134). The boats there were all tied bows to the quay, but I didn't give it much thought and went in stern first. The first attempt was a failure. I was trying to point the stern south and a fresh breeze was blowing from the west. It blew the boat sideways before I could get any steerage in reverse. I motored ahead farther from the quay and then established some backward speed before trying to fight the breeze. This time we came in quite well. Maya dropped the anchor on cue. Martha and Genia handed the stern lines to someone on shore. The bow was being pushed aside toward another boat whose owner shouted to Maya to tighten the anchor rode. She tried, but the chain was at an angle to the bow. It jumped the track and snagged between the track and the hull. I had to leave the wheel and help her release the chain. Finally it all worked out. We tied up just four feet from the quay, which I thought was clever. Then some kind person pointed out that our rudder was just about two inches above the rocks on the bottom. NOW I understood why all those other boats were tied bows to the quay. We slackened the lines and moved the boat out a few more feet. I should have paid more attention when Heikell wrote "Care is needed at the E end of the quay where the ballasting extends underwater a short distance". Or I should have paid attention when Maya told me to tie up to the west quay, where there was plenty of space and no crosswind.
We felt hot and sticky after all the work. The girls jumped into the water right off the bow. Good idea! I followed them. We used the opportunity to check out the anchor rode, which looked fine. Later on two more boats tied up to our west. Because of the angle in the quay they weren't parallel to us and both of them overlaid our anchor. I had picked possibly the worst spot in the harbor. Live and learn.
Fiskhardo was largest town we visited. There were at least fifty sailboats in the harbor. There are about ten tavernas to choose from, gift shops, small supermarkets, an ice cream parlor, a bank. The town is large enough to go for a walk, through some alleys, up the hill to the church and surrounding graveyard. There's even a museum of some kind but it was closed. The waterfront was crowded with people strolling back and forth. We liked Fiskhardo. It was the kind of place I imagined we would find at every port, although others may prefer sleepier, more secluded places. We had dinner at Tassia's taverna, sitting right at the water's edge. The menu had great variety and the food was very good. We had been warned that Fiskhardo is expensive. Well, yes, we spent about 20% more for dinner than at the other places, which didn't break the bank.
June 14
At 7AM Genia and I got up and went for a walk through the town. The girls still slept as usual. We went east along the quay then followed the street up a small hill and down into another bay that is still a part of Fiskhardo. There were beautiful houses on the hillside facing the water, with flowers everywhere. Many of those are vacation houses available to rent. Then we walked west up the hill to the church above the town, and back to the harbor, made a left and found the bakery. It was still a bit early for the baker, so we came back after 8 for fresh bread.
We left at about 10:30, moments after the two boats on our port side lifted their anchor rodes from ours. Our destination for the day was Port Atheni at the northeast corner of Meganissi. We planned to go directly to Papa Nicolis' cave (the right one this time, hopefully) and then around the southern tip of Meganissi to Port Atheni.
We motored 13 NM in a dead calm. The water was glassy smooth. Several large commercial and cruise ships crossed our path from northwest to southeast. Apparently this is the main shipping route from the Adriatic to the Corinthian Canal. We spotted Papa Nicolis' cave easily from a couple of miles away. It's big! It is about a quarter mile south of the rock prominently shown on the charts, just as shown in Heikell's illustration (page 116). The GPS coordinates of the cave are N 38¾ 36.8' E 20¾ 45.8'. As Maya and Martha rowed into the cave we noticed four goats high up on a path inside the cave, hiding from the mid-day sun. They put the size of the cave into good perspective.
Motoring southeast along the shore of Meganissi, we could see dozens of caves of all sizes. Clearly, all those caves explain Meganissi's past notoriety as a haven for pirates and smugglers. We rounded the south end of Meganissi, heading north along with Princess Sharda, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 35 in our flotilla. A light breeze came up and we sailed close-hauled into it. The princess was doubtlessly a faster boat as she left us in her wake. The wind died again, but we could clearly see a wind line about half a mile north, so we motored toward it. Finally we found a solid breeze that kept building up to 15 knots. We tacked a few times along our northbound course. I held off on the final tack toward Port Atheni, about half a mile past the lay line. Then we bore away in the opposite direction to a deep broad reach, gibed, and headed up for a beam reach toward our destination. It was all meant to give Maya and Martha their only experience with other points of sail, and with gibing, for the whole week. Finally we could sail along at 6.5 knots, which seemed to be the boat's top speed. Distance for the day was 27 NM.
At Port Atheni all the flotilla boats rafted together at an unpopulated beach, in the northern arm of the bay. The afternoon's highlights included showers on the transom and Genia feeding all our stale bread to the fish. In the evening the Sunsail lead boat crew set up a barbecue on shore, complete with a bonfire, lots of drinks, story telling, jokes, and games.
June 15
This was our final sailing day, destination Vounaki Marina, with a friendly boat race to start the day. We raised the anchored and motored a short distance up the bay when suddenly the engine alarm went off. It was screaming in my ears. I shut off the engine and coasted for a while. Then I started the engine again and the alarm kept screaming. I pointed the boat closer to shore and we quickly dropped the anchor, then shut off the engine. We tried calling Ariadne on the VHF but realized that it was in Mute mode. We looked through the radios instructions but couldn't get it out of Mute. There was another boat anchored about 50 feet away. I called to them, asking them to alert Ariadne on their VHF. They calmly pointed to the French flag waving on their boat, to make it clear that they didn't understand me. My efforts to communicate in broken French were useless. They seemed to make no effort to understand or help. Those are the French for you. Moments later, as luck would have it, G the mechanic motored near by in his dinghy and noticed my furious arm waving. He came over and I explained the problem. He dove under the boat to look at the engine's water intake and found nothing. We started the engine again and it worked fine. His theory was that something like a plastic bag had blocked the intake and then floated loose when I shut it off. G also pushed the right buttons to get our radio working again. We thanked him profusely, raised the anchor, and motored to the starting line of our race.
Ariadne and her dinghy marked the starting line. The only rule was - no motoring. Five boats - four Gib'Seas and one Jeanneau approached the line, and the air was completely still as the countdown to the starting gun progressed. I didn't even bother to raise the sails. Instead I told Maya and Martha to get in the dinghy and start rowing. As the race began their dinghy pulled ahead while we all sat there. But moments later a light breeze appeared and the boats started moving. The Jeanneau started far from the line and was the last to cross it, but clearly it was moving fastest. Martha rowed hard, trying to keep her lead while Ariadne and her dinghy motored ahead and marked the finish line about half a mile away. We were the only ones left at the starting line. We'd have to pick our dinghy up anyway when the race was over, so I decided to join the race with a late start. Up ahead the Jeanneau overtook all the Gib'Seas and ultimately beat our dinghy to the finish line. Martha kept rowing while Maya used her arms as paddles. They finished second. We came from behind in our sailboat to finish ahead of two other boats. Martha and Maya celebrated their successful effort, and Martha had two hands full of blisters to show for it.
We didn't want to end our final day with a short motor cruise to Vounaki Marina, so we headed the other way, east, toward Levkas. We headed toward Port Vlikho bay just south of Nidri. The bay, which is completely surrounded by land except for a narrow entrance, looks intriguing on the chart. We motored all the way there. As we approached our destination Genia started cooking a spaghetti lunch below. A sudden roll of the boat pushed her toward the pot and she got a nasty little burn on her forearm. We anchored close to the eastern shore of the bay and had our lunch. The weather was hot, especially so because in the landlocked bay there was practically no breeze.
As we started heading out after lunch the breeze picked up as usual. When we reached open water across from Nidri and raised our sails the wind was about 10 knots and building. After a couple of short tacks we were hit by a sudden gust. The boat tilted quite a bit, giving the crew a little scare. I let it round up into the wind and right itself. My effort to bear away again was too late - we turned through the wind and stopped. We tacked the jib and started moving again, then tacked once more. Having gone as far east as possible before noon, we now had a good eight mile sail to Vounaki. The wind kept picking up, 15 knots, then 20. I eased the main more and more to keep the boat under control. Eventually it was time to reef. Genia took the helm and I went up to the mast, talking Maya and Martha through the reefing steps. It all went without a hitch. Then, wouldn't you know it, the wind began dying down. Fifteen minutes later we shook out the reef. In another fifteen we were at a dead stop. Furl the sails, start the motor, not the way I wanted to end the day. Then about a mile from Vounaki a new wind came up. The girls didn't want to go through the exercise of raising the sails again. Mutiny! I raised the sails myself and we had some good sailing to top off the week. Med mooring at Vounaki was tricky due to the cross wind, but we had plenty of help from the shore crew.
That evening we had a nice farewell party with all the flotilla crews. Prizes were given, including a golden oar to Martha and Maya for finishing second with their dinghy in the sailboat race. According to Jim it had never been done before.
June 16
We slept one more night on the boat, cleaned it up and handed it over by 9am the next morning. We had plenty of time to burn because our flight from Preveza to Athens was at 7pm. Genia and I walked to Paleros, bought a few souvenirs, and saw that there wasn't much else to see. We spent much of the day by the Vounaki Club Hotel's pool. At 4pm we took a taxi to the airport.
Conclusions
Sailing in the Ionian: This is considered one of the easiest sailing areas anywhere, and rightly so. The winds were mostly light to nonexistent. Not a place for someone looking for major sailing excitement. It was right for us, me with my scant two years' experience and my crew with practically no experience. We experienced warmer than normal weather the whole week with highs of 35 Celsius compared to the typical 28-30 this time of year. And maybe the winds were lighter than normal, but don't bet on it.
A bit to our surprise, the British seem to "own" this area. We expected to see a mix of Europeans, perhaps some Germans or French. But apart from us Americans, one boat in the flotilla was Dutch and the other six were all British. It seemed that the majority of cruisers in the area overall were British.
The area is crowded. Most harbors filled up by 5pm or so, and this was only June. They say that in July and August you can't find a berth after 3pm.
The flotilla concept: I've cruised with flotillas twice and I like the concept very much. A flotilla provides a sense of security, and makes the cruise easy, at the cost of course of some loss of independence. The support of a mechanic close by is well worth it if nothing else. We've had a propane stove stop working, and dinghy motor got contaminated with sea water, a jib furling line that became frayed, an engine alarm go off. All problems were solved quickly. We also enjoyed the camaraderie that developed as we sailed with the same group of people for a week.
The boat: We made the mistake of selecting too small a boat for four people. There wasn't enough space for our baggage, since we had packed for another two weeks vacation after the cruise. Our bags took up one side of the saloon. The cabins were small. Our bow cabin was barely long enough for me, and I'm just 5'6". In the aft cabin Maya didn't have enough headroom to bend her knees when lying down. I admired her for sleeping there.
As a future rule of thumb, we'll be looking at a 36-foot boat at least for four people, and at least 40 feet for six people.
The boat steered miserably. Motoring forward, if I let go of the wheel it would immediately go into a tight turn. Once into a turn, whether motoring or sailing, the boat seemed to pick up rotational momentum so that I had to counter-steer to go straight again. Backing up was even worse. The Sunsail crew acknowledged that these boats are difficult to control in reverse. The problem was made worse because our wheel was badly off center. It could make only a quarter turn to the left and three quarters of a turn to the right. G tried to fix this on two consecutive days and couldn't.
We didn't have an autopilot, which would be very helpful with so much motoring. We also didn't have any wind instruments. We were told that the bimini had to be folded when under sail, but I wasn't going to do that and get fried in the sun for hours. So we raised the boom a bit by pulling the topping lift and keeping it tight. It spoiled the shape of the mainsail a little, and it gave us a hard time when tacking in light wind because the battens were always catching on the topping lift.
I wouldn't recommend a Gib'Sea 33 to a friend.
Sunsail: Our benchmark for evaluating Sunsail is the BVI flotilla we had with The Moorings last December.
Sunsail told us that we would have to pay for our own ride from the airport (The Moorings provided free transfers). Since they had us fill out a form with everyone's flight numbers and arrival times, we assumed that they would at least arrange the rides for us. When we arrived at Preveza airport no one was there to meet or greet us.
Sunsail provided one towel on the boat per person. The Moorings provided four towels per person.
Sunsail provided two sets of snorkeling equipment on the boat. One mask was broken and one snorkel leaked badly, and the fins didn't fit. At The Moorings every person picked the right size equipment and took it to the boat.
Sunsail provided no shore storage space for extra luggage. The Moorings did.
The pre-sail boat briefing was provided by a person who was unfamiliar with the boat. He told me the boat had single-line reefing. It didn't. He couldn't locate the fuel gauge.
Overall, I would rate Sunsail a distant second to The Moorings.
Summary
We had a great time. We got beautiful suntans. I'm already dreaming about the next cruise.