The Dodecanese

Greece, a morning away

The Dodecanese are the Greek islands you can see from Türkiye. Kos lies twelve nautical miles from Bodrum, Symi ten from the Datça peninsula, Kastellorizo two from Kaş. For a charter that begins on the Turkish coast they are the natural second act: a different language, a different cuisine, a different century in the harbours, reached without a flight. Our fleet includes yachts licensed to carry guests across, and the crew handles both countries' paperwork while you finish your coffee.

The islands

Symi

The harbour at Gialos is the most beautiful in the Aegean: tiers of ochre, rose and cream neoclassical mansions built on sponge-diving money in the nineteenth century, climbing a cliff above water deep enough to moor a sixty-metre yacht stern-to the quay. The monastery of Panormitis on the island's southern tip has its own bay; St George's bay on the east coast is a wall of rock with a beach at its foot and no road.

Rhodes

The medieval city of the Knights is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe and a UNESCO site; Mandraki harbour, where the Colossus may or may not have stood, is where the yacht berths. Lindos, forty minutes down the east coast, stacks a Doric temple on an acropolis above a horseshoe bay.

Kos, Kalymnos, Pserimos and Leros

Kos town combines a Knights' castle, a Roman odeon and a marina thirty minutes from the airport. Kalymnos is the sponge-divers' island, now better known for climbing; Pserimos, between them, has a sandy bay for lunch. Leros was rebuilt by the Italians in the 1930s and Lakki's art-deco waterfront is unlike anywhere else in Greece.

Nisyros, Tilos, Lipsi and Patmos

Nisyros is a volcano you can walk into, its crater floor hot underfoot and smelling of sulphur, with the white village of Mandraki on its rim. Tilos is quiet, green and full of eagles. Lipsi is a scatter of islets with the clearest water in the group. Patmos, at the northern end, holds the Cave of the Apocalypse and the fortress-monastery of St John above a harbour that has been receiving pilgrims for nine centuries.

When to go

May, June, September and October are ideal: warm sea, moderate wind and quiet harbours. The meltemi blows hardest from mid-July to late August, when the crossings between islands can be lively in the afternoon; the captain runs them in the morning and the islands themselves give good shelter. Rhodes and Kos are busy in August; Symi, Tilos and Lipsi never are.

Getting there

Rhodes and Kos both have international airports with direct summer flights from most of Europe. A charter can also begin in Bodrum or Marmaris, clearing out of Türkiye on day one or two, which lets guests fly to Bodrum and see the Turkish coast on the same trip. One-way charters between Bodrum and Rhodes are our most requested two-country route.

Which yacht suits the Dodecanese

Motor yachts handle the open-water legs between islands quickly and reach Patmos from Kos in a morning. Motor sailors are at their best on the southern loop (Rhodes, Symi, Tilos, Nisyros), where the distances are shorter. In every case the yacht must hold the papers to charter in Greek waters; we only propose yachts that do.