Dodecanese Yacht Charter

The name Dodecanese means 'twelve islands' in Greek and refers to twelve historic islands, though the group counts over 160 islands and islets in all, around two dozen of them inhabited. They sit east of the Cyclades in the southeast Aegean. Saint John of Patmos wrote the Book of Revelation in a cave on Patmos in the late first century AD, and the cave is still there, white-washed and quiet, listed by UNESCO since 1999. Down the chain, Symi's harbour rises in tiers of neoclassical mansions painted in ochre and terracotta, all of them built on the wealth from sponge-diving when Symi was the centre of the Aegean trade in the 19th century. Rhodes, the largest island in the group, was once home to the Colossus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, although nothing of the statue itself survives.

Most charters pick up in Rhodes or Kos and run the chain. From Rhodes the route heads up through Symi, then Kos and on to Patmos, with stops at Astypalaia and Karpathos for their wind-shaped beaches and at Kalymnos, a sport-climbing destination for the limestone cliffs that rise straight out of the sea.

The crossings between islands are sheltered most days because the meltemi, the strong dry north wind that dominates the central Aegean from June to August, is softer here than it is around the Cyclades. The season runs May to October, and September into early October is usually the best of it, with the meltemi ebbing and the water still warm. A week or ten days is enough for the major islands.