The Aegean, island by island

Greece counts its islands in the thousands and its inhabited islands at around two hundred, which is another way of saying that no charter, however long, ever quite finishes the place. The Aegean has been sailed for five thousand years and it still rewards the same instincts it always has, an early start, a sheltered bay by mid afternoon, dinner ashore in whichever harbour the fishing yachts come home to.

Choosing your Greece

There is no single Greek itinerary, there are at least four. The Saronic Gulf, an easy run from Athens, gives you Hydra, where cars are banned and everything moves by mule and water taxi, and the pine-fringed bays of Spetses. The Cyclades are the postcard, whitewash and wind, from Mykonos and Paros south to the mineral coves of Milos and the caldera of Santorini. The Ionian, on the western side, is another country altogether, green, calm and Venetian, running from Corfu through Paxos and Antipaxos down to Lefkada, Ithaca and Kefalonia. Furthest east, the Dodecanese lean against the Turkish coast, with Symi's neoclassical amphitheatre of a harbour and the walled old town of Rhodes. Which of the four is right depends on your month and your appetite for wind, and it is the first thing to settle when you plan a charter.

The bays and harbours

Hydra's stone harbour at dusk, once the day yachts have gone, is one of the great arrivals in the Mediterranean. At Kleftiko on Milos the tender threads arches of white volcanic rock that once hid pirates. Rhenia, beside Delos, gives you a quiet sandy anchorage twenty minutes from Mykonos and a world away from it. In the Ionian, Fiskardo on Kefalonia kept its Venetian houses through the 1953 earthquake that levelled almost everything else, Lakka on Paxos closes its green bay around you, and Voutoumi on Antipaxos has water you will photograph and fail to do justice. Under the white cliffs of Lefkada, Porto Katsiki is best taken from the sea, since everyone else has to climb down to it.

You do not see Greece. You see one island at a time, and the whole point of the country is plural.

Ashore, and at the table

Delos, the sacred island of the ancient Aegean and the mythical birthplace of Apollo, lies uninhabited beside Mykonos, and if you land at opening time you will walk its avenue of lions nearly alone before the excursion yachts arrive. The eating is deliberately simple and impossible to improve. Whole fish is sold by the kilo and grilled over charcoal. Symi's small sweet prawns are flash-fried and eaten shells and all. On Santorini, order the fava with capers and a glass of assyrtiko grown on vines coiled into low baskets against the wind. Naxos supplies the potatoes and the graviera cheese half the Cyclades cooks with, and the octopus drying on a line outside a taverna is not a photo opportunity, it is the menu.

When to come, and about the wind

The season runs from May to mid October. The meltemi, a dry northerly, builds through July and August and blows hardest across the central Cyclades. A superyacht shrugs at it, but it shapes the day, passages in the morning, a good lee for the afternoon, and it is the reason high-summer charters often favour the calm of the Ionian instead. June and September are the effortless months everywhere, and the sea is at its warmest from late August into September. October in the Ionian is still green and still swimmable. Whatever the month, the geography is on your side, because the next island is always in sight.