Greece sailing travel report visit Rhodes by Yacht Dodecanese Rhodos Rodos

The island of Rhodes stretches 75 km (55nm) from it´s capital Rodes-City to the south, and has a wide variety of touristic attractions. Whilst the since year under construction being "Marina Rhodos" is still not ready yet, sailors enter the Mandraki harbour. The harbour is used by daily boats as well as by sailing-yachts and motorboats. Coming in, the righthand quai is packed with daily boats, who have their fixed places, and it is not allowed to moore there. Exception are some places right in the beginning of the quai. On the left, charterbases have reserved places, and it can be very difficult in summertime, to find a place there. Often boats are in 2nd row, which means, you must keep 1 or 2 people on board or agree with the boats around you, in case they want to leave or not. In the middle of the harbour lies a big chain on the ground,(depth 5m) and it can be a pretty annoying situation, when your anchor hookes into that... either, you can dive yourself to free your anchor, always surrounded by boats going in and out (and nobody is very patient with you in that situation...), oder you call a diver, which costs 100-200 €.

If you are lucky, one of the chartercompany´s places is free, and they offer you a mooring-line. If not, drop your anchor maximum 25-30m from the quai (2 x length of your boat). Don´t worry, it holds in the mud of the harbour at usual summerly conditions.

Done that, take your time and enjoy the activities all around you: boats going out and cominbg in, the movement and noise of a city, that has about 50.000 inhabitants in winter, but 150.000 in summertime.

Formal procedures for sailors in Rhodes:
if you come

* from a greek island, only proceed with your crewlist and the papers to the Port Police office, which is on the opposite side of the harbour (incoming seen righthanded beside the court building).
* from Turkey (or want to go there), they will send you to the Immigration Police. You can go there first and save a way ;-)
There is a Policestation and a Customs office at Mandraki, which could control your papers and stamp them, but by a reason, they often send you to the Policestation and Customs in the ferryharbour, which is about 15 minutes walking away. Usually, it is enough, if the skipper apperas with crewlist and passports, but if you have non-EU-crewmembers, it might be better, if they accompany you to avoid useless discussions and back and forth-walking.
Back to Port Police, you must pay 15 € stamp-charge for entering the EU plus the normal charges for harbour.
Before you leave Rhodes´ harbour, you must pay the harbour fees, which is proven by a stamp of a Port Police office at the harbour´s entrance bar. With his stamp, you proceed to Port Police mainoffice again, and get your stamps.

After that, check your time, what to do first in Rhodes - it´s am lot to be seen!

* when you went to Port Police, you saw a small building with cafes on it´s frontside. Inside of it, it´s the old market, there are several shops and Tavernas, there is a big newspaper stand with international newspapers, often from the same day already!
The coffee is very good there (filtercoffee available, not only Necafe! Ask for it!) and the cakes and tarts are as well (too good...I´m afraid ;-)

* if you follow the street up the hill behind the courthouse, you access "modern Rhodes".
Many shops, high quality products, and bars, cafes for the rhodian people.
Pane di Capo  If you want to have breakfast or buy some very good breads and croissants there!  Coming from the Mandraki harbour, pass the taxistand, follow the street left of the Old Market building for about 300m, the way goes uphill a little bit.
At the first "street" go right, and at the next corner, you find the place. It has some standing tables outside and a small seating area in the sidestreet. Excellent coffe, fantastic tarts, and the croissants, breads and others are really good!

* back to the taxistand, there is an entrance to the Old Town outer area. It is impressing, what was built there over hundreds of years, and you can follow the way through that monumental walls with (now) gardens inside. There are several ways into the Old Town, indicated by maps. Very impressing.

* another opportunity to enter the Old Town is: coming from Mandraki, follow the main street, and pass through "Symi Gate". Immidiately after the gate, when the streets makes a right, you walk on left and reach the inner Old Town area.
First, you will see the Museum of modern art and some other museums, which are really worth to visit.
After passing through the 2nd gate, on the right, is a street, that leads to the Castle of the Matsers, which you shoul not miss!
Pass the dutch and french consulates and after 300m you can cross over a big place, and enter the castle. It was rebuilt and renovated and is a very, very impressing witness of the life over some hundreds of years in Rhodes.

* if you follow the main walkway (instead of making right to the castle), you arrive in the shopping cente streets - here you find all that typical touristical stuff, paintings, clothes, watches, music, gold, silver, carpets,  Tavernas , Restaurants ect.
Soukrates Street is full of that.

* if you pass over Soukrates street, following the Minaretts of the old Mosques and explore the Old Town´s narrow streets, you might get an impression of medieval and more ancient live in Rhodes. It is really a nice experience, to take 2 or 3 hours strolling through these narrow streets, havingh a coffee here and an icecream there.

A nice restaurant is located there: together with a Bar, you can find Nektar & Ambrosia in Sofokleus Street (reservation by phone 22410 30363 is recommended!).
It is a italian "Osteria-styled" small place, with an open kitchen, where you can watch the cooks at their work. I didn´t ask, but it seemed to me, that the owner herself is active there, and the food was very extraordinary and very good, but, however, not cheap... Nektar & Ambrosia is open in very early spring (April) already, maybe all winter. In summertime, there are tables outrside, the music from the Bar besides, which belongs to the same site, sends over some Jazz and Soul music.
If you follow that street about 80m, there is a typical greek Taverna righthanded in the garden, very nice, and another one on the next corner with very good greek kitchen and inside/outside serving!(unfortunately, I forgot the name ;-)

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If you want to sail to Karpathos and further to Crete or around the island of Rhodes, you sail about 55 nm in the leeward-side of the island, which can be a very quick and comfortable sailingtrip! The wind usually comes from W, NW or N with 3-5 Bft. and there is no waves in the leeside. There are some very nice places to stay on Rhodes´ eastcoast.

The first possible bay is, after about 10 nm, the bay Ak.Ladika, which is at the end of the Faliraiki-beach.
It is described in most sailor´s handbooks. Unfortunately, it is very small, and so it might be full in  high season on early afternoon already.

There are some more beaches on the way south, and because there is usually no southern or eastern wind in summer, it is possible to anchor at open shore...if you don´t mind the swell, it is very nice, because you can swim and snorchel in crytal clear and fresh water. But take care, that the anchor is good fixed to the ground, if there is a Meltemi, it is recommended to bring out a 2nd anchor!
But then, you can stay there and wait for better conditions.
All the beaches have tavernas, and you can enjoy evening beach life, if you want. 

The next big bay to enter is Lindos. There is a big castle under renovational construction since years, and the castle can be visited escept Mondays. The small and narrow streets of Lindos village are full with Bars, Tavernas, shops... and in the evenings it is one of the biggest party-places in the mediterranean. Unfortunately, some drink too much...

The bay itself has enough place for many boats, only in May and autumn be carefull about southeasterly storms. There is a Port Police office in the middle of Lindos beach, and they come and check crewlists occasionally (in private clothes, don´t wonder about that). In case of an upcoming storm they might offer to move over 1 nm to the absolute safe bay of Ag. Apostoli, which is not allowed to enter usually, but in cases of storms, they offer that.
We recommend: do it!
We experienced once a stormy night in the middle of May with 9 Bft. and 4 m high waves coming in to Lindos, when a neighbourboat had problems with their anchor and crashed in our boat - luckily nobody was injured, but could have happened!
That was not our fault (our 2 anchors were absolutely fix!), but what will you do, when a neighbour crashes into you? That´s why we recommend to leave to a better safe place.

Further south, there are more beaches and small promontories, where it is easy to find a good anchorage for a night in the "wild and open sea" ;-)

Be carefull with the waterdepth, because it is pretty shallow in some areas, and some rocks in the 3-5m-zone might be dangerous!

At the very end of Rhodes island, you arrive at the small anchorages of the peninsula of Prassonissi, where the surfers enjoy the best winds in Rhodes. Usually, as said, coming from W,NW or N, but if the wind might come from S, SE or E, you can sail around the southernmost part of Rhodes and anchor on the other side.

The rhodian westcoats offers nothing to sailors, only a very small quai at Kameiros Skala, which is open to N & E, and can only be used in very calm conditions, or the very (and I mean very!) little harbour of Phanes, which is for fisherboats only, even, if there were 2 42 ft. sailing boats in there in 2003 (when we visited this place). But we would not try to get into it with a boat with more than 1.60 depth, so the next spot to go is Chalki

Choose from here below your next destination

If you want to go further west to Kasos and Crete, you first come to Karpathos-Pigadia in the south of Karpathos or if you want to go to Karpathos-Diafani to visit Olimbos, and then further to Chalki.