Nidri Stay Sail

Stay at our Nidri beach club and enjoy a week of inclusive activities, kids clubs and watersports before you take to your yacht and cruise the magical Ionian islands.

Spend week two aboard your own yacht and if you have never sailed before or have no skippers qualifications, then fear not! You can book a skipper or take a sailing course during your first week to qualify you to skipper your own yacht in week two under the guidance of our friendly flotilla team.

A week at our Beach Club

Spend your first week relaxing at our beach club, which nestles on the sand of one of the finest water sports beaches in Greece: The beautiful resort of Nidri.

If you need to get a Day Skipper qualification to join our flotilla in week two then fear not! You can use your week to get a skippers certificate with 5 days of training on our beach club yacht. If you can already sail then just relax and enjoy the facilities at our club: get the kids hooked on sailing, brush up your own dinghy sailing skills or just hit the sun lounger... hard!

A week cruising the Ionian

After a week at our Club get ready for a second week aboard your yacht. Book a skipper, cruise with our flotilla or go Bareboating. It’s a week when you can truly get-away-from-it-all and explore the beautiful islands and anchorages of the south or north Ionian.

Visit the cosmopolitan islands of Ithaca and Cephalonia on our southern route; or the magical islands of Paxos and ‘Durrel’s bay’ (childhood home of Gerald Durrel) on our northern route.

Ionian sailing routes

Choose your yacht

You can choose from our ‘elite fleet’ of yachts for your Stay Sail holiday and skipper yourself or book a skipper if you’d like some help with sailing. We have one of the finest ranges of 36ft to 44ft yachts to choose from with some very special yachts that you will not find anywhere else in the Med’, like our Dehler 38.

Your yacht will be your home for the week so it’s equipped with everything you need. You’ll have a fully kitted galley, (that’s a kitchen to you and me) with a cooker, a fridge and everything else including the kitchen sink. There’s a shower in the heads (that’s a bathroom) and double sleeping cabins with sofa seating in the saloon and a saloon berth for extra bods. There’s a table in the cockpit for alfresco dining and a large drop-down swim platform to enjoy those clearwater anchorages. Every yacht is fully prepared for your arrival.

View our YACHTs

Sailing experience needed

To charter a yacht anywhere in Greece, you will need to have a certificate to prove your skills, like an RYA Day Skipper or an ICC (International Certificate of Competence).

If you have none of the above, but you’ve done a little sailing before then you can take the Day Skipper course with us during your first week of a Stay Sail holiday to qualify you to skipper in week two. To join a Day Skipper course you’ll need to have done a minimum of 100 miles (5 days) on a cruising yacht - so if you’ve been an active crew member on a previous flotilla, you should be at a good standard to take this valuable qualification.

Getting qualified on a Stay Sail

A two week Stay Sail is the ideal opportunity to get qualified, perhaps while your family relax and enjoy the facilities back at our club. You can join our tuition yacht each day to get qualified, (9-5pm for 5 days) and rejoin the Beachclub each evening. At the end of your first week of training, you’ll be ready and raring to put your newfound skills into practice as you skipper your yacht on week two in our flotilla.

Rediscover the sailor in you!

A Stay Sail holiday allows you to make use of our inclusive dinghy sailing and windsurfing tuition during your first week. Our expert team of RYA instructors will help you rediscover your sailing skills and also get the family hooked on sailing.

You can also join in with our daily sailing regattas or perhaps take an RYA Dinghy course (levels 1 to 3) and we’ll guarantee you’ll be trimming your yachts sails with expert precision.

Vassiliki is a mecca for water sports enthusiasts. It enjoys reliable thermal winds for all levels, which deliver gentle conditions in the morning, (ideal for kids age 4+); and in the afternoons you can expect more exciting sailing and windsurfing as the wind builds. Our racks are stocked with more watersports equipment than you can shake a kayak paddle at, and it’s all free-to-use all week.

What to expect

A Stay Sail is the perfect twin-center break. Your travel to our Beachclub and to the marina is all taken care of, and there’s no long coach journeys. We’ll meet and greet you at Preveza airport when you land and it’s about an hour to the Smile Hotel Beach Club. You’ll arrive around lunchtime (for our charter flights) and be able to relax, try some watersports in the afternoon, or just chill at the beach bar and plan your first week of activities and sign up to our socials, kids clubs, fitness classes, paddle cruises, Sailaways and RYA courses for dinghy and windsurfing.

If you’re taking some yacht training, you’ll join our tuition yacht at 9am on Monday with up to 4 other pupils. So relax and enjoy the hotel facilities on arrival day. After your week of training (5 days), you’ll spend your last days (your 6th and 7th days) at our Beach club before joining your yacht at Lefkas marina later in the afternoon

It’s a 15 min transfer to Lefkas marina for your second week, and you can move onto your yacht later in the afternoon on changeover day. Our yacht team will meet you at the marina and take over from there. They’ll tell you about the week’s plans and run through the yacht’s systems before a more in-depth skippers briefing over breakfast at the marina cafe on Monday.

Our Ionian Flotilla

Wind, weather and conditions

Mornings: F1-2
Afternoons: F3-4+

Nidri is a great place to sail and windsurf and suits beginners to advanced sailors and windsurfers up to ‘Intermediate Planing’ level.

Typical with the Greek islands, each day is predictable and reliable: You can expect a light breeze each morning, (perfect for some family sailing or learning to windsurf), and our team of RYA instructors will be on hand to help you get started or teach you in our inclusive lessons. We also like to organise kayaking and paddleboarding in the morning and onshore clinics or spinnaker sessions for the experienced sailors, while the wind is light.

Around lunchtime the wind builds to a Force 2-3 breeze and often to a Force 4 later in the day. These are ideal conditions for all levels of sailor to continue to have fun and for the more advanced sailors and surfers - looking for more wind and to get planing! The Meltemi can override this pattern and provide stronger winds in the late afternoon - but the enclosed nature of the bay and our excellent team of instructors ensure safe and secure sailing and windsurfing for all levels.