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Country by country: the anchorages worth the detour, the rules and fees that change how you use them, and the local wind that decides which side of the island you sleep on. Each guide sits above our verified anchorage pages for that country, with depth, holding and a recommended alarm radius for every spot.
15 guides
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2,300 anchorages across 48 countries, each with verified position, depth, holding and a recommended alarm radius.
Read the guideWhere to anchor in Greece — the best bays of the Ionian, Saronic Gulf, Cyclades, Dodecanese, Sporades and the Peloponnese, with meltemi shelter notes, holding, and Greek anchoring rules.
July 4, 2026
Where to anchor in Croatia — the Kornati, Telašćica, Hvar and the Pakleni, Vis, Mljet and the Elafiti, with Bura shelter notes, cruising permit and park fees, and where the buoys have replaced free anchoring.
July 10, 2026
Where to anchor along Turkey's Turquoise Coast — the best bays in the Gulf of Gökova, Datça, Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye & Göcek and Kaş-Kekova, with meltemi shelter notes and local anchoring rules.
July 3, 2026
Where to anchor in Italy — Sardinia, the Aeolian and Pontine islands, the Tuscan archipelago, Amalfi and Capri, with honest holding notes, Maestrale and Bora shelter, and how the marine protected area rules work.
July 10, 2026
Where to anchor in France — the Calanques, Côte d'Azur, the Hyères islands, Corsica, Brittany and the Atlantic islands, with Mistral shelter notes, Posidonia rules, and how anchoring changes on a tidal coast.
July 10, 2026
Where to anchor in Spain — the Balearics (Cala Macarella, Port de Sóller, Es Vedrà, S'Espalmador), the Costa Brava, Costa Blanca, Cabo de Gata and the permit-guarded Cíes Islands in Galicia, with Posidonia buoy zones, Tramuntana shelter notes, and Spanish anchoring rules.
July 13, 2026
Malta is not a coastline — it is a fortress with beaches. You anchor on the beaches and shelter in the fortress, because three named winds close three different coasts and the Grand Harbour is the only place the Knights, the gregale and the swell all agree is safe. The Blue Lagoon's mandatory buoys and free landing pass, the summer swimmers' zones that take the sand and push you into deeper water, the gregale calendar — and holding data with alarm radii for 46 verified anchorages across Malta, Gozo and Comino.
September 4, 2026
The Adriatic doesn't end at the Croatian border — it just empties. Montenegro hides the Med's closest thing to a fjord and asks only for a vignette; Albania sells the last empty coast in the Mediterranean, priced in paperwork rather than euros; Slovenia squeezes a Venetian jewel into 47 km with no all-weather anchorage and says so. Three deals, the bora's two minutes of warning, and 120+ verified anchorages with holding data and alarm radii.
September 3, 2026
Where to anchor in the UK and Ireland — Newtown Creek and Studland in the Solent, the Helford and Salcombe in the West Country, Tobermory and the Hebrides in Scotland, and Ireland's Atlantic southwest from Baltimore to the Aran Islands — with tidal-range notes and the anchoring rules that make these waters refreshingly free.
July 20, 2026
Mainland Portugal is 460 miles of Atlantic coast where the Nortada and the swell both run south — and so do you. Its anchorages are rivers behind bars, beaches in the lee of the afternoon wind and a handful of headlands, until the Algarve turns the corner out of the swell. Clearing in and the €70 light dues, the orca zone and what the two governments tell you to do, the Berlengas and Arrábida park rules, the Culatra mooring field, the Azores and Madeira — and why a wind with a timetable makes the afternoon drag this coast's signature failure. Holding data and alarm radii for 61 verified anchorages.
September 10, 2026
The regional hub for the Eastern Caribbean and Bahamas: the December–May season and the hurricane box, the trade wind and the winter north swell, how the rules turn over from the BVI to the Grenadines, clearing in, and the alarm radius for a boat pinned to the edge of its circle.
September 26, 2026
Where to anchor in the British Virgin Islands — BVI anchoring rules, the National Parks Trust mooring ball system and fees, anchor light requirements, and the safest anchorages from Tortola to North Sound and Anegada.
June 29, 2026
The BVI runs on a mooring-ball economy; the US Virgin Islands run on a federal park. Two-thirds of St. John's coast is Virgin Islands National Park, and the Park Service names exactly two places in park waters where you may anchor — everywhere else it's a $26 ball, paid before dark, with your nights counted. Then St. Thomas gives the anchor back and St. Croix closes Buck Island at five. The three regimes, the customs step BVI crews forget, and the bays worth the detour.
August 30, 2026
The Bahamas is the only country that named an anchoring technique, and the reason is the whole story: on the banks the boat lies to the tide, not the wind, and every cut reverses like a river twice a night. Reading depth by colour, timing the Whale, when two anchors beat one, the fee schedule that changed in April 2026, and the Exuma park where the fish outrank you — with holding data and alarm radii for the Abacos, Exumas and Nassau.
September 1, 2026