Cyprus – Cheap, Easy to Enter, Friendly, Worth a Return Visit

At 8:30 we woke up from our brief sleep and it was time to enter Cyprus. Cyprus is quite developed with nearly a million inhabitants and while it is affiliated with Greece, it has its own flag and it was admitted to the EU before Greece was.

Beach Volleyball!

Is it really December???

I wandered down to the Customs area, met a very nice customs agent armed with our passports and boat documents. I expected to do the same as in Greece, Port Police to enter the country, then to Police for passport control, then to Customs for a Transit Log, then back to Port Police to stamp the Transit Log; but in Cyprus, it’s much simpler. I checked in with Customs, he sent me down the 50 foot hall with my passports – then said to come back after checking in at the Marina office. The marina office was equally helpful, we got our slip, headed back down to Customs, they keep your passports and give you a landing card, and we were good to go. All told I was away from the boat for 20 minutes and we were checked into Cyprus. Wonders never cease.

The cost of the marina was about 10 Euros per day, there were no fees to enter or leave the country, the price of fuel was half that in Turkey …. This is a place we should spend more time at! Unfortunately our time was short – we needed to get to Israel before the weather set in.

Ross and Itai

Our friends the Elrons (Amir, Gaya, Itai and No’am – Yael was in Puerto Rico on a business trip and couldn’t make it) joined us in Cyprus with the plan of sailing with us back to Israel. The kids were out of school for Hanukah and thought sailing across the Med would be fun. We met the Elrons in Vancouver and it was a sad day for us when they decided to return to Israel in 2009 – but that opened up the opportunity to spend time in Israel, Jordan and Egypt for us … so when one door closes, another opens.



Itai, Jessie, Gaya and Ross

 They arrived at Larnaca from the Airport early on Monday morning and we spent the day on the beach and hanging out. Our plan was to leave for Herzliya on Wednesday but our plans were changed to leave on Tuesday because a big storm was coming on Friday and we didn’t want to chance being caught out in a gale with nowhere to hide. Basically between Cyprus and Israel is about 200 miles of open ocean and there is nowhere to hide anywhere. Unlike Greece or Turkey, there is nothing but open ocean … no shelter anywhere in the Eastern Med other than man-made marinas, so you must be careful with the weather or you could find yourself in some trouble.

Leaving Larnaca Marina

So, the Tuesday morning we left Larnaca after filling up at the gas-dock and left for Herzliya at 11:00am.


Our loose plan is to stop at Larnaca on the way back to Turkey, and spend a week exploring the countryside by car or bus. The people are friendly, food is great, and we can pay for our tours with the monies we save on moorage – woo hoo!