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least twice the price of most skippered-
yacht charters on the Med (which,
incidentally, generally require you to
cook for the skipper), it also comes
with the aforementioned host, who
cooks, cleans, tidies your room, makes
your bed and generally spoils you to
within an inch of your indecently
privileged life. 'What time would you
like canapés?' Joy asks as we bounce
on the sofas and giggle.
The plan is a five-day sail around
Paxos and Antipaxos, with Charlie, a
Royal Yachting Association instructor,
eager to let us help out or — in our case
— let us lie back as the mood dictates.
Before coming, I’d pictured my three
boys pulling on ropes and clambering
up rigging, blinking at the horizon
and turning into men before my eyes.
However, not 20 minutes into our
first sail across the Corfu Channel, all
three disappear below deck to watch a
DVD. For about seven seconds the wife
and I wonder whether we mind, then
sink back on to the sofas and gaze at
the waves.
That evening is a strange one. We
drop anchor about two hours south
of Corfu town in a secluded bay. We
play Uno over canapés, Joy serves us a
delicious dinner above-decks, a warm
sea-breeze drifts in below a pulsing
smear of stars. We are living the family
holiday dream. And yet, the problem is
we're on a boat. Yes, it's a seriously nice
boat. Yes, the bed in our master cabin is
bigger than our double at home. But it's
still a boat. It rocks, it creaks, it wakes
me up with urgent noises from the en-
suite. Some time around 4am, $13,000
suddenly feels like a lot of money toquite fancy being a Russian oligarch.
Pootling about on my superyacht,
motoring ashore for cocktails and
calamari, securing pipeline deals on
deck, while staff top up my drink.
Trouble is, I don’t have a superyacht,
there are no pipeline deals, only an
ever-expanding overdraft and 27 years
left on the mortgage. But two things
happened recently to change all that.
First, my mother died and left us
some money, simultaneously wiping
out the overdraft and reminding me
that life is too short for 'What's the
sensible thing to do?' Second, a fellow
boat-nut told me about Argentous —
a four-cabin, 20-metre yacht based
in the Greek islands that bridges
the gap between no-frills skippered
yachts and all-frills Abramovich-level
superyachts. It's long been a fantasy of
mine to island-hop in private luxury,
so we weigh everything up, convince
ourselves it's what my mum would have
wanted, and fly out en famille to Corfu.
We are picked up at the Corfu Imperial
Grecotel, skipper Charlie scooping us
up from the hotel’s beach in a mini
speedboat that later packs away like
something out of Thunderbirds into
— those reading this in the hope of
improving their yachting vocabulary
should look away now — the 'boot' of
Argentous. Speeding out across the
bay, my 11-year-old stares at the sailing
boat, which gleams like an Aston
Martin among a fleet of Trabants.
'People must think we›re millionaires',
he says, stifling an enormous grin.
On board, the grins get bigger. And
it's not just the kids. Upstairs (above-
decks?), the area beyond the steering
wheel (helm?) looks like the VIP chill-
out zone of an uber-hip Ibiza nightclub,
with wraparound slate-grey sofas we
instantly earmark for sundowners.
Beyond that, slung between a towering
27-metre mast and spinnaker, a
hammock beckons just back from
the bow. Half of me instantly frets
about the havoc my kids will wreak
on the pristine decor; the other half
is happy sipping the welcome drink
brought by our host, Joy.
Because although Argentous costs at
spend on a week of no sleep, with three
kids who’d rather watch Harry Potter
DVDs than learn to sail.
At 6am I give in and go up on deck. It
is a scene of almost ludicrous beauty,
like the British Virgin Islands circa- We are all alone below a rocky,
uninhabited island, the water slack
and glassy, the only signs of life a pair
of gulls painted pink against a vast,
rising sun. I step down to the back of
the boat and dive in. It is sunrise in the
Mediterranean, I am swimming on my
own, drifting round the boat — my
boat. Climbing back on board, I found
it utterly impossible to remember what
made me so grumpy the night before.
It is the start of perhaps the best
day in this family's life. The original
plan was for a three- or four-hour sail
to Paxos, but Charlie, sensing we’re
a lot less Ellen MacArthur than most
Argentous clients, suggests we stay and
play instead. Because as well as having
its own mini speedboat, Argentous has
more water-sports toys than you can
shake a selfie stick at. For the entire
day, the boys snorkel, windsurf,
paddleboard, waterski, jump off rocks
or scream as they hurtle behind the
speedboat on inflatable tyres.
That night, Charlie runs us by
speedboat to Sivota, a pretty seaside
town on the mainland with a few
modest tavernas and armies of
friendly stray dogs and cats. We feast
on calamari and kleftiko, and feed
fish off the jetty between courses,
sipping drinks in the balmy night air
as the boys lick ice cream and cuddle
kittens on their lap. ‘I love Greece,’
says the eight-year-old, a splash of
freckles on his sunkissed cheeks. I
know exactly what he means.
The next day we do sail to Paxos. I say
‘we’, but the actual sailing is, obviously,
down to Charlie.
I'd love to reveal that, having fallen
in love with the sea the day before,
the boys are impossible to prise
from the helm, but as it happens,
they're mostly back below-decks with
Harry Potter. 'Those box sets won't
watch themselves', says the 12-year-
old. Still slightly heady on yesterday's Credit:
The Sunday Times Travel Magazine/ News Licensing‘
AT 6AM I GO
UP ON DECK.
IT IS A SCENE
OF ALMOST
LUDICROUS
BEAUTY