Corfu Sunset Cruise

A Corfu sunset cruise sails the coast of Corfu in the Ionian Sea as the sun goes down. The cruise is one of the Greece Tours on Greece Ville.

This post covers the sunset itself, why the sky turns red, the fortresses seen from the water, the seabirds, the evening stars and the wrecks below.

Local drinks, the best months and common questions come last. The sections include Corfu sunset cruises that can be booked online.

What is a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise times its sailing to the sun. On 1 July, the sun sets over Corfu Town at 21:12. Civil twilight ends at 21:44. By 10 October, sunset comes at 19:09, with twilight over by 19:36.

On 20 March, sunset comes at 18:52 and civil twilight ends at 19:19. On 10 August, the sun sets at 20:43, with twilight lasting until 21:13. On 10 September, sunset comes at 19:58.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the golden hour comes first. Cinematographers and photographers also call it the magic hour. Then the sky is about as bright as streetlights, car headlights and lit windows. The 1978 film Days of Heaven was shot almost entirely in that light.

The blue hour follows, a name from the French l’heure bleue. It is shorter near the equator, where the sun sets steeply. It lasts longer nearer the poles, where the sun sets at a shallow angle.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, a clear horizon can show a green flash. At the equator, it rarely lasts longer than a second. In layered air, it can show up as a series of flashes. On rare evenings, a blue flash appears instead.

In 1869, the physicist James Prescott Joule noted the last glimpse of the setting sun as bluish green. Airline pilots flying west see green flashes regularly, because their flight slows the sunset.

• Equinox: On 23 September, the sun sets over Corfu Town at 19:37.
• Twilight: That evening, civil twilight ends at 20:03.
• Late summer: On 10 September, civil twilight ends at 20:25.
• Moon: A green flash can also appear when the Moon or a bright planet sits at the horizon.

Why does the sky turn red on a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise sees red because low sunlight crosses far more air. At the horizon, it passes through about 38 times as much air as at midday overhead. Mie scattering by dust, pollen and smoke works chiefly in the lowest 4,500 m.

The sky’s blue comes from sunlight’s spectrum, scattering by oxygen and nitrogen molecules, and how human eyes respond. A clear sky matches pure blue light of 474 to 476 nanometres mixed with white light.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, ozone tints the dusk. In 1880, the French chemist James Chappuis noticed that light through ozone gas has a blue tint. In 1952, Edward Hulburt measured dusk light in New Mexico 2 to 4 times weaker than predicted.

Sunsets on Mars look blue, because its thin air is full of red dust. Dust from Africa makes up 23% of the year-round aerosol haze measured over Athens.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, Saharan dust can deepen the colours. On 17 April 2005, dust from Egypt and Libya hid Crete from satellite view. The yellow haze cancelled or delayed flights and halted sea transport in Greece.

On Hydra, a master painter painted sunset after sunset as Saharan dust passed, as a science test. Sun photometers confirmed that his red-to-green colour ratios matched the measured haze.

• Blood rain: Homer’s Iliad holds the earliest written blood rain, sent twice by Zeus.
• Sirocco: In southern Italy, sirocco rain mixed with red sand is called blood rain.
• Tambora: After the 1815 eruption, brilliant sunsets lit London between 28 June and 2 July. The glow looked red near the horizon and pink higher up.
• Red snow: In 1816, red snow fell throughout the year in northern Italy.

Which fortresses face a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise passes the Old Fortress, whose towers go back to Byzantine times. In the 12th century, the scholar Michael Choniates described a tower on its eastern peak. It was later renamed the Sea Tower, facing the Land Tower on the western peak.

In 1501, the Venetian engineer Giacomo Coltrini fortified the Land Tower. Greece’s culture ministry lists an invasion attempt in 1430, over a century before the great siege of 1537. Between 1537 and 1540, Michele Sanmicheli toured the eastern forts of Venice, Corfu among them.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the bastions stand out against the light. Venetian maps name the northern one Savorgnan and the southern one Martinengo, after commanders. Each has three levels, linked by staircases and vaulted corridors.

Under British rule the entrance bridge rested on stone pillars. Today a 60-metre steel bridge crosses the moat. A second, dry moat behind the bastions was bridged in stone in 1603.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the New Fortress has a long backstory. Corfu’s people first asked Venice to wall their suburbs in 1542, after the raid of 1537. At least five more delegations followed before the attack of 1571 won approval.

The fortress’s lower level faces the sea to guard Spilia, the commercial harbour. In 1587, the horn-shaped Skarponas rampart was added lower down on the western side. Back at the Old Fortress, Mandraki harbour below the governor’s palace received the Venetian official. He reached his home through the harbour gate.

• Chapel: Carmelite monks built a chapel to the Virgin of Mount Carmel on the stone bridge. Work ran from 1636 to 1671.
• Last governor: Carlo Aurelio Widmann last used and repaired his palace in the Old Fortress in 1794.
• Diedo: A gunpowder store bears the coat of arms of Marco Antonio Diedo, dated 1731.
• Shelter: In World War II, the New Fortress served residents as an anti-aircraft shelter.

Which seabirds fly over a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise can meet terns and gulls heading to their evening roosts. Common terns use boats, buoys and piers as perches and as night roosts. Black-headed gulls gather in big winter groups to feed and to roost at dusk.

Common terns migrate at night, flying at 43 to 54 km/h and 1,000 to 3,000 m up. The little tern is 21 to 25 cm long, and its name albifrons means white forehead.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the island’s wetlands explain the birds. Natura bird site GR2230007 covers the Korission lagoon and the islet of Lagoudia, 1,084.69 hectares in all. Common and little terns stop there on migration.

The Lefkimmi salt pans form site GR2230003, 212.73 hectares, 38.99% of it sea. They count as an Important Bird Area, because Corfu lies on the main western migration route of Greece.

On a Corfu sunset cruise in winter, small gulls can appear. The Diapontia islands bird site lists little gulls and black-headed gulls in winter. The little gull is the smallest gull in the world, 24 to 28 cm long.

Its genus name, Hydrocoloeus, means water jackdaw in Ancient Greek. Audouin’s gulls feed at night, far out to sea. Scopoli’s shearwaters follow whales and tuna to catch small fish driven to the surface.

• Scopoli’s shearwater: Once grouped with Cory’s shearwater, it is now a separate species.
• Winter: Tracked Scopoli’s shearwaters spent the winter off West Africa or as far south as Namibia.
• Yelkouan: The IUCN moved the yelkouan shearwater from near threatened in 2008 to vulnerable in 2012.
• Big gull: The yellow-legged gull is 52 to 68 cm long. Its wingspan reaches 120 to 155 cm.

Which stars rise on a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise ends as Venus appears, easiest to spot when the Sun is low or setting. Venus shines brightest as a crescent, about a month before or after it passes between Earth and Sun. It can even be seen in broad daylight.

As the brightest point of light in the sky, Venus has been wrongly reported as a UFO. Faint nebulae and galaxies show only once astronomical twilight is fully over.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, Vega is a star with a past. It was the northern pole star around 12,000 BCE and will be again around 13724. It was the first star other than the Sun to be photographed.

Altair’s name comes from an Arabic phrase meaning the flying eagle. It spins about 286 km/s at its equator, so fast that it is flattened at the poles. Deneb, the brightest star of Cygnus, lies 1,400 to 2,600 light-years away.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the dolphin constellation suits the sea. In Greek myth, a dolphin persuaded the nymph Amphitrite to marry Poseidon. The grateful god placed it among the stars as Delphinus. Another story makes it the dolphin that rescued the poet Arion of Lesbos.

Later Romans linked Cygnus to Cycnus, who dived into the river Eridanus to gather the bones of Phaethon. Eratosthenes said Sagitta, the arrow, was the weapon Apollo used to kill the Cyclopes.

• Scorpius: In ancient Greek times, the stars of Libra counted as the claws of Scorpius.
• Galileo: He first saw the Milky Way as separate stars through his telescope in 1610.
• Great Rift: Dark patches in the Milky Way are dust clouds that block light from distant stars.
• Lights and birds: Birds migrating at night steer partly by the stars, which city lights can hide.

Which shipwrecks lie off a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise sails waters mined in 1946. HMS Saumarez hit a German EMC contact mine, a type the British called GY. Both damaged destroyers, moving stern-first, reached the Corfu roads at 03:10 on 23 October 1946.

Signal officer John Edmondson helped secure the tow even though the blast had broken his jaw. When Volage hit its mine, bow fragments of up to half a ton landed on the ship.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the origin of the mines is still argued. Two Yugoslav minelayers, Mljet and Meljine, allegedly laid them around 20 October 1946. The swept mines were German-made but had no rust, fresh paint and recently greased cables.

Written off as a total loss, Saumarez was sold for scrap on 8 September 1950. Volage was rebuilt at Chatham in 1952 and 1953 as an anti-submarine frigate, then scrapped in 1972.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the Volage bow still lies where it sank. Nobody is known to have tried to salvage it. It was first logged as a sonar target in 2007. The team removed nothing, since it can be a war grave.

On 10 October 1943, an Allied plane bombed the Mario Roselli in Corfu Bay. About 5,500 Italian prisoners were boarding, and 1,302 died. Holed by British fighter-bombers, the ship was run onto a shoal about 800 metres from the coast. The wreck sat upright with its funnel above water until 1952.

• Regulus: The minesweeper HMS Regulus sank after hitting a mine off Corfu on 12 January 1945.
• Stocco: The Italian torpedo boat Francesco Stocco sank near Ereikoussa on 24 September 1943, after Stuka attacks.
• Losses: The Stocco lost 92 men, and survivors reached the coast near Paleokastritsa.
• Sirtori: Crippled by Stukas, the Giuseppe Sirtori was beached at Potamos and scuttled on 25 September 1943.

Which local drinks fill a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise sails past an island that harvests about 140 tonnes of kumquats a year. The fruit goes into jams, sweets and liqueur. The British botanist Sidney Merlin is credited with bringing the tree to Corfu.

Koum Kouat liqueur tastes mild, sweet and fruity, likened to oranges and strawberries. It is drunk chiefly neat or on ice, and local cooks use it to flavour desserts.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, Merlin’s story fits the island’s past. He was born in Piraeus in 1856. He competed in four of the five shooting events at the 1896 Olympics. At the 1906 Intercalated Games, he won gold in the trap, double shot.

Merlin married Zaira Theotokis, daughter of the Corfiot Prime Minister Georgios Theotokis. Around 1925, he planted the Washington Navel orange on his Corfu estate. Greeks still call that orange Merlin.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the kumquat groves need sun. The trees do best with 6 to 7 hours of direct sunlight a day. On mature trees, fruits form in about 90 days. They survive cold down to about −8 °C.

Kumquats first appear in Chinese writing from at least the 12th century. About 93% of the aromatic peel oil is limonene. Growers graft the trees onto other citrus or use cuttings, since seeds grow poorly.

On a Corfu sunset cruise, the land behind the coast is farmland. About 65% of Corfu is farmed, and olive groves cover about 55% of the island. Vineyards and citrus orchards fill the bulk of the rest.

• Vineyards: Corfu grows vines on about 1,055 hectares, only slightly less than Kefalonia, the Ionian leader.
• Hardy grapes: Only hardy varieties that resist fungal diseases cope with Corfu’s damp air.
• Own labels: Despite its vineyards, Corfu has hardly any growers who market their own wine.
• Ginger beer: It peaked in England and Canada in 1935. Non-alcoholic versions are heated to bring alcohol below 0.5%.

Which months suit a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise in June gets the longest light. Around the solstice, Corfu has 14 hours 58 minutes of daylight. On 1 June, sunset comes at 21:02. By 1 August, it comes at 20:53, still late in the evening.

On 1 September, the sun sets at 20:12, and civil twilight ends at 20:39. Daylight then lasts 13 hours 3 minutes. By 1 October, sunset comes at 19:23, and daylight shrinks to 11 hours 47 minutes.

On a Corfu sunset cruise in November, the clocks have changed. On winter time, the sun sets at 17:39 on 1 November. November leads the year in thunder days at Corfu, with October close behind. It has reached a record 27.8 °C and a record low of −2.2 °C.

At Corfu’s weather station, July has the fewest thunder days of any month. August averages 3.3 rain days, the same as July. In certain years, June, July and August each passed with no measurable rain.

On a Corfu sunset cruise in August, the air feels heavy. NASA data put Corfu’s August dew point at 18.97 °C, the highest of the year. The average August wind, 10 m up, is 3.3 m/s.

• Gales: Gale-force winds almost never blow at Corfu between March and October.
• Clear skies: In July, about two-thirds of the sunlight at the top of the atmosphere reaches the ground.
• Spring warmth: April has reached a record 28.0 °C on Corfu.
• Cold snap: Even June has dropped to a record low of 8.7 °C.

What do visitors ask about a Corfu sunset cruise?

A Corfu sunset cruise raises questions about seasickness, life jackets, Albania, photos, population and breezes. The Greek physician Hippocrates wrote that sailing on the sea proves that motion disorders the body. The problem is ancient.

How can seasickness be eased on a Corfu sunset cruise?

People prone to seasickness are advised to avoid spots of maximum motion, such as the bow. Scopolamine, a seasickness drug, is worn as a skin patch behind the ear. Once sickness starts, a stalled stomach can stop tablets from being absorbed.

Which life jacket rules apply on a Corfu sunset cruise?

Under EU passenger-ship rules, adult life jackets must fit people up to 140 kg. They must suit a 1,750 mm chest, or extra fittings come aboard. The safety briefing must come in languages passengers can understand. Each crew member must join at least one abandon-ship drill and one fire drill every month.

How close is Albania on a Corfu sunset cruise?

The northern end of Corfu lies only about 2 to 3 km from the Albanian shore. Part of the channel falls inside Albanian waters. Before the Second World War, it was seen as an international waterway. After the 1946 mine blasts, Albania denied laying the mines and blamed Greece.

Which light suits photos on a Corfu sunset cruise?

In harsh midday sun, portrait photographers need a fill flash to soften dark shadows. After sunset, the pink Belt of Venus can show in the east. It looks faded in summer and more vivid in winter, because cold air holds less moisture.

What is the population near a Corfu sunset cruise?

In 2021, Central Corfu and the Diapontian Islands had 67,112 residents on 235 km². North Corfu, governed from Acharavi, had 17,278 on 205 km². Under British rule, the island had reached 66,000 people by 1848.

Why does the breeze change on a Corfu sunset cruise?

At night, gravity pulls cooled, denser air downhill from the land onto the water. Land breezes are commonest in autumn and winter, when the sea is still warm. Cooling ground holds back rising air at night, which damps the land breeze. Daytime heating and night cooling happen at about the same rate.