The season, mid-stride

July, and the Mediterranean is in season everywhere at once. The fleet has settled into its summer pattern: Palma full, Port Adriano taking the overflow, and the Riviera running its usual relay between Villefranche and the Lérins. If you are deciding late, look east — the Ionian stays gentler than the Aegean all month, and the meltemi that shapes every Cyclades itinerary barely reaches Corfu.

The value sits where it always sits in high summer: at the edges. The last week of August prices like July but sails like September — the water at its warmest, the charter day at its longest usable stretch. Menorca is the quiet Balearic even now; the buoy fields of the new ecological anchoring zones around Ibiza reward the boats that book them early and punish the ones that arrive at six in the evening hoping.

One anchorage worth the detour this month: Cabrera. Permit water, capped numbers, and the Mediterranean as it looked before anyone thought to sell it. The permit is arranged in twenty days if you start now; the harbour desk can point you at the process.

One number worth knowing: a crewed week’s running costs — the “plus expenses” line — still lands near a third of the base rate in this sea. Anyone quoting you less is deferring the conversation, not the cost. The guide to what “plus expenses” means sets it out plainly.

Until the equinox — fair winds.

The Windward Letter is one quiet letter a season. Join the list; new readers get The Water Brief.