Hiring a boat here costs €80 to €240 for the first hour, for the whole boat and not per person. Every further hour is cheaper than the first, a full day at the Konnos Bay base is €350 or €700, and five to nine people fit depending on the hull.
Checked against the operators' own sites on 17 September 2026
- €80the cheapest first hour, for the whole boat and five seats
- 5–9 guestshow many the hulls take, by boat rather than by base
- 20:00the closing time every Konnos Bay rental has to be back by
Two bases, two beaches, and the choice between them is mostly about where you want the day to start. Sunrise Beach is in Protaras, at the eastern end of this coast. Konnos Bay sits between the resorts, four kilometres east of the centre of Ayia Napa on the Cape Greco road: a 200-metre beach whose official card names a transit point for small craft and anchorages in the neighbouring bays, calls the water calm and sheltered from strong wind, and marks the access from the sand up into the Cape Greco National Forest Park.
Do you need a licence to drive it yourself?#
Each base answers for itself, and the answers are not the same. XS & Stephanos states that anyone of eighteen or over may hire without a boat licence and that a full safety briefing and basic training come first. Mike's names no licence either, but wants the lead driver to be at least twenty-one and to present a physical passport or national ID card at the base — a photograph on a phone will not do — and puts everyone through a dockside briefing, an in-depth one on the twenty-foot hull.
Underneath sits the state's rule, which is narrower than «no licence needed»: a temporary visitor on Cyprus for fewer than thirty days may drive a hired high speed small vessel if a binding declaration has been signed with the owner of the craft and the owner has checked that the visitor has the knowledge the 1999 regulations require.
Otherwise it is a learner's licence from seventeen or an operator's licence from eighteen, with exams at a nautical club.
How many people may the boat carry?#
The number that counts is the one on the operator's page, because the boat has been inspected and given it. The regulation ceiling goes by length: two people up to three metres, three at 3.5 m, four at 4 m, six at 6 m, seven at 8 m, eight at 10 m and twelve at 15 m, and the competent authority may set a different figure after an inspection if the build allows.
So a hull that takes eight is at the top of its class rather than stretched, and a group of nine has one boat to choose from here, not three.
What is not in the price#
Fuel, at one of the two bases. Mike's says in as many words that fuel is included and that there are no hidden extras; XS & Stephanos never states whether it is, which is unusual enough to settle before casting off. Then the deposit: every boat at Sunrise Beach carries one the centre writes as €20, €30 or €50 «per hour», with no explanation of what it covers or when it comes back, while Mike's publishes no deposit for either hull.
And time: start slots at Konnos Bay run every fifteen minutes from 09:00, every rental is back by the 20:00 closing time, and arriving late for a slot does not push the end of it. Carry cash as well as a card — Cyprus has used the euro since 2008, and the official guidance on card acceptance covers hotels, larger shops and restaurants, not a beach desk.
On tipping the official line is that it is entirely at the customer's discretion.
- Konnos Bay
- a 200-metre beach four kilometres east of central Ayia Napa, on the Cape Greco road, the last one before Paralimni begins.
- Sunrise Beach
- the Protaras beach the eight-boat fleet works from, at the eastern end of this coast.
- Category B
- the class a Cypriot high speed small vessel gets when it is hired out to the public: annual inspection, a price board in English and Greek, and a log book of users.
- Whether fuel is in the price, in writing, at the base that does not say.
- The deposit: how much, what it covers and when it comes back.
- Who is driving, and that the physical passport or ID card of that person is in somebody's bag.
- The time you have to be back, not the time you leave.
- What happens if the base cancels for weather, and what happens if you do.
Important
The water either side of Cape Greco is protected. The Department of Fisheries and Marine Research lists MPA Kavo Gkreko (R.A.A. 115/2018), MPA Ayia Napa Sea Caves (R.A.A. 46/2023) and two artificial-reef areas at Ayia Napa and Paralimni; restrictions apply inside marine protected areas, but the decrees exist only in Greek, so ask at the base where you may anchor on the day rather than trusting a list.
