Help!...Good fortune has found me!!

[JustStartin]

Ok, let me explain.  A few months ago I entered my wife and I in a contest in Sail Magazine called "Expand Your Horizons".  There were 3 winning prizes; one of which was a free 7-night charter for 2 in the Caribbean with Horizon Yacht Charters.  Well, we won the charter!  First of all, I've never won anything like this in my life!  Secondly, my wife and I have only been sailboat owners for 2.5 yrs ("Lorelai", 1983 ComPac 19) and only have sailing experience in Lake St. Clair (metro-Detroit) and now on inland lakes in Iowa.

Simply put, we're looking for advise.  We can cruise in 1 of 4 areas: St. Maarten, Grenadines, BVI, and Antigua & Barbuda.  Do any of you have experience chartering in these areas?  Have you ever chartered through Horizon?  What advise can you give us lucky souls that will be chartering for the first time?

We're looking to provide our own provisions and upgrade from a Skipper to Instructor so we can gain knowledge and ASA Certification for future bareboat charters.  I should add that this is not all-inclusive as we'll still need to pay airfare, provisioning and for the instructor.  We're looking to go in February sometime cause it'll be brutal here in Des Moines!  Anyway, looking forward to your responses!

[brackish]

Congratulations on your good fortune!

For the inexperienced charterer, I would suggest the BVI.  It is easy sailing, just about visual between all destinations, good moorings to pick up most places, plenty of points of interests.  You'll likely not experience any conditions that will be more challenging than Lake St. Claire (sailed there once in fairly high wind conditions).

The down side is that it will be relatively crowded in Feb., which is the high season. 

You might consider partial provisioning and set specific places that you want to eat out at night.  I would not miss an opportunity to eat at Sidney's Peace and Love.


I say this having not been to the other places on your list.

You may want to option an instructor for check out with the possibility of sending him home if you are mutually comfortable with you taking the boat.  Although normal conditions are such that a crew of two is fine, another possibility is to bring another couple along for additional crew.  When we were there, we had two boats and four couples, worked out great, however, all experienced sailors, resumes accepted at initial interview.

If you choose BVI, let us know and where the start base is, I'll post my choice of a seven day itinerary.

[Billy]

CONGRATS!!!! I have a 83 19 also! I would recomend BVIs as well. It's easy and set up well for bareboating. The Grenadines can get pretty windy I hear (never been though). You have time b/w now and then to take some classes and could get your BBC 104 before Feb and not need the skipper. Just my thoughts.

[Joseph]

Congratulations!! You are out for a memorable experience! I have been a sailing instructor (Advanced Level) with the CYA and the ASA for over a decade and every February I used to teach afloat courses (Basic and Intermediate pr Bare Coat Cruising) in brand new 40-52 ft Beneteau Oceanis in the BVI's (mostly with Sunsail when they were in Maya Cove in East Tortola). I have also sailed the Grenadines and most of the other Caribbean islands and I believe that the BVI's are unbeatable as sailing area for a week-long initial cruising experience. The trade winds are steady from the N-NE at 10-20 kts., tides are minimal, squalls seldom last more than a few minutes, the islands are just at the right distance from each other as to to never have to sail out of sight of land, and they encircle a portion of the Atlantic and Caribbean as a body of semi-protected sea waters (the Sir Francis Drake Channel). You can plan to explore a different anchorage every day, weigh anchor after breakfast around mid-morning, sail for 3-4 hours and be again at anchor early in the afternoon, then go for a swim or snorkel and plan for dinner either in the boat or in a sophisticated restaurant on land. Some initial advice: stay away from the Hurricane Season (June to November), check the boat thoroughly before departure (maintenance can be sloppy in the islands...), beware drunken crews oblivious of the colregs, anchor away from large boats with diesel generators and enjoy the tropical sun, sea and wind! I haven't been in the BVI's since 2007, but if you think that I can be of help or advise, please drop an e-mail to my personal address. One further piece of advice: bring with you a copy of "Treasure Island" and re-read it while anchored at The Bight...

J.

[JustStartin]

Thanks for the replies thus far, looking forward to more!!  I should've mentioned that a skipper is required with this package and so bareboating won't be an option.  But we can 'upgrade' from Skip to Instructor so we'll be able to bareboat in the future.

Keep the suggestions coming...I can feel the sun and hear the reggae now!!!

[Bob23]

Just:
   The only advise I can give is to eliminate all this stress from your life and pass the winning price to me!
   Seriously, many congratulations on your stroke of good fortune. Keep the sunblock on and the glasses full!
Bob23
(We'll expect a full report after you return home.)

[romei]

What a sweet prize!

My advice would be to invite Joseph.  Sounds like he's exactly what you need.

[jamato323]

One more congratulations and a BVI suggested choice. We bareboated a 34 Hunter from Sunsail out of Soper's Hole BVI and I've been back to the BVI's once on a cruise. Don't miss Norman Island snorkeling and Willie T's for dinner as well as Foxy's. You'll have a great time.

[HideAway]

Wow!! I didn't think anybody ever won those things!  congrats!!

Since we live relatively close, St Petersburg FL, many of our sailing club members have made the trip in their own boats.   After listening to their stories, and if we can ever save enough pennies, our plan would be to hire a captain, not an instructor, let them to the provisioning, cooking etc and only sail the boat when we feel like it.   

Here s why:

Do you really want to go on a vacation, possibly foreign, and shop for groceries??   Why?   

Do you REALLY think your wife WANTS  to be the cook on this floating, rolling dream vacation??

And most importantly, knowing how stressful it can be to sail into a strange port after being on the water for awhile - Well, Let s just say it is not conducive to martial bliss.    At least not for us.

Add to that the boat you are on is a bit more expensive than your Compac and those coral heads make big holes in plastic boats that will be hard to cover with your credit card.

But most of all, Imagine the pure joy of waking up at 2 am thinking the anchor is dragging and be able to say -"Let the crew handle it" Wow  <Matt

[curtisv]

Congrats on winning the cruise.  And welcome to this forum.

BVI is a great choice.  Pick up a cruising guide.  I read Yachtman's Guide to the Virgin Islands and that was quite good.  The free ones are up to date but are focused on their advertisers.  I wrote a few words about this guide as http://www.faster-light.net/remote-access/book-reviews.html#cruising-vi.

The four islands south of Tortola (Norman, Cooper, Salt, and ah .. I forgot) are interesting places to visit and very close together (under an hour apart).  Don't forget to snorkel "The Indians".  This may be the best snorkeling in the entire BVI/USVI area.  "The Baths" is also a great place to visit.  This is on the west shore of Virgin Gorda south of Spanishtown.  It is some sort of volcanic (or mysterious) rock formation piled up with passages and pools in the rocks.  Pick up a mooring there as early as you can and anchoring is prohibited and there are too few moorings.  Gorda Sound is really nice as well.

Since you have a hired captain, you might want to head to Anageda (spelling).  I haven't been but heard it was worth it.  Its a coral reef booby trap so having a captain familiar with the reefs is a real plus.

The place to go for cocktails in the middle of nowhere is the island of Jost Van Dyke, which has about four buildings on it near the beach in the harbor (for a loose definition of "building"), all bars, and a customs office.  There are only about ten houses on the island and that's it.  There is a great hike up to a peak with a spectacular view, but you'll share the peak with a bunch of microwave communications antenna that serve as a relay between St. Thomas and Tortola.  That means you can see both islands from there.  Wear your lead lined jockey shorts that day and you'll be fine.

Clearing customs between BVI and USVI is a mild inconvenience but easiest at Cruz Bay on St. Johns in USVI and easiest by far at Jost Van Dyke.  In the USVI the beaches on the north of St. Johns are beautiful.  St. Thomas has nothing to recommend unless you like crowded shopping with the tourists from the giant cruise ships (and getting mugged).  I don't know enough about St. Croix.  The cruising guides recommend a few snorkeling spots but ones that are not advertising driven give it a similar moderately poor rating similar to St. Thomas.

When we were there we found a few places described in cruising guides as beautiful snorkeling spots had nothing but grey dead coral.  Since this is increasing at an alarming rate, you should check with your captain and ask for recommendations.  The Indians and Treasure Island caves should still still be healthy.

We also went to Antigua but not to sail.  It seems Antigua would also have been a good choice as there are lots of harbors and anchorages.  I've heard that you can easily spend two weeks there without ever anchoring in the same place twice.  There are also a lot of islands within a day's sail.

Fair winds,

Curtis

[rip]

Hot stuff! I too would echo the recommendation of the BVI which of course also includes the USVI just across the Drake channel. Unless of course you want a more European flair. The convenience of communication and language with Brits and Yanks is pretty handy. There are lots of great restaurants and bars, but Foxy's was my favorite for lunch. Not sure if he still does his shtick, but he is one funny dude. He told us how lucky he was that his ancestors came over on a slave ship. If they didn't he might be living in Africa!Enjoy, riprap

[curtisv]

Just corrected my prior post.  Cut and paste problem.  The book title was Yachtman's Guide to the Virgin Islands.

A real good source for cruising guides is http://www.landfallnavigation.com/.

Donald Street's cruising guides are very good but some are dated and have updates at the end of chapters.  See http://www.landfallnavigation.com/donaldmstreet.html.  Donald Street's surveys are used in the Imray-Iolaire charts.  Iolaire was the name of his yacht.  He now sails Lil'Iolaire, easier to sail short handed.  I read his "Puerto Rico, the Spanish, U.S. & British Virgin Islands Cruising Guide" (after we cruised there).  I've not quite finished reading "Anguilla to Dominica Cruising Guide".  Both are very good but tedious reading at times without the charts.  The sketches in the book are not intended for navigation but they are not great for figuring out where the text is going.  Describing ranges, approaches to harbors, and the like in detail is needed in a cruising guide but doesn't make for great pure pleasure reading.  I've read these to have a better idea where I'd like to go in the future.  There is a lot of description of the history of each area and the culture and quite a bit about the prominent locals in the yachting business at each island.

I've heard the guides by Stephen J. Pavlidis are also quite good, but I have't read any.  It looks like he covers the Bahamas quite completely in earlier books and reviews on Amazon were very good to excellent.

Curtis

[JustStartin]

Well, my wife and I have our trip all planned out now.  We'll be chartering a 2011 Bavaria 36 free of charge.  We'll be paying for an instructor ($175/day), hull damage insurance ($350) and other incidentals but at the end of the 7-night charter we'll have taken ASA 101, 103 and 104 so we can bareboat charter next time.  We're going to fly out of Detroit to St. Thomas and ferry over to Tortola the next morning.  We'll arrive in Tortola the day before our charter begins so that we'll have time to provision.  We'll sleep aboard the vessel the night before to get acquainted.

To see the vessel we'll be chartering, see http://www.horizonyachtcharters.com/yachts/bvi_bavaria36.html.

Thanks to all above for your advice, we'll definitely be looking forward to using it!

[curtisv]

I'm familiar with Horizon as I'm looking at them to charter next season.  They have one Bavaria 31 that is booked quite solid out to the summer and three Bavaria 33.  They have more Bavaria 36 and larger and also Beneteaus but I don't have a need for three cabins and don't want to deal with more sheet winch work if I can get away with less.  Great choice of boat though.  Not too big.  On other forums that I checked people speak highly of Horizon Charters.

Let us know how it goes.

Curtis