By Larry Benedict Photos Courtesy Sunsail Chartering your own sailing yacht is one of the most exciting and unstructured ways to experience exotic travel destinations. Few holidays combine adventure and leisure to the same degree as spending a week or two aboard a charter craft. It is the thrill you feel when you see a beautiful yacht at the dock and realize, with a flush of pleasure, that it s waiting there for you. It s taking the wheel and sensing the power of the wind in the sails and the lift of the sea beneath the hull. It s lying on the foredeck in the sun lulled by the murmur of the bow wave foaming below . . .
Some charter companies are world-wide, and can supply a complete vacation package.
Many include recreational sports as well as parties and excursions ashore. Their sailboats are standardized which makes them highly predictable. This gives the holiday sailor a much shorter learning curve when getting used to the boat. There are those of us who equate sailing with the Caribbean and nothing else will do. If it was good enough for pirate Henry Morgan, it s good enough for us.