Bareboat charter suggestions please

[nautical62]

Originally Posted by maytrix

greats suggestions. Adding to what nautical62 said, skip sailing to the baths. Spend two nights at leverick bay. First night arrive by 3 or 4, rent a car (its a 24hr rental) and drive to coco Maya for dinner. Next morning drive to the baths for breakfast and then explore all you want. Stop at the coppermine, savannah bay and hog heaven (can't be missed!) as well as any number of other places.

Unfortunately levericks BBQ isn't happening in August, but you can still have dinner there or call the Saba rock shuttle and head there.

if you register at Traveltalkonline, you can even get a very good deal on the slip at leverick. We visited the baths by boat the first few times and it just doesn't compare to doing it this way.

Another less frequent stop is fallen Jerusalem. Very similar to the baths, but from a snorkel perspective, better!

Great suggestions. I'll keep those in mind for my next cruise there. I'm always amazed that despite the popularity, there are so many equally as good or even better places to visit, with a bit of research.

My first time to the BVIs, I think we picked up a mooring every night but one. Now I rarely do, other than the occasional day use moorings.

[saltymum]

The boat was a Leopard 44. The freezer/frig would have been tolerable had we known to rebag the meat and fish that thawed.

We like to cook so we opted for the plan that assumes we will have 3 dinners ashore and cook three on board, and includes breakfasts and lunches. Turns out that most of the places where we could expect to buy dinner would be closed at the time we were there. Nobody at SunSail appeared to be aware of that fact, but we bought some extra food so we were fine. I also wanted more detail about the provisions: how much of what supplies? Example: I was told "a bottle of dish detergent", "a small bottle of dish detergent", "a few ounces of dish detergent". How much oil? Again, a bottle, a small bottle. How many ounces per serving of meat, cheese, etc. Maybe I'm more fussy than some because I have provisioned for long trips. Early on, before we booked, I was told that they did provide a lot of food.

I insisted that we cook dinner on board the first night, good thing we did because we discovered: no spatula of any kind (ever tried to do eggs with a spoon?); no salt; unable to light BBQ (we asked for an igniter); knives so dull we could hardly cut an orange in half.

I am an experience sailor and backpacker. I know how to improvise. As I said, next time we will be better prepared by bringing plastic bags, decent knives, potholders that aren't full of holes.

We were only about 20 miles from base yet mostly we were unable to check in with base or get weather reports -- and this was during hurricane season. Once we got a relayed call that told us their computers were down. SunSail didn't seem at all concerned that we were unable to communicate with base, although we were told to check in daily.

[pnalen]

I was looking to bareboat in Belize. I just got off the phone with Sunsail and was told, I would need a Sailing Certificate—ASA 103 level, or US Sailing (I’m not sure the level). Other wise I would need to hire a skipper. Has anyone else heard of this, and what courses would you recommend? I have bareboat chartered over 10 times throughout the BVI’s, Antigua and Abacos and this is new to me.

[saltymum]

wow. Sounds to me like more of Sunsail's shoddy customer service. You should be able to provide Sunsail with verification of your experience with other charter outfits. In our case, I simply told them about our water sailing">blue water sailing experience -- a 3 year trip from CA through South Pacific to New Zealand and back to CA, a 2-year trip from CA through South Pacific as far as Australia.

I managed to post something about our experience with Sunsail on TripAdvisor and got a response from Sunsail, something about how they wanted to talk more with me but have heard nothing further from them.

I think I'd give them more precise detail about when/where/which charter companies you have bareboated. You might also try posting something on facebook to see if that gets their attention. Wait: I'll post something and let you know what happens. No point in messing up your plans.

Good luck.

[Alaska JD]

Last winter we used TMM in Belize. It was a wonderful trip with good equipment and no "certificates" required. We've done 7 or 8 prior charters in the Caribbean with TMM and have found then to be excellent. When there are problems they are fixed immediately. of the three TMM bases Belize is the best in my opinion.

Hope this helps.

[jmadenwald]

Put together a sailing resume of all of your training & experience, with detail on types of boats, weather conditions, miles sailed, etc. Submit that to the charter company, & if they still balk, maybe look elsewhere.