Countdown to USVI Bareboat Charter

We’ll be heading off to the Caribbean in about a week for our second bareboat charter. A big goal for this trip is about getting familiar with a bigger monohull. We have sailed on Lake Champlain with 30-32′ monohulls and have chartered a cat, but we don’t have much experience in a bigger monohull on the sea.

When I write this post, it’s occurring to me that it sounds a little crazy. The idea of planning to spend six months living aboard in the Caribbean with a family of five with none of us having much sea legs sounds adventurous to say the least!

I am not underestimating the challenge, but I think that the Caribbean is hardly blue water or ocean sailing. More the concept of island hopping around with perhaps 1-2 day trips between islands when you are out of sight of land. That’s been a frequent refrain of the First Mate, that “she wants to be able to see land.”

Back to the upcoming trip. I have an itinerary that calls for very short hops between anchorages. I’ll make a post describing my planned trip this week. It’s focused on not getting the boys get bored, and being able to carry fewer provisions by eating on land.

I need to think of some other goals for this trip though. One is having the boys practice using their safety harnesses, but I am thinking that we need to squeeze more out of this trip. One idea that comes to mind is really having the First Mate take over some of the helm work. She has taken over a few times on the lake, but needs to build more confidence with the bigger boat. Man overboard drills also spring to mind, but I think I’ll wait for the familiarity of the lake to work on those.