Thursday saw us leaving Red Hook. With three kids it took a little time to get everyone fed, life jacketed and checked out with the marina. Only had one mishap when Andrew slipped between the dock and boat and hung onto the lifeline. Fortunately he wasn’t crushed as he had slipped between two fenders that were wider than he. With three kids, it’s just impossible to look on them all. Sometimes I joke that “we have a spare,” but I swear, I’ll be amazed if all three reach adulthood. Note to self, with kids, double how much time you think it will take to get out of a marina.
Continue reading “Lameshur Bay, Southern St John, USVI”
Tag: chartering
Red Hook, Eastern St Thomas, USVI
Flying out of Boston, we had to get up at 3am. It was going to be a long day, but the rewards were at the end! Travelling with three children is a challenge, we joke that when you have a 3rd child, you are changing from man to man to zone defense. You are a person short to watch after them. As we drove through the New England snow, we contemplated our Painkillers and sun kissed beaches. After a stop in Miami, we were flying into St Thomas. We have found this the place to get the cheapest flights to. You can fly into Tortola which can be more convenient for charters, but its more expensive.
A Kid-Friendly UVSI/BVI Charter Itinerary
This children’s USVI/BVI itinerary is based on a week charter with an extra sleepaboard the first night. With three kids sailing, we plan to have very short sails during the day between anchorages and stay at places that have moorings and ice (we have no fridge on the boat). Another criteria for the chosen stops is that they have restaurants very close to the beach. We plan spend most of our meals eating out rather than eating on the boat and let the kids frolic on the beaches while we finish more leisurely. The idea is to head out from Red Hook where we get the boat and then go St John -> Jost Van Dyke -> Tortola -> St John -> Red Hook.
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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.
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Baby Steps – Chartering Redux
With an eventual goal of living on a boat for six months, we need to get experience. We live near a large inland lake, and sail an O’Day 322. Clearly that would be too small a boat with three active young boys. So, we needed to figure out how to get experience on bigger boats. The obvious answer to this is bareboat chartering.
Sailing With Kids 