What to Ask During a Charter Checkout
During my 30 years of chartering, I have learned that all charter companies want their guests to have a great experience and that most go out of their way to ensure it happens.
During my 30 years of chartering, I have learned that all charter companies want their guests to have a great experience and that most go out of their way to ensure it happens.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, isn’t just a destination for resort-based tourists. It’s also a great place for cruisers and an ideal base from which to explore the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
What a difference 18 years can make. Entering the harbor at the picturesque town of Velas on the island of São Jorge in the Azores, I am remembering the last time I was here. “Disastrous” is a word that comes to mind.
What you see is not what you get in Hatchet Bay. Located about two-thirds of the way up the long and narrow Bahamian out-island of Eleuthera, it is a great place to visit for cruising sailors
Chart briefings are like snowflakes in that no two are the same. This was especially true of the one Al Ashford of Horizon Yacht Charters gave before my family and I set sail on a recent weeklong getaway in Antigua—if for no other reason than the amount of time Al spent talking about the seas.
Being a skilled bareboat captain is about more than being a skilled sailor—just ask the folks at the American Sailing Association, who have been massaging the curriculum of their Bareboat Cruising Course for several years.
Chasing after a sea turtle, grinning like a maniac behind my snorkel, all I could think was, “That turtle is my best friend!” This is the kind of slap-happy thinking that occurs when you’re hundreds of miles from home, sailing on a 57ft luxury catamaran in the so-blue-it-can’t-possibly-be-real waters of the Caribbean.
My wife, Nancy, and I are big-time charterers. We love to sail, we love to travel, and we love to do the two of them together—so much so that after several years of chartering once or twice a year, we were looking to increase that to four or five times a year. In our travels we’d heard about owning a charter boat in a fleet
Dinghy sailors will tell you there’s nothing quite like mastering lake sailing, where constant windshifts keep you on your toes, getting doused with spray is a welcome cool-down, and handling your boat just right, especially on the racecourse, is vital…
On our fifth afternoon on charter we anchored at Caye Caulker, and then immediately re-anchored after realizing the generator on shore was much too loud for our liking. We dinghied to the dock of a small resort, tied up and walked into town…

Going up the mast can be daunting, but not for this sailor who tackled the task while underway on Narragansett Bay last summer. This year,

Title: Gear: Streamlight Wedge EDC Flashlight

When his tiller head broke at the worst moment, cool thinking and the Hydrovane came to the rescue.

Colloquially the term “skyscraper” is used to refer to a tall city building, but nearly a hundred years before its modern architectural association, it had

When Friction is Your Friend Changing engine oil filters has always been a bit of a battle for me. They tighten up in use, and

A futuristic, push-button passagemaker, this powerful cat is designed for adventurous sailors targeting luxurious off-grid cruising.

Ireland’s Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720, holds the title of the world’s oldest yacht club, but Russia’s Neva Yacht Club (1718) could also

Building their own 44-foot catamaran from the plans up, Matt and Jessica
Johnson embrace the cruising life
from a unique perspective.

May 17/2025: NO! The near-simultaneous accidental deaths of accused fraudsters and tech moguls Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain—in disparate locations, of disparate causes—was NOT the product

People ask me a lot if I want to go cruising full time again. And I think, sure. Sure I do. I want to live