Vacation Ideas - next 6 weeks

yobub

Well-Known Member
Jul 29, 2016
952
Northern Illinois
Boat Info
1998 400 Sundancer
Engines
Cat 3116's
Looking for warm water vacation ideas. Travel time would be some time in the next 6 weeks or so.

We did a crewed charter on a catamaran in the Bahamas last year and it was absolutely fantastic. We could easily just do that again and would be very happy with it, but I'd like to at least consider other experiences.

We would want to be on a boat most of the time. We could do something land-based as long as we were on the water every day, but being on a boat would be better. We would want something private, not dealing with crowds. It will most likely just be the two of us.

We would snorkel, swim, and explore beaches. Warm water is a must. No interest in fishing, my wife can't scuba dive, and we are willing to try restaurants but would much rather eat on the back of a boat.

We would be very open to the Keys, but it seems like most of those are day charters. We have bareboated in the BVI and enjoyed that, but found that the moorings were pretty crowded.

Any thoughts on exceptional places in the Caribbean?
 
We just got back from the BVI a month ago. No problem mooring except 1 night and we anchored. Boatyball.com will allow you to make reservations.

what about other bareboat locations in the Caribbean it’s always fun to try to places... exumas?
 
We just got back from the BVI a month ago. No problem mooring except 1 night and we anchored. Boatyball.com will allow you to make reservations.

what about other bareboat locations in the Caribbean it’s always fun to try to places... exumas?
I'll second BVI - thought to go wrong there.
 
We just got back from the BVI a month ago. No problem mooring except 1 night and we anchored. Boatyball.com will allow you to make reservations.

what about other bareboat locations in the Caribbean it’s always fun to try to places... exumas?
Thanks. We went the the Exumas last year and it was beautiful, so we were thinking about going back. I might look into the BVI because it's been about 20 years since we've been there.
 
Exumas are great, but my favorite area to get away from the crowds is Belize! Great boating, beautiful water, lots of islands, fantastic snorkeling and wild life.
 
Exumas are great, but my favorite area to get away from the crowds is Belize! Great boating, beautiful water, lots of islands, fantastic snorkeling and wild life.

That's great to hear, we're heading there in a couple weeks. We'll be mostly on Ambergris Caye, but doing some mainland excursions too. The diving around Belize is supposed to be extraordinary.
 
We chartered out of Placencia, a little further south and away from the cruise ships. The whole coast is truly beautiful.
 
I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the bahamas charter again, but now it looks like my schedule may change.

Who did you charter through in Belize?
 
Degree of difficulty in Belize is similar to BVI, mostly line of sight navigation. The charts are all old and island names change sometimes adding to a little confusion. GPS charts will be a little different than the books which are a little different from the printed charts, but water is clearer than BVI and any shallow areas are marked well on GPS and easy to see in the water. We went during spring break and had great wind and weather. Many anchorages were empty or had 1 or 2 other boats! That is certainly a major advantage over the BVI. The provisioning isn't as good as BVI, but still able to get most of what we wanted. Overall, it is our favorite area.
 
Degree of difficulty in Belize is similar to BVI, mostly line of sight navigation. The charts are all old and island names change sometimes adding to a little confusion. GPS charts will be a little different than the books which are a little different from the printed charts, but water is clearer than BVI and any shallow areas are marked well on GPS and easy to see in the water. We went during spring break and had great wind and weather. Many anchorages were empty or had 1 or 2 other boats! That is certainly a major advantage over the BVI. The provisioning isn't as good as BVI, but still able to get most of what we wanted. Overall, it is our favorite area.
My wife is worried about pirates down there. No really.

Should we be worried about pirates?
 
had a great experience in the leeward islands some years back. picked up the boat in st lucia , and worked down to st marten and st Vincent. excellent network of support for cruisers in all those islands. climbing the volcano on st Vincent was fantastic.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,949
Messages
1,422,829
Members
60,931
Latest member
Ebrown69
Back
Top