Trip Report 6/7/13-6/18/13
Chartered “Sea Vous Plait”, a lagood 420, from Horizon. Hired an instructor for the first two days.

My General Observations and recommendations:
We liked Horizon very much. They are a smaller company, but they are very professional and have their stuff together. We also enjoyed the location. Nanny cay is very nice. We ate at the genaker café for breakfast. Reasonable prices and good food. We also ate at Peg Legs for dinner. We found their food to be outstanding.
If you have to fly through St. Thomas, get off the island as soon as possible. The whole place is a rip off and it’s really not very nice.
If you’ve been considering chartering, but have never sailed a large catamaran or in the ocean, just do it. It’s really not that hard if you know how to sail already. I was intimidated by some of the “CCC” posts on this site, but found that, if you have a lick of common sense you won’t have any problems. You should, however, get an instructor for the first couple of days and, after that, you’ll be fine. If you don't know how to sail, you'll need an instructor for the whole week.
Our group was 4 adults and 3 kids, ages 7, 7, and 5.

Day 1: Arrived at St. Thomas at around 3:45. We booked a hotel for the first night, so as not to rush to get to the ferry dock and risk missing a ferry altogether. We booked at the Best Western Carib. I had read that it was within walking distance from the airport, so when we landed, I started asking where exactly it was. Nobody would say. They just kept asking if we wanted a cab. We finally succumbed since we had the kids and a pile of luggage to deal with. The cab driver drove us 100 yards to the hotel and charged us $48. First major rip off in St. Thomas. The hotel was alright for a one night stay, but the pool was out of order, so they shuttled us over to the emerald beach, which was a bit nicer.

Day 2: Took our time and headed to the ferry dock at around noon. Caught a ferry to West End and got through customs in about 5 minutes. At Nanny Cay, the boat wasn’t ready, so we hung out at the pool until 5 and then boarded. First mate and I took a cab to road town and went to the pasea rite-way. Really nice store. Stocked up on everything we needed. Met up with our instructor, Lizane (who was awesome by the way) and got off the dock before noon. Headed to the caves for snorkeling and then Norman. Picked up a mooring ball on the first try, as we did every time after that. Again, ignore the videos of idiots driving into each other. It’s really not very difficult with twin diesels. Cooked on the boat, as we did most nights.

Day 3: Cooper Island with a stop at the Rhone. That was really awesome. By this time, the kids were really getting into snorkeling and having a blast. Sea was a little rough, so we didn’t stay very long. Winds were 20-25 knots most of the week, but the boat handled it very well.

Day 4: Off to Virgin Gorda. Stopped in Spanish Town and dropped our instructor off. Spanish town has a nice grocery store, so we stopped in and picked up a few extra things. That was my first time docking the boat and I had to do it in a very tight space. No problem with the twin diesels. We were solo now and off to leverick bay for two nights. Leverick was nice, but I would probably try bitter end next time. The staff at leverick was especially friendly. Really enjoyed them all. Next time, we’d like to be a little closer to Eustacia Sound for snorkeling. Also, we found we liked being on a mooring ball better than at the dock. Not sure why. Dinghied to saba rock for the tarpon. That was a wet ride. Cooked on the boat again.

Day 5: Rented a Jeep and drove to the Baths. That is the only way to go. There were tons of boats waiting to get a mooring ball when we got there. The baths were awesome, but swarming with tour groups. Tried to snorkel off the beach, but some idiot kept driving his dinghy onto the beach, with a bunch of kids swimming around, despite the big sign that says “no dinghies”. We had lunch at mad dog (?) and it was good. Then we drove to Savannah bay, which, in my opinion, was the highlight of our trip. It was absolutely beautiful and almost completely deserted. I could have stayed there all day. The beach is nice and shallow, but you could snorkel around some reefs if you wanted to. Really can’t put words to it, it was just awesome. We then headed back to leverick, but first stopped at hog heaven and had a drink. Beautiful view.

Day 6: At Nick’s (from leverick) advice, we headed for scrub island instead of marina cay. He said the kids would enjoy the pool there. They did! They gave us the TTOL special, which came to $52 for the slip, plus a $25 bar credit. Not a bad deal. Of course 6 adult drinks and 3 kid drinks, plus a hamburger, cost us $140. Scrub island is a 5 star resort. Really nice. I’d prefer to be somewhere more “natural”, but the kids had a great time.

Day 7: A stop at the Dogs and then pulled into Little Harbor, JVD, where we stayed the night. It was Friday night, so we were looking forward to lobster at Harris’. Check this out, when we met Cynthia at Harris’, she asked where we were from. When we told her, she said her brother lives there. Turns out all 4 of us adults work for the same organization as Cynthia’s brother and we know him. What are the odds? The lobster was good, but a lot different from say Maine lobster. I enjoyed the serenity of Little Harbor.

Day 8: short trip to White bay. We found it way too rough to stay the night, so we headed for Cane Garden Bay. Another beautiful anchorage. Spent the afternoon snorkeling and SUP’ing. Went to the Bobby’s right behind the beach for a few supplies. That was the last night of our awesome trip. Can’t wait to do it again!!

We booked 2 nights at a resort in St. Thomas after our charter. We were thinking we might want a couple days to just chill out by the pool with the kids. Did I mention spend as little time as possible on St. Thomas? We stayed at the “sugar bay resort”. I use the term “resort” loosely. Lots of neck tattoos. Need I say more? Next time, we’ll spend one night at nanny cay and stay in their hotel. Next time, we’ll also use Dohm’s water taxi and just get over to nanny cay as soon as possible. Its more expensive, but we’ll save money on taxis and a hotel room in St. Thomas the night of our arrival.

I really can’t think of a more ideal vacation. I’ll be back as soon as I can for sure. Does anyone know a good bankruptcy lawyer?