Itineraries
One of the most common requests I get from customers regarding their yacht charters is help deciding their itinerary. Of course it’s human nature for all of us to want to know where we’re going; however, my first line of advice to this request is to specifically avoid having an itinerary. Not that you shouldn’t have an idea where you’ll be sailing, but a point to point itinerary, as they’re usually presented, truly steals from one of the great benefits of sailing - freedom.
One of my favorite things about private yacht charters is that I have almost complete freedom and range of choice, I’m on no one’s schedule but my own, no one is telling me where I’m going, it’s completely up to me; I can even decide not to go anywhere. In the morning the crew will gather in the cockpit, obligatory coffees in hand, and we’ll look at the weather, pull out the charts, and get a consensus on where we’re headed for the day. I find that my sailing vacation is most relaxing when I not only fulfill the need to sail, explore new anchorages, but also to do it all on pretty much the whim of the moment.
Of course, it’s most effective if everyone does have a general idea of the what the cruising ground has to offer. I usually recommend to do this, read through your cruising guide before you go, (Ed Hamilton & Co supplies you with one), and make a priority list of the places you’d like to explore. Then, once on charter, you can try to link them together as the urge strikes and the wind blows. For me, this is much more fun than knowing what time I’m going to be where.