The Charter Connection Blog

Version 4.0 of the Navionics’ iPhone charts is now out. If you own an iPhone and are planning a yacht charter in the Caribbean, Bahamas or New England you should get this app. It’s even a pretty good reason to buy an iPhone! The new version has Google overlays over the land, so you can easily identify landmarks. The iPhone gps, particularly in older models, isn’t accurate enough to replace your chart plotter but this app is incredibly useful as a backup, a dinghy gps, or a tool to plan an itinerary before you even take your charter. See our article describing version 3, which shows some of the many things you can do. Prices now start at $4.99 - the same charts in your chart plotter can cost several times this!

Back home, I use the Maine iPhone charts all the time when planning our trips or checking out the next anchorage. Scrolling and zooming is much easier than using a chart plotter. Charts for the whole US East Coast cost $14.99!

Ed Hamilton & Co’s Steve McCrea recently chartered a Moorings 4300 bareboat in the British Virgin Islands and took these two pictures as he was approaching Cooper Island. The top picture shows the Raymarine chart plotter on the Moorings boat, which used the same Navionics charts as the iPhone. The second picture, taken a couple of minutes earlier, shows his phone giving the same position (the chart is turned so north is upwards). Steve says his iPhone (the latest version) was every bit as accurate as the plotter and the fix on each device was identical!

Another great special that just came across our desk - Motoryacht Monte Carlo will not be going to the Mediterranean and will be staying in Florida. She is available for charters in the Bahamas and has reduced her rate to $65,000/week plus all (from $85,000) for charters booked by March 31st and taking place in April and May this year.

We would be happy to send you details of this nice 130′ Amels. Email us if a discounted charter in the Bahamas sounds interesting this spring, which is considered the best time to visit these islands. For other luxury motor yacht charters, ask us to suggest some other suitable yachts or look for more specials on the Ed Hamilton & Co website.

It was great to see Charlie and Ginny Cary named one the ‘Top 40 Sailors Who Made A Difference’ in SAIL magazine’s 40th anniversary issue. I knew them well.

Charlie and Ginny first came to the Virgin Islands in the late 60’s to retire. To keep busy, they bought four Pearson 35’s with Tony Reynold and some other friends from the oil industry back home in New Orleans, with the idea of starting a bareboat charter company.

They called their company The Moorings.

I first met them in 1972, when I had just sailed in to Road Town, Tortola from England. I was a young man of 25 and was desperately looking for a job. Charlie had just taken delivery of 15 Morgan Out Island 41s. I eventually convinced him to hire me and I worked for him for just over a year, before running another bareboat charter company and eventually starting my own in 1975. Ed Hamilton & Co came in 1982.

Charlie and Ginny were a wonderful team. Ginny was the one that always seemed to get everything done, but Charlie was the soft spoken boss! Looking at The Moorings empire today, with 32 bases worldwide, in every conceivable cruising ground from New Zealand to The Pacific North West, it is easy to forget how this company began.

In the early 70s they rented an office and dock space in front of the ‘new’ Waterfront Condominiums in Road Town, next to the Francis Drake Pub. This was a smart move, as it looked like they owned the whole complex, as the above picture shows. Charlie always did have big ideas! Having such a small staff, he and Ginny were very much involved in the day to day activities.

In the bareboat business, you learn to expect the unexpected, but I remember them being so disappointed when two of their brand new boats collided – they were the only two boats sailing that afternoon in the whole of the Drakes Channel and they managed to hit each other! If I remember correctly, one was being delivered from the US, with the delivery crew still on board. We could all fill books with stories like these!

On a personal note, I owe an enormous amount to Charlie and Ginny, as do many of their early staff.

Charlie never seemed to mind that his managers moved on to other bareboat charter companies. In the mid ’70s, when the industry was less competitive than today, the heads of all the BVI companies used to meet for lunch at the Treasure Isle Hotel, to share stories and supposedly discuss policy, etc. I remember Charlie looking round the table and realizing that he had employed and trained every single manager except one! It was to his credit that he accepted this as an enormous compliment!

Charlie and Ginny always owned a boat in their fleet, which they named ‘Flying Ginny’. It was always the best kept and had the top crew. Their last boat, ‘Flying Ginny VII’ is indeed still chartering (privately). She’s a very popular Lagoon 55, run by an English couple, Tom and Gemma.

Charlie also enjoyed fast powerboats and it was no accident that The Moorings chase boat (‘Windchaser’) was a nice new Bertram 28. On my weekly trips to St. Thomas to pick up supplies, I was always instructed to cruise at the rated rpm, but when Charlie was aboard he loved to ‘red line’ it. The two of us had some thrilling rides together!

The Moorings was eventually sold to a European travel group – a fact that was not widely broadcast in the US. For most people chartering in the Caribbean, The Moorings was as American as apple pie.

Later a group of American investors bought the company back and Charlie, once again, became a figurehead. While not as involved in the day-to-day business, it was great to see him at boat shows and Moorings events. Ginny’s health failed and he retired (once more) in The Bahamas and Florida. He died June 14th, 2007 at Vero Beach, Florida.

Ed

Islands Magazine named the ‘best’ beaches in the world in their current issue (October). They used 10 categories and no less than 3 of the best picks were in The Caribbean/Bahamas. One was in New England. Most of the others were in the Pacific Islands or Indian Ocean.

The best ‘all-to-yourself’ beach was Sandy Spit, British Virgin Islands, not to be confused with Sandy Cay - both are off Little Jost Van Dyke. They do admit that to have the island to yourself you should go early, but yes, both Sandy Spit and the Rockefeller protected Sandy Cay are beautiful spots.

The best ‘all-day-long’ beach was Pigeon Point, Tobago, because of its amenities, and the best ‘hard-to-find’ beach was Lighthouse Point, Eleuthera. In New England, Block Island’s Crescent Beach was voted ‘best-beach-for-families’.

For the truly exotic, Matira Beach, Bora Bora and Dhigufinolhu, Maldives were both considered the best beach for ‘luxury’ and Champagne Beach, Vanuatu was the ‘best-swimming-beach’.

Whether you are looking for the ultimate honeymoon or a family vacation, we would be happy to arrange a private yacht charter to any one of them. Call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site and tell us about the type of holiday you have in mind.

A few years ago Johnny Depp bought Little Hall’s Pond Island, which is part of the National Land and Sea Park in the center of the beautiful Exumas chain in The Bahamas. In the July issue of Vanity Fair, he describes how passionate he is about preserving this lovely area.

The park covers an impressive 112,640 acres and when created in 1958, was the first of its kind in the world. Unlike many parks, no fishing is allowed and this new policy is starting to make a difference, as many marine species are now flourishing. The area is breathtakingly beautiful, but is best suited to charterers interested in a quieter, more remote cruising ground, with few attractions besides nature. Our photograph was taken from the park’s headquarters. We were the only boat in the whole anchorage!

Disney used our services when filming the original ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and Johnny Depp lived on one of our crewed yachts for the months it took to film the movie. We are thrilled to see he cares so much about the environment and particularly the Exumas, which could so easily be ruined unless protected.

For more information on the Exumas, or yachts suitable for a movie star, call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site and tell us about your plans.

‘The Big Kat’, a 78 foot Hatteras will be in The Bahamas in March and is offering 25% off her regular rate for charters starting soon after March 21st. She won’t be in The Bahamas long, but this is a great opportunity to save on both the charter fee and delivery costs.

She can accommodate 6 guests in 3 cabins, and offers scuba diving.
The discounted price is $12,500, plus expenses, for 7 nights.

If you think you might be able to take advantage of this great offer and would like more information, call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans.

This month’s ‘Charter Connection‘ Newsletter, which was emailed to subscribers last week, included an article describing the many different yacht charter destinations around the world. Readers were invited to vote on any cruising grounds they had visited on either a crewed yacht or bareboat charter and for the purpose of this vote, these areas were divided into the following categories:

BVI / US Virgin Islands, Leeward Islands, Grenadines, Western Caribbean, Bahamas / Florida, Western Mediterranean, Croatia, Greek Islands, Turkey, New England, Pacific Islands, New Zealand / Australia and Asia

You can view the initial results as they start to come in. It seems that most people only voted on their favorites, which they naturally rated as a ‘3′, so there are some ‘perfect scores’. We expect this to change as more people vote.

If you haven’t voted yet, feel free to do so, and if you only voted for your top choice, we’d love to hear about those other areas you visited and how you felt they compared.

You can also vote on the past surveys we have run, accessed via the results page. It is always satisfying to see a surge of votes come in after each ‘Charter Connection’ mailing, some for articles over a year old! For this reason we keep all articles open and update the results as they change.

If you would like us to describe any of these beautiful cruising grounds or the fine charter yachts that sail there, call us at 800 621 7855, or email us, or visit The Ed Hamilton & Co website.