Friday/Sailing

I'm looking forward to seeing you Friday night. I'll bring along some
sailing info. but thought I'd let you know now what we've got in mind. Dan &
Jamie are lined up so if you guys are still interested there would be 6 of
us. We have gotten a quote for a relatively new 46' sailboat in the British
Virgin Islands for the week of Thanksgiving. We'd fly down there on Saturday
the 20th, pick up the boat the next day and return either Saturday the 27th
or Sunday the 28th. [The return date is still under discussion - so far we
have (i) Jamie who wants to fly Saturday so we have a day at home before
going back to work, (ii) Mark who likes to spend as much time on the boat as
possible so wants to come back Sun., and (iii) Ted who when he heard the
question said "Let's start back Saturday and spend the night in South
Beach!"] The charter company is the Moorings (their website is
www.moorings.com) and the specific boat we reserved is called a Moorings
463. You can see a floor plan and photos on the web but the boat has three
separate double cabins each of which has its own bathroom.

Each day's schedule is usually pretty flexible - get up whenever (I seem to
remember Jamie getting up pretty early & making coffee), have breakfast on
the boat, decide where to go and sail off to the next island we've picked
out, maybe stopping at one or two interesting looking spots on the way, maybe
not. Maybe stopping for lunch somewhere, maybe making sandwiches while we
sail and maybe waiting for lunch til we stop for the day. Most days we only
actually sail for a few hours and are anchored in a little bay by 2 or 3:00
and spend the afternoon swimming (Ted's favorite), snorkeling (the masks,
etc. come with the boat), hiking on shore, exploring the coastline in the
dinghy or sitting around on the boat or beach reading, chatting, napping or
whatever (my favorite). There's a CD player and we listen to a variety of
music - luckily Ted has so far been able to restrain his heavy metal
proclivity for the duration of the trip. If you scuba dive there are dive
companies that will come meet the boat and take you on a dive trip - there is
at least one really good wreck dive (in 70 - 90') in the BVI. If you want to
learn to dive, you can take the classroom and swimming pool instruction in
NYC and do your certification dives in the BVI (Dan & Jamie might be diving,
Ted & I probably won't). Sunsets are often spectacular and signal cocktail
hour for me. There's usually at least one restaurant on shore in most of
these anchorages where we go for dinner but the charter company stocks the
boat with food (there's a fridge, stove & bbq grill on the boat) and as you
might guess Dan and Jamie are pretty good cooks so we can always eat on board
if we don' feel like going ashore. While no one is excluded from any
activities and everyone can participate in planning the itinerary, we don't
always do everything together, either. Everybody usually pitches in and
shares what work (cooking, cleaning up, sailing stuff) there is, although if
only from our keen sense of self-preservation you and Ted probably wouldn't
be expected to cook. In the past Jamie has been the only smoker and he has
invariably confined his habit to the downwind portion of the deck.

As for $, the boat, provisioning (food on board for breakfast lunch and a
few dinners), taxes, airport transfers and a hotel room for the first night
we get there all comes to about $760 per person. Extras include drinks (only
fair since you and Jamie won't be imbibing as much as the rest of us) and any
dinners ashore and of course the dreaded airfare. I've tentatively got
flights for you (through the boat company) that come to $544 per person,
though if we decide to come back on Saturday that might go down. Ted & I
usually try to see if there is some way to use frequent flyer miles but we're
not always successful. It's such a popular week to sail we need to decide
pretty soon so we can put a deposit down - the boat is not actually reserved
until we do.

I'd better stop & send this - it's turned out to be a good bit longer than I
intended but I get carried away sometimes when I daydream about sailing!
Check out the website & let me know if you have any questions.