Readers Choice Monthly News Digest

Almost Canadian, Almost Caribbean

Late afternoon, Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos. I’m chilling on the balcony of our beachside suite at the Bohio Dive Resort, gazing at sun-burnished whispering surf nuzzling the sand ten metres away. A single couple populates the beach, shaded by a Norfolk pine. She leans over to say something to her partner every once in a while. Moments later he answers her.

It’s a perfect Sunday morning jaunt. We’re gliding through green-blue waters, colours so vivid and bright they hurt your eyes. We’re set for a close reach out of a harbour guarded by a necklace of tiny emerald islands decorated by palms that dance in fifteen knots of wind. Our boat, “Tropical Escape II” (perfect name for both the boat and our adventure), is a 44-foot Robertson and Caine catamaran, chartered from Sunsail’s Marsh Harbour base on Bahamas’ Great Abaco Island.

You’ve weathered COVID and you’re ready to book your charter to paradise. You’ve done some homework, but your float plan’s also got some blank spots. You want to discover more about the allure of specific Caribbean cruising grounds, whether in terms of the cruising itself, or in terms of shore attractions, you want to ensure that your skills and experience match the nautical demands of potential choices and you want to find the best fit when it comes to charter options.

We’ve just weighed anchor off Thatch Caye, a tiny island nuzzled by Caribbean waters flowing between the world’s second longest barrier reef and the mountainous coast of Belize to our west, and now we’re navigating a serpentine course through a crowded congregation of coral heads. Once safely in deep water we raise sail. I spin the wheel of “Kavok” (a Lagoon 421 catamaran we’ve booked for our weeklong Belize bareboat adventure from Dream Yacht Charter)...

It’s nothing short of spectacular, this view of Willemstad’s waterfront from the stone ramparts high atop Riffort, an eighteenth-century bastion guarding the sea approaches to St. Ann Bay, one of the Caribbean’s biggest harbours. A long pontoon pedestrian bridge named for Queen Emma, though locals are wont to call it “The Swinging Old Lady of Curacao,” spans the great bay, joining Otrabanda on this side to Punda, the historic downtown core.

The sun rises over green hump-backed hills, backbone of an island called Prvic in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Croatia, in the region of Dalmatia. We’ve docked overnight in one of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. The hills look across a blushing expanse of water riffled by winds whose names we discovered yesterday morning at the chart briefing that began our Sunsail charter flotilla near a village called Primosten.