Horizon Yacht Charters: a Review
Horizon Yacht Charters has locations in St Vincent and the Grenadines, USVI, BVI, Croatia, and the Bahamas. They are a charter company that’s fleet tends to be older, used boats – so the cost is a little lower than some of the charter companies out there. Our friend, Mike, had dealt with them in the past and knew the owners and felt extremely comfortable chartering with them. In the Grenadines you have the option of a crewed charter or bareboat charter. If you opt for the bareboat charter, but want a skipper for the first leg, just while you get your sea legs, that is also an option. For an extra cost, you can also sail for 10 days from St Vincent all the way to Grenada, you pick the boat up at Blue Lagoon on St Vincent and drop it of at Port Louis in St George’s, Grenada. That is the option we chose.
There were 4 of us doing the bareboat charter for 10 days – pick it up at noon and return it at noon. When we arrived on St Vincent our friend/captain was under the weather due to a long travel time and dehydration, so we opted to hire Brandon as a skipper for the first leg of our adventure from St Vincent to Bequia, where he happens to be from. Looking back, I think this is a wise thing to do no matter if you are under the weather or not. It is good to have someone who is familiar with the boat with you on the first leg while you get a better feel for your yacht. It also gives you several more hours to ask a million questions and get a wealth of knowledge about the islands you will be visiting. Brandon did a great job of preparing us and going over everything during our briefing, but it is a lot to take in all at once.
The staff at Horizon is top notch. We arrived two days before our charter so we would have a chance to enjoy St Vincent before sailing away. We saw “Larimar” docked right there at the marina and watched as the crew and staff worked for days cleaning her from top to bottom, bow to stern. Our contact person, Lisa, was incredible. She was easy to talk to, always available and we could count on her anytime we had a question or concern – we were able to call or text her via whatsapp and she responded as quickly as possible. No matter how remote we might have been we felt good knowing she was there if we needed anything.
Larimar is a Lagoon 40 catamaran, and we found out later that we happened to be her last charter. She, like us, was retiring. Somehow that seemed fitting for our group. This was also our last bareboat adventure, all of us in or reaching our 70s, this was a do-it-now-or-never bucket list adventure. Yes, Larimar had some things that didn’t work 100%, such as the AC in all the cabins - thank God for the trade winds. But there was nothing wrong with the boat that would have put us in harms-way, she was an older but seaworthy vessel. The catamaran had 4 heads and 4 cabins as well as a large salon/galley. There was plenty of room for the 4 of us, even with Mike’s 6’4” body. Did he bump his head a few times? He sure did, but he did the same thing 33 years ago when we lived on a sailboat.
We were also pleasantly surprised that Horizon offered to compensate us for the issues we did have, which shows they are an upstanding operation, and they stand by their vessels, as well as their staff and crew.
To learn more about our sailing adventure you can read more here. We spent 10 glorious days sailing from St. Vincent to Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Tobago Cayes, Union Island, Carriacou, ending in Grenada. The longest day sail was our last day from Carriacou to Grenada, the winds were light, it took us about 7 hours, but the views were absolutely breathtaking. The average day sail was 2 to 3 hours. Many of the islands in the Grenadines are uninhabited or privately owned. Tobago Cays, Mayreau and Union Island are all part of a marine sanctuary.
If we were ever to do a crewed yacht charter I would certainly consider Horizon Yacht Charters. They also offer a sailing school ,so don’t let the fact you don’t know how to sail stop you from this amazing experience in this Caribbean paradise.