The Charter Decision in the Bahamas

I came to the Bahamas with the idea that I would scope the place out for chartering. After all, I do well chartering in Newport, RI and figured the Bahamas would not be all that different from a chartering point of view. Well, the Bahamas are different in every way. It is not only the color of the water that is different, but everything else too.

Take the food issue which is one of the main ones after all. You cannot eat that beautiful Bahamas blue. There are preciously few stores between Nassau and Georgetown which is a 130 mile stretch. The stores you do come across have often a very limited selection of food and sometime not all that fresh. In Staniel the boat comes three times a month. There are four weeks in a month which means that there is a period when the stores do not get supplied for two weeks. One enterprising store owner had stuff flown in, but still, it is not what you would consider a good way to supply your boat for days at a time. This means that either one has a very large fridge and freezer (Cénou does not have the latter) or one is somewhat dependent on going back and forth between the two places to re-supply. That makes it hard for charter because clearly the Exumas chain is the place to be while Georgetown and Nassau require good weather to make it back to the chain of islands.

Then there is wind. The predominant wind here is from the easterly quadrant and the Exumas has nearly unlimited anchoring from that direction. But if the wind turns West than the near 100% anchorage available dwindles down to a few anchorages which often are plagued by current. Having a charter take place while the wind is blowing from that quadrant might require to stay put for two maybe three days. In a one week charter it means that you have spent 50% of the time in the same place. That has never happened to me in New England. Once in a while I need to stay put for a day because of wind, fog or thunderstorms, but overall the distances are short enough that I manage to get the boat moving within 24 hours.

Finally there food (once again). People who get onboard in Newport have access to all kinds of supermarkets from Trader Joe and Whole Foods in Warwick to Stop and Shop in Newport proper. They need more even a small Island like Cuttyhunk is well supplied with fresh food that comes in daily from mainland. Since guests are responsible for their own cooking they want good choices and the Bahamas requires a lot less food planning and a lot more "eat what's available" which is something people are not all that used. The other alternative would be to offer all inclusive charters but I do not have a the space for a cook so that issue is settled.

So, unless something changes I think Sail the Blue will stick to what it has been able to do, which is to offer a nice sailing cat to sail out of Newport, RI and take through some of the nicest cruising grounds on the East Coast with all the food one might want and the ability to supply no matter what the weather does.