🚀 go-pugleaf

#N:uiuccsb:11300001:000:2644
uiuccsb!gear    Dec  5 08:12:00 1983

Sailors hibernate in the winter, they don't write.  Howver, before I go
to sleep, let me ask for any suggestions of good places to charter in warm
areas for the winter.  Those of you who have tried some of the sunny southern
spots could help the rest of use chose (or just daydream about the possibility).
For my part, let me recommend sailing in the Med. on "Flotilla" cruises.
These are groups of boats--typically about 12--plus a "pilot" boat with
some locally experienced people (Skipper, Engineer, and "Hostess") aboard.
There are a number of organizations offering these, so you can chose between
those for the almost novice to those for the experineced.  My favorite
group is YCA (Yacht Cruising association) out of England.  I have taken two
of their trips--two years ago in Greece and this summer in Turkey.  The
first was for relatively inexperienced sailors.  Being an inland dinghy racer,
I put myself in that category.  That was unnecessary.  There were groups
(families) whose only experience was a long week-end school offered by YCA--and
that for only one of the group.  They motored a lot of the time.  The format
consisted of some days sailing "together", i.e. begin expected to arrive
at the same place at the end of the day with the pilot boat watching over
the less experienced like a mother hen.  We were left pretty much alone,
and also given the OK to stay overnight in bays the group was specifically
told not to overnight in (little exposed, but easy sail to a protected harbor).
The trip to Turkey was for the "more experienced."  In two weeks, we only had
to be in the same bay as the rest of the fleet four times.  Most days we
had force 5 climbing to 6 (this was July).  Not a cloud in the sky, hot but
dry.  For a charter boat, this 30' was in remarkably good shape.  (And if
something went wrong, the pilot boat was stocked with spares and monitored
channel 14 continuously.)  The benefits of the flotilla approach over simple
charters seem to be (i) the equipment is beeter maintained, (ii) we got a lot
of help on places to overnight, eat at, provision at, etc, and (iii) we sailed
from A to B, rather from A back to A.  (Each 2-week cruise started at alternate
ends of the crusing area.)  Price is very reasonable.   Four of us on a 30'
that nominally took 6 was about $3,000 for two weeks, including charter air
flight from London to Turkey.  Meals were extra, but we spent only about
$400 on all additional expenses.  As for differences between sailing off
Turkey and Greece--I preferred the latter as there were more villages to
stop for exploring and eating.  The southern Turkish coast is very desolate.