Sailing the seas
Everything you need to know if you want to take to the water for a holiday
For anyone who’s followed me on IG or even been around here for a while, this is a post from the archives, so you may have seen it before. But full disclosure, I’m not up to speed yet, so just in case you needed some holiday chat, I wanted to send something through this morning.
Doing a boating holiday is really high on my list of family holidays, but dare I say it, I’m feeling a little empty nesty already, because my nearly 18 year old (quite rightly) isn’t being pinned down for longer than a week this summer, so have I missed the boat (boom boom) on doing this with my lot? Who knows. If he’s got any sense he’ll stick with us for a while - we do good holidays. Anyway, this one is for you if you have ever wondered about some of the different types of boat rental in Europe.
When people talk about chartering a boat, often what springs to mind is a super yacht with liveried crew attending to your every whim. As appealing as this may sound, it wouldn't necessarily appeal to your wallet, so I thought it may be useful to put some different options together for you.
Boating Turkey specialise in renting out skippered guluts, of varying shapes and sizes, in yes, you guessed it, Turkey. To give you some idea of cost your holiday would look something like this: you would typically get on board somewhere like Bodrum, so you would stay in a hotel the first night, board the boat at 3ish the following afternoon and spend 7 nights sailing around, dropping anchor in various ports and spending your days swimming in the crystal blue seas. The crew (of which there would be about 3) would cook and clean and take care of the boat in every way. All you would need to do is enjoy and relax. For this kind of experience, it would cost approx €10,000 (this cost is based on 2 families sharing a boat for a week in peak season, all inclusive)
Being on your own boat and having the crew cook your every meal, means that you wouldn’t have to run the gamult of any restaurants, and in fact you wouldn’t even need to spend any time on beaches, unless you really wanted to - you would still get a private dining experience every night and you would still be swimming in beautiful sea, away from the madding crowds.
For those of us who might like the idea of sailing our own boats but haven't got the confidence to go it alone AND would like to be a bit more sociable on holiday, whilst also having the opportunity to sunbathe and have plenty of down time, going with a flotilla would be an excellent option. These are when you do it yourself, but there is a lead boat with crew who are around to help out, arrange moorings, sort activities, and generally be back up for when you need it. Sea Farer sailing can sort all this out for you and more - they even offer a package of stay and sail - a week in a water sports club in Greece followed by a week on a boat. If sailing in a flotilla is set to be a favourite way to spend your holidays, you could also gain your skippers license doing it this way - in theory you can start to work up to skippering (?) your own yacht somewhere like the Caribbean for example. Aim high I say! Check out this link for how to become captain of your own ship.
For actual real life proper sailing, have a look at Sam Boat who specialise in peer to peer rental of yachts - there is a mind blowing amount of boats to rent for days or weeks, from various locations, with varying degrees of luxury and staffing. The boats all have owners who rent them out when they are not using them - Sam Boat position themselves as the Airbnb of yachts.
Peter Sommer offers a slightly different experience, in various different locations. They specialise in excursion led charters, hopping around Croatia, or Turkey or Italy's coastlines and taking in some amazing historic sites along the way. They have varying boats of varying sizes and for various budgets. This type of holiday would really work for families who liked to be sociable on holiday and who like doing cultural excursions as well as the option to eat and not do much. To get an idea of what this kind of tour involves as well as a cost click here
I’ll be back next week with more useful, affordable and doable holiday ideas!