Chartered yacht trip may be easiest way to discover ‘paradise’

“Oh, captain, my captain. Please take me away on my own private yacht

adventure complete with a chef and someone to do the cleaning. I plan to while away my time

lounging, sipping, reading, dining, snorkeling, swimming, shopping and chatting in luxurious surroundings peppered with clear water, coral reefs and pristine beaches.”

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Pinch yourself, because this paradise can be yours.

A quick call to Debbie Reed of Broad Reach Yacht Charters in Littleton, and you can have all the luxury and fun you want. And you can do it your way.

A chartered yacht “blends the virtues of a really personalized bed and breakfast with all the amenities of a five-star resort,” Reed says. “Plus the view changes daily.”

Reed travels quite a bit herself, checking out the yachts and crews she books for clients prior to ever recommending them. She specializes in crewed-yacht vacations so her customers “can sit around and be a deck potato if they want, or reggae away the night and scuba or parasail all day.”

She will book a bare boat (without a crew), but only for experienced sailors.

Reed finds that her local clients carry the exuberant Colorado lifestyle with them to the Caribbean or other spots and are very active with snorkeling, diving and sea

kayaking.

“Others just want to work on their tan and read trash novels.”

Rosemary Hill, owner of Aloha World Travel in Boulder, describes a

chartered yacht as “total freedom. It’s what the really, really rich do instead of going on a

Princess Cruise.”

Yachts she books come in three types: motorized, sailing or catamaran and range from 24 feet to 300 feet. She explains that the yachts are owned by individuals who have

them as an investment “much like renting an apartment.”

The rental company takes a commission for booking the yacht. Her clients frequent

Greece, which she calls a marvelous sailing area,’ the Caribbean and Tonga in the South Pacific.

Liz and Darrell Fouts booked a trip from Broad Reach Yacht Charters

last March, taking their two adult daughters and one daughter’s husband along to the British Virgin Islands.

They encountered eight days of bliss.

Going “whole hog,” the Fouts had a captain from New Zealand and a cook

from Ireland. As a result of their three five-star meals a day, they say they gained a

pound a day in weight. They think the pina colada drinks that started at 4 p.m. also may have been a factor.

“We would tell the captain what we wanted, which islands we wanted to

visit, how much snorkeling we wanted to do and when we wanted to go for a walk on the

island,” says Darrell Fouts. “We also had extra toys on the boat such as dive equipment, wind surfers and kayaks for water sports.”

Theirs was a 42-foot catamaran called Forty Something, with four staterooms featuring queen-sized beds. A typical day would start with a sail, then a stop at some cove or bay

where the cook prepared and served lunch, and either snorkeling, scuba diving or some other water activity in the afternoon, followed by another sail.

“The trip was so perfect, we’d hate to do it again because we just couldn’t duplicate it!” says Liz Fouts. In fact, after their yacht adventure concluded, the family stayed

for two days at a resort on Tortola and “it was much too tame. We much preferred the sailing.”

Although the “Captain Ron” video was aboard the yacht, the Fouts say

that their experience was not anything like that depicted in the movie. They credit that to Reed’s thorough investigation of the boats she books.

Reed books most trips for either the Caribbean (the No. 1 destination), the Mediterranean, or the now chic San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama “which is a newer

adventure trip for the environmentally oriented, with its wonderful pristine water for diving

and snorkeling.”

Most passengers range in age from 30 to 55, although some young honeymooners have also booked trips from Reed. For those on the queasy side who worry about seasickness, Reed suggests booking a catamaran or trimaran as these boats do not heel in the wind like a mono-hull yacht will.

She says the yachting experience is the “three R’s” — relax, renew and restore.

Maybe a single “N” would suffice: nirvana.