Charter out of our Antigua base in the Caribbean:
Cruise for 7 nights/8 days between March 11 – 18 2012 on board our Bavaria 40 for just US$2,500 (excludes insurance and cruising permit).

Click here to view more about this 3 cabin yacht:

Superb sailing in Antigua is only a few weeks away. Take advantage of this offer and email us info@antiguahorizon.com

The location is superb. All of the tables are outside on a first floor balcony. This means stunning views of yachts in the moorings and on the dock, and probably your boat at anchor.

We were met by Devon the Bartender. We know Devon from other bars (and other times) and he’s excellent. He convinced us to try his homemade ginger beer (in a cocktail of course) so we tried a thimble of his ginger beer and were hooked. One Dark and Stormy later…. (hic) we moved on. Not being a fan of Sex and the City, I was not aware that the girls’ cocktail of choice is a “Flirtini” but Kate reassures me this is the case. I was suitably impressed with the mix of champagne (real) and pineapple juice. There are other signature cocktails to try but we had to be semi-sensible and there was, after all, a large selection of wine to try a bit later.

The ambience is great; the building is the old Officer’s Quarters from Nelson’s Day, and after a day of sailing and coming ashore, it has a chill-out lounge not to be missed. The old shutters were half closed against the breeze and that combined with relaxing music, great lighting and the Dark and Stormy’s and we were in lounge heaven. That’s what your sailing holiday is all about.

For dinner, we had the hummus with flatbread and spicy olives and the pate of the day which was mackerel. Both very tasty and very nicely presented. This was followed by lobster and home made, hand cut fries – they didn’t even mind bringing tomato ketchup to the table for the fries. We also had the fish pie which I can thoroughly recommend; fluffy potato topped with cheese and just the right amount of fish and seafood.

When next you follow in Nelson’s footsteps and sail into English Harbour, Antigua on your next charter with Horizon… check out Hamiltons for lobster and those Dark and Stormy’s.

Learn to Sail in the Caribbean Sun!

Did you know you could learn to sail while enjoying a holiday in the sun? Horizon Yacht Charters Grenada are proud partners of the Nautilis Sailing School.  The American Sailing Association recently announced their 2011 Outstanding Sailing Schools, and  Nautilus Sailing school was one of 20 ASA schools to be granted this award.  Nautilus Sailing School conduct weeklong  liveaboard sailing courses on Horizon’s Bavaria sailboats. Passionate about sailing, they have enjoyed sailing in some of the most spectacular cruising grounds around the world. ” The Grenadines are truly the ideal sailing classroom” says Lead Instructor Tim Geisler.

You will set sail from the beautiful, friendly island of Grenada and visit several other islands and special locations in the Grenadines. Explore this stunning location while earning American Sailing Association 101,103 and 104 (Basic Keelboat, Basic Coastal Cruising and Bareboat) certifications. Over the course of a week you will gain the knowledge, experience and certifications to charter sailboats anywhere in the world, and embark on your own sailing adventure!  The goal is to enjoy a learning vacation. The emphasis is on learning how to sail, through hands-on experience, in a beautiful part of the world. Mornings will be spent learning and practicing new skills. In the afternoons you will set sail with the backdrop of spectacular beaches and islands of the Grenadines, refining these newly learned skills along the way. Once anchored for the afternoon, there will be free time to spend exploring, snorkeling, fishing, and relaxing…

You will be sailing on Horizon Yacht Charters’ Bavaria yachts, which range in size from 39 feet to 42 feet. These are newer, spacious sailboats, with all the amenities one would expect to find on sailboats in charter fleets around the world. Your boat will have 3 cabins, 2 heads /bathrooms, a large kitchen and lounge/dining area, a cockpit with bimini for shade, and a dinghy with outboard motor for exploring. All participants are given a private cabin during their stay on the boat. The spacious owners’ cabin is saved for couples that sign up for the course. Contact Horizon Grenada or Nautilis to book your sailing holiday in the sun!

Perhaps you are new to the cruising area of Antigua & Barbuda, or perhaps you want to go further afield than you’ve ever explored before and need an extra pair of hands and some local knowledge.

It’s always interesting when we talk to clients over the phone and they are looking for a certain type of Captain, or Chef. Invariably, they’ve been on a boat in the past with someone that perhaps they did not rub along with (might be one of their own crew!), so they are particularly sensitive to who they share their liveaboard space with.

It always sounds quite tame when I reply “the Captains that we recommend to you are brilliant and get along with everyone”. But that is the truth. I think we have been really fortunate to meet and experience Captains and Chefs who have worked on all size of yacht, tend to have their own boats, and are some of the most relaxed people because they are living their own dream. Sailing is what they love and the ability to share that with other people.

I wanted to introduce you to one such couple who fit into this category. They are Canadian (ish) and have their own yacht “Moondancer” here in Antigua. As a husband and wife team they are fairly unique in that both are certified Captains. Nancy is the bread maker… no, really… she bakes her own bread and even cooked roast turkey on Christmas Day as they were crossing the Atlantic!

If you want a great sailing team for your next Antigua cruise, or Captain or just First Mate or Chef… you’ll be delighted to share your liveaboard space with such great people.

Remember to buy the yeast!

We hope everyone had a relaxing Christmas and that the New Year was rung in with style!

We can’t think of a better way to start 2012 than enjoying a 7 night charter in the BVI. And this is the very reason why we are extending the closing date of our fantastic competition and therefore giving you one last chance to enter.

All you have to do is fill in a few details and you could be on your way to experiencing a sailing trip of a lifetime. Not only this, we are also offering a money-can’t buy sailing masterclass with America’s Cup Skipper, Peter Holmberg, giving you the opportunity to discover the tricks of the trade from a sailing legend.

If you’d like to be in with a chance to win, please click here

The winner will be chosen at random on Monday 16th January 2012.

GOOD LUCK!

St George's Market, Grenada

When living in the tropics one quickly gets into the rhythm of eating what is in season, and the dishes reflect the bounty of the rainy season. Avocados are just about finished, but can still be found if you are lucky, as can the odd mango. What does appear now on the table are special meals for visiting and celebrating Christmas as the year comes to an end.

Soursop

Soursop is available almost year round and is a very strange looking fruit. The flavor of the soursop is somewhat of a mixture between strawberry and pineapple but with a tart citrus flavour and a hint of coconut or banana. It has a nubbly green skin and a creamy white flesh with inedible seeds, and it is best cut up like a watermelon. Due to the extreme messiness in preparation, it is usually served as a juice or smoothie, but is also popular as ice cream flavouring.

Peeled Golden Apple

Golden Apples are not like apples! More like a mango in flavour and appearance, the oblong fruits can be prepared green such as in a salsa or wait until they are ripe and eat as a mango, either raw or baked into a dessert such as a crumble! They have a strange spiky pit inside which you have to cut or eat around, and have a light, delicious tangy sweet flavour. Golden Apples also make a wonderful juice.

Bananas and Rock Figs are still plentiful, as are Pawpaws( Papayas) and limes but a particularly important addition to holiday entertaining in Grenada is sorrel. It is key to Christmas entertaining as it is made from red flowers that bloom in December. Sorrel is dried then boiled with spice and enjoyed as a ruby red Christmas punch. Sorrel can be thick and syrupy or diluted with cold water or club soda… a naughtier version can include adding rum! Spiced sorrel punch is reminiscent of spiced apple cider, with a hint of raspberry flavour. There are so many recipes for sorrel juice that experimentation is the only way to find your favourite!

Spiced Sorrel Punch

Spiced Sorrel Punch – Serves 16
2 lbs. dried sorrel flower (sold in bags at markets)
8 cups water
2 pieces cinnamon stick
1-2 inch of fresh ginger , sliced
5-10 cloves
2 cups sugar or to taste
Optional – 1 tsp orange or lime peel, or bay leaf

Rinse the sorrel, then place in pot. Add water, and all other ingredients except sugar and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 to 4 minutes, cover and remove from heat. Allow to sit & steep for a few hours or overnight. Strain and sweeten to taste. Flavor with rum if desired. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

The Bavaria 45 has spacious berths, with a great galley and saloon layout and sails like a dream – when we recently invited Charles J Doane from Sail Magazine to join us on our brand new Bavaria 45, he said “We had ideal conditions outside Grenada’s True Blue Bay—a strong 20-knot tradewind and a commensurate lumpy sea. The Cruiser 45, to put it bluntly, sails like a witch and reveled in this environment. Certainly it is one of the better-performing mass-production cruisers I’ve ever been aboard… The boat represents a great value for cruisers looking for both charter-boat comfort and performance-boat speed.” Read the full article from Charles here: Bavaria 45 Review .

Of course you can always come down to Grenada to charter a sailing holiday in the Southern Caribbean on our brand new Bavaria 45 to see for yourself! Click here to see our fleet.

Horizon Yacht Sales are proud to be the Caribbean regional dealer for Bavaria Yachts, and are happy to offer a “Try before you buy” program where you can test-sail a yacht on charter with us in the Caribbean. If you subsequently decide to purchase a similar new yacht within the following three months, our Caribbean yacht sales department will deduct up to a week’s charter fee from the purchase price!

Editors from all the key sailing publications have raved about how the four models (32, 36, 40 & 45) have crashed onto the US sailing scene and made their mark. So much so, the range has been nominated, across different catgeories, for SAIL’s 2012  ’Best Boat’ Award, Cruising World’s 2012 ’Boat of The Year’ and Sailing World’s 2012 ‘Boat of The Year’.  The new range is the result of collaboration between Farr Yacht design, BMW Designworks USA, and the Bavaria factory team, headed by Jens Ludmann, formerly Chief Engineer with Ford Europe.

With Farr Yacht design at the helm, the new Cruiser series are structurally engineered to be impressively strong and stiff yachts. Hand laid fibreglass lamination below the waterline, a divinicell foam core above the waterline and easily driven hull shapes, Bavaria yachts are the “BMW’s” of the ocean – luxury yachts with a performance edge. Additional features such as the signature stern-wide swim platform, has certainly made the range stand out from the crowd.

Horizon Yacht Sales is the authorized importer and dealer for Bavaria Yachts in the British Virgin Islands, Antigua, Grenada and St. Maarten. We are also an associated company with Bavaria Yachts USA, the East Coast importer for the USA.

For more information about chartering or buying a new Bavaria Yacht, please see our webiste for more information, www.horizonyachtcharters.com or email us at info@horizonyachtcharters.com or call 284 494 8787 or  Toll free 877 494 8787.

And as we are all feeling in the festive mood (albeit a little premature), we have decided to offer a pre-Holiday discount for you to enjoy. Charter 7 nights at either one of our four Caribbean bases; BVI, Grenada, Antigua or St Maarten, between now and December 18th, 2011 and you will save 20%!!!

Click here to book now!

And if the 20% discount is not enough to get you excited, check out our Top 10 reasons to charter in the Caribbean over the Holiday period:

1 – Swap the pre-Holiday shopping mall mayhem, with the laid back sophistication of St Barts

2 – Because sand and swimmers sure beats wearing a scarf in the snow

3 – Bored of the traditional Roast Turkey? Swap it for fresh seafood, served on the beach in Dickenson Bay

4 – No more family arguments – relax, start Limin, the Caribbean is a stress-free zone

5 – Average temperature in December is 83 degrees  – need we say more!?

6 – Because everyone will be jealous of your sun tan on your return home

7 – Looking for the liveliest New Year’s Eve party? We will let you into the best kept secrets on island  

8 – Swap Christmas movies by the fire for Christmas snorkeling in the Grenadines

9 – Enjoy the famous BVI 15-20 knot Christmas trade winds on one of our immaculate yachts

10 – Because Horizon Yacht Charters is your home away from home!

All you have to do is fill in a few details and you could be on your way to winning a 7 night charter in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). On top of this, we are also offering you a money-can’t buy sailing masterclass with America’s Cup Skipper, Peter Holmberg, giving you the opportunity to discover the tricks of the trade from a sailing legend.

If you’d like to be in with a chance to win, please click here.

The winner will be chosen at random on the 31st December, 2011.

GOOD LUCK!