March/April
2002
Cruising
Southwest Florida
School and charter service take explorers
beyond the shoreline
For those
who have completed the seamanship classes at Florida Sailing & Cruising
School, there comes the time when students take the plunge into chartering
and captaining their own vessel—the first solo cruise. For Tim and
Sheri Mullarkey, it was nothing but smooth sailing.
Residents of Cincinnati, the Mullarkeys wanted
to learn what it takes to do their own cruising on vacations, rather than
hiring a captain. And since a hectic business schedule didn’t seem
to mesh well with boat ownership, they contacted Vic and Barb Hansen,
the enthusiastic proprietors of the school and of Southwest Florida Yachts,
Inc., who have been preaching the glories of Southwest Florida’s
coastline for 18 years to their customers.
“We had seen their ads in all the national
boating magazines and received a newsletter from them,” explains
Tim. “Sheri and I had taken the U.S. Coast Guard Power Squadron boating
instruction and safety courses in Ohio, but we wanted to take it to the
next level. We had vacationed around Lee County before and we thought
the waters around that area looked like a good place for our first solo
cruise.” Well, that and the descriptive prose about the region he
found in the Randy Wayne White books that he likes to read.
So, armed with extensive training from the school,
including three different cruising classes and a “chaperoned”
eight-day cruise to Key West and back, Tim and Sheri chartered sister
company Southwest Florida Yachts’ Blue Note, a 36-foot Grand Banks
trawler.
People from North and South America and Europe come to North Ft. Myers
to attend the Hansens’ school, where students can live aboard a luxury
vessel while they learn to operate and navigate power and sailing yachts
up to 42 feet long. The trawlers and motor yachts are based at Marinatown
Marina on the Caloosahatchee. Most of the sailing fleet is at Burnt Store
Marina on Charlotte Harbor in Punta Gorda.
Over the years, hundreds of boaters have come
for the school or to charter a vessel, with or without a captain, and
cruise a coastline that Cruising World magazine has rated No. 1 in the
United States and No. 3 in the world.
Safety and Experience
Since buying Southwest Florida Yachts in 1984, the Hansens have seen boating
schools come and go. Why did theirs succeed where others did not? Vic
says it in two short sentences. “Safety isn’t boring. Safety
isn’t mean.”
Safety is the bottom line at FS&CS. The Hansens
and the instructors, Coast Guard-licensed captains, deal with unpredictable
Mother Nature, vessels worth millions of dollars, and priceless lives.
More important, students who leave with an FS&CS diploma also will
assume those responsibilities when they cruise and sail on their own.
Teaching safety, says Vic, shouldn’t mean
stern faces or raised voices. “We believe that people learn and remember
when they are having fun, and we believe they learn with their hands,
hearts, and their heads. This is the philosophy upon which we design all
courses.”
The school offers 13 sailing courses ranging in price from $395 per person
for Basic Sailing to $2,795 per person for an Offshore Adventure combination
course. Twelve power boat courses also are available, from Basic Powerboating
in a 32-foot, single-engine boat for $795 per person to Offshore Powerboat
Cruising in a twin-engine, 36- to 46-foot boat for $2,395 per person.
Except for a few basic courses, the fee includes staying aboard the vessel.
“You learn a lot when you spend all day and
all night on a boat,” says Barb. “You learn what the engine
is supposed to sound like, and if it doesn’t, you know something’s
wrong. You learn all the creaks and squeaks, what’s normal and what’s
not.” Barb calls the live-aboard courses “real time, real world”
education, but relaxed.
Courses in powerboat safety, handling, and cruising
are held at company headquarters at Marinatown Marina. The “classrooms”
are single- and twin-engine cruising boats from 32 to 42 feet long. Sailing
courses take place at Burnt Store Marina, where the boats are in the water
and ready to sail.
Many students are repeat customers who understand
that education is never complete. “With boating, just like any subject,
there’s always more to learn,” says Barb. Others have little
or no boating experience but want to see if they like it.
Some just want to charter a boat without a captain;
passing courses at the school qualifies them for bareboat chartering through
sister company Southwest Florida Yachts, Inc. For those who want to combine
learning and adventure, the school offers an intensive 12-day course that
takes the student from basic sailing through advanced cruising.
For those who prefer to leave the driving to a
licensed captain, Southwest Florida Yachts takes care of everything; its
concierge service books marina slips and resort rooms for charter customers
and boat owners.
Cruising Southwest Florida
“There is a hidden treasure of cruising opportunities here in Southwest
Florida,” says Vic. “People who live here or visit here and
spend their time on land or in autos are missing more than half the fun.
“Those who have cruised with us over the
years tell us how inspired they are by the beauty of the barrier islands
of Southwest Florida.”
The weather is balmy with just the right amount
of breeze to encourage power cruising and sailing in the open waters of
the Gulf of Mexico, Vic and Barb explain. Whether navigating north by
northwest toward Venice or south by southeast, they say, boaters enjoy
the easterly view of a fringed lace of sugar-white shorelines spotted
with palms and pines.
In winter, the Gulf of Mexico is warmer than on
the mainland; in summer, it’s cooler. And the water is rarely rough.
Besides, there are dozens of passes on Florida’s West Coast that
lead from open water into the protected navigational channel of the Gulf
Coast Intracoastal Waterway. Many prefer the ICW to the gulf because the
channel is sheltered by a string of barrier islands; plus, there’s
more to see.
Some barrier islands are long and famous like
Sanibel and Captiva. Some are tiny mangrove islands with bird colonies.
Some, accessible only by boat, introduce you to a community of like-minded
mariners, such as Cabbage Key.
When civilization beckons, there are dozens of
marinas, ships stores, waterfront resorts, and restaurants that will make
you feel at home. And when you want to be alone, Barb and Vic tell their
charters, you easily can, but expect to share your solitude with nature.
Before the Mullarkeys launched their voyage on
the Blue Note, they drove around by car for a landlubber’s perspective
of some of the spots they intended to cruise to. Then off they went this
past December for an eight-day exploration of Lee County waters. Destinations
included South Seas Plantation Resort and Yacht Harbor on Captiva, the
bays around “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Useppa
Island, Burnt Store Marina, and Boca Grande.
“Some nights we would dock at a marina, and
some we’d just drop anchor in a bay or cove; it was about half and
half,” notes Tim. “We had no problems at all. We really had
a great time.”
Setting Sail
Web sites: www.swfyachts.com and www.flsailandcruiseschool.com.
E-mail: swfyachts@aol.com
Phone: 941/656-1339 or 800/262-7939.
Mail: 3444 Marinatown Lane N.W., North Ft. Myers, FL 33903.
Bill AuCoin heads up Bill AuCoin Public Communications Inc. of Tampa.
Kelly Madden is managing editor of Times of the Islands.