July/August 1999 Issue

Winded in Antigua

We would capsize or be capsized, promised Robbie, our blond-mopped British sailing instructor. Part of the learning process. Tough love, sailor’s style.
   Our crew of four kindly saved Robbie the trouble. It became inevitable after two near-dumps (both of which occurred when I took the rudder, I should add). The 16-foot dinghy filled with water that refused to be drained. We limped back to shore in our bathtub of water with a sail. The capsizing and uncapsizing en route actually were the easy part, anti-climactic.
The climax, then, being our dramatic return: As the entire guest roll of the Sunsail Club Colonna resort, it seemed, sat down to lunch at the beach club, we lost control and headed straight into the rocks, drawing everyone out of their chairs to watch in amusement the embarrassing spectacle. Robbie was not proud.
   We’re talking serious sailors here, out on their boats as soon as the beach shack opens in the morning. Many come off the water only long enough to grab a quick sandwich and heave-ho back to sea. Most Sunsail guests are Brits, who know the charter sailing company from its Mediterranean bases. The latest Antigua base and club is Sunsail’s first year-round resort. Antigua itself is British-founded. It’s also one of the best sailing spots in the Caribbean, possessing in ample quantity those three ingredients crucial to sailors—wind, wind, and wind.
   So nothing need be fancy. There are cracks in the plaster and places where the paint ain’t. (Sunsail took over an existing resort in 1998 and is slowly making cosmetic changes and alterations to please the American market.) Does any of this matter to sailors? No, because, as the commercial says, life on land is dry.
   Life at Sunsail is totally wet. Even as we were having our first lesson on a trailered dinghy, we got doused by one of Antigua’s brief, brisk showers. Here Robbie taught us two basic skills: stopping and turning. We learned how to rig and how to uncapsize. Then we were set adrift to discover just how drastically the addition of wind amended all the rules we had just learned.
Sunsail offers several levels of instruction. Daily clinics on dinghy, catamaran, and yacht sailing are offered by specialists in those fields, free of charge to guests. Most equipment rentals are included in room cost, as is a half-board meal plan (breakfast and tea daily, dinner six days a week). The resort’s beefy fleet includes more than 70 dinghies and catamarans, 10 day yachts, and eight small power boats. Amazing thing is, the vessels and equipment do get used, every day, rain or shine. This is not one of those resorts where the sailboats sit empty on the beach, looking romantic, but also intimidating. Sunsail subtracts the intimidation while keeping the mystique. A hale and hearty crew of sunburned, Oakley-spectacled instructors is on the beach from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. to teach, rig, distribute buoyancy devices and trapeze harnesses, man rescue boats that are always on the water to help distressed sailors, and joke around with guests in their salty accents. All are trained in lifesaving and CPR.
   Four days a week, Sunsail hosts sailing races. Prizes are awarded at afternoon tea—a bottle of Antigua rum. “The idea is, you give them a bottle of rum and they drink it, and they won’t win the race the next day,” says resort manager Roger Smith with a sly smile.
Those looking for additional instruction can sign up for two- and three-day courses, at an extra charge. The three-day beginners’ dinghy course, for instance, teaches three students per instructor at $80 each. There are also one-to-one intermediate courses, a two-day catamaran course, and a three-day yacht-sailing course that prepares participants for Club Flotilla. This program takes a posse of up to 15 Beneteau and Jenneau sailboats on a three-, four-, or seven-day cruise around Antigua or out of Sunsail’s nearby base in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Bareboat and crewed excursions are other options at Sunsail, the world’s second-largest charter sailing company.
   Sunsail supports a network of sea-based operations around the world, including one of its newest near Bradenton, Florida. Although the emphasis at Sunsail is gung-ho sailing, the Antigua resort provides watersports, tours, and entertainment of all varieties, and is especially proud of its children’s programs.
   Most resort kids’ programs won’t mess (and I do mean mess) with anyone under age 3—toilet-trained, please. Sunsail accepts children as young as 4 months. A video club convenes most evenings to keep kids occupied while their parents enjoy each other’s company. During the day, children can do crafts and play in the big, bright playroom and grounds. They also do pool time. Junior Gybers, ages 8 to 12, can learn to sail and windsurf. Sunsail even takes on the teen crowd. Here, 13- to 16-year-olds do island outings and enjoy all the resort’s sports options—sailing, windsurfing, water-skiing, kayaking, snorkeling, and diving.
   One of the most popular nonsailing activities involves hopping in a power boat and chugging out to Prickly Pear Island or to one of Antigua’s 365 coved beaches (one for each day of the year, as islanders like to say). Prickly Pear makes a fun half-day excursion, where you can snorkel among squid and green turtles, sunbathe, feast on fresh lobster, and quaff Miguel’s potent rum punch in his shanty bar.
   I drank one with Miguel and his wife, Josephine, who have run this quintessentially Caribbean establishment for 20 years. Drinking rum is the only sailing skill I seemed to have mastered through my stay at Sunsail--not an unimportant skill for sailing, mind you. As the T-shirt we found at the Antigua airport exclaims: “It’s better to have a drink on the rocks in a boat than to be in the drink in a boat on the rocks.” Aye, aye to that.

Chelle Koster Walton has been learning to sail since she met her salty husband, Rob, 18 years ago. She’s still learning. She is a regular contributor to Caribbean Travel & Life and Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazines.