Ron Bokenfohr has a great idea.  He loves to sail - and as with many sailors enjoys longer trips than his charter budget would support.  Many of had the idea to get rich so we could support ever longer trips - Ron decided to reduce the cost for all of us.

In late 2005, Ron purchased a Leopard 45 that was being retired from the Moorings fleet.  While some of the shine was gone from several years of charters, Moorings maintains their fleet well and Ron became the owner of Seabbatical - with many years of sailing left in her.  His plan is to charter her to people who want to voyage on longer trips.  He plans to place several yachts in his fleet and charter both full boats and cabins - to crews of varied skills.

When the dream is fully in place, Ron expects to field a flotilla of three or more boats - some occupied by a single family or group while others are cabin charters.  The flotilla will travel among the desirable cruising grounds with groups joining and leaving as their schedules find appropriate.

I was fortunate to be invited on the shakedown cruise and re-invited to cruise with the first charter group.  Seabbatical is a comfortable four cabin/four head boat.  During the shakedown cruise, Ron, his family, and I worked to make her more comfortable by adding, adjusting and tuning her a bit.

One of the neat gadgets we added was Skymate.  If any among you followed the journeys of the Shearwater II, you might remember we installed a Skymate on her prior to crossing from Cape Town.  Well, five years has gone by and while some of the problems remain, most of the Skymate works as advertised:

On an interval you select, Skymate sends your coordinates to any e/mail address(s) you select.  The chartlet below is the result.  All the person you e/mail has to do is click as instructed and the system tells them where you are - or at least where the Seabbatical is.  Not very interesting when she is at a dock in the Virgin Islands - but your family may want to know you are making progress if your dream carries you through the Bahamas and off shore to Cape Cod. 

As a side, Skymate also offers a limited e/mail service so you can communicate with your family underway.

Our sailing time was split between the Virgins, St. Martin and St. Barths.  Click on the photo to see St. Martin approaching in the distance as you look forward under Seabbatical's bimini and to the right of the mast.  A lovely sight after completing a night crossing under mostly fair skies and most of a moon.

Once in St. Martin we went thru limited formalities  (still free on the French side), relaxed and did some sight seeing and took off for St. Barths.

My favorite scene, by far, is from the mountains above Gustavo on the road to the airport.  If you click on the photo and look very carefully, you can just sea Seabbatical inside the small islands near the top of the photo.  It takes some imagination because the image is smaller than you can resolve with a magnifying glass.

After a few days in the French islands, we had a lovely daylight crossing downwind back to the Virgin Islands.  Once in the islands, we took a side trip to the American virgins to spend some money, buy some Christmas presents and relax some more by traveling the length of St. John and visiting the many lovely beaches. 

My favorite photo of the trip remains the shot of the aircraft approaching St. Barths' airport.  The runway is just behind and about 200' below where I'm standing and is very, very short.  Note the props on the aircraft.  Click on the photo to enlarge.

If this makes you hungry for some sailing, visit Ron's website by clicking here.