Catamaran Living

If you know me, you know I love all things boats! I couldn’t wait for my sailing trip to the San Blas islands and checked out several sailboats heading that way.

As I did my research, a couple of things were of paramount importance — especially since this would be open water sailing, with no land in sight for days.

My main concerns were:

• Experience of the Captain
• Seaworthiness of the Boat
• Comfortable Accommodations

From past experience I knew that being on a bad boat is a bad thing since you can’t get off. (Read: My Sea Coffin about my experience sailing in Indonesia.) And 5-6 days sailing could be an awfully long time in uncomfortable conditions.

With this in mind, I decided to splurge and spend $50 extra for a nicer boat – a catamaran that promised extra room for relaxing. It was a good choice!

Roomy Arrangements

Overall I was super pleased with the catamaran. I shared a double bed in a private room with my new friend Emily and we even had an ensuite bathroom. The private room was a request that I made before booking the trip.

See, I had studied the schematics of the catamaran and saw that the single berths were in two narrow gullies in each of the forward pontoons. This was not for me, and the two guys who were unlucky enough to have these spots christened them 1) the torpedo shoot and 2) the bat cove.

Here’s Tom in his Bat Cove:

The second unlucky spot on the boat was the sleeping chamber that was really the lounge. Sure, the bed was big, but you were in a public space with no privacy. In addition, everyone (except those in the bat coves) had to pass through to get to our own rooms.

The rest of us, however, had swank digs, with several port holes for fresh air, emergency hatches, and plenty of storage. There were two shared bathrooms that were cleaned at least twice a day, a necessity when in such close quarters.

Fun in the Sun & Shade

The kitchen was pretty small, but that was more of a concern for our cook Lu. For us, as long as we had room in the frig for our beer, we were pretty happy.

And the cat delivered on plenty of spaces to chill out. In the bow, you had the netting stretched across the pontoons, which was an awesome place to either sunbathe or watch the stars at night. And the stern was covered, so we had a place to escape into the shade when the sun became unbearable.

All in all, the catamaran was a good decision, especially given the large group of 14 on board (11 passengers and 3 crew). The extra $50 was worth every penny.

Tags: catamaran, Panama, sailing, San Blas

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2012 and is filed under Home.