Sail Away to Paradise

I was very fortunate to get to go on this trip last December with my best friend, my mom.

My mom has always had a dream to go sailing. Ever since I can remember she has been obsessed with anything related: sailboats, lighthouses, anchors, etc. Anything you name it, she was all over that. Growing up being a mini Stacey I started to share that same dream with her. As our promise to each other to go sailing someday, we got matching tattoos on our ankle.





Our dream happened sooner than we expected! Right after Christmas me and my mom took off to head to the Caribbean. We got into St. Maarten  at night and got to have supper on the boat.





We were on a catamaran boat that housed 8 people. Pictured below is the room that me and my mom shared for the week, very small! We didn't mind, we only spent time there to sleep.

The next day we took off to sea! Sailing was an experience that is indescribable. The wind in your hair and only being surrounded by water is a phenomenal feeling. I was taking it all in and loving every minute of it! My mom kept cautiously staring at me and asking if I was okay (Yes mom I am not going to get sea sick). Little did she know that I was watching her the whole time, smiling from ear to ear, we were "Sailing Away."

Our plan for the whole vacation was to sail around the island of St. Maarten. Our captain showed us the map of where we would be going each day. We would travel every morning or afternoon and then anchor so we could swim, kayak, paddle board, snorkel, anything you name it!

We also got to get off the boat and get in a little boat called a dingy. Our captain would take us in shifts to land. We got to explore the different places we traveled to. The various things we did were shopping, exploring, and eating. This was amazing because this is when we got to interact with the locals and see the culture of the city. Of course, we were always excited to return back home, our boat.

I even got to steer the boat! It is a lot harder than you think it would be, but it was so much fun and quite the experience. 

While we were on the boat we had all of our food cooked for us. All our food was very delicious and we always had more than enough to eat.

We also got to celebrate New Year's Eve there, which was so awesome! We traveled to St. Barthelemy, which was a very popular place to be that night. Rumor had that there were many famous people there that night. Luckily we got there at a decent time so we got a pretty good anchoring place.





When we sailed in it was unbelievable what we saw, there were huge boats everywhere. We are talking multimillion dollar boats with their own service crew. Everywhere you looked there was a different kind of boat. We got to do some exploring while we were here too. We climbed to the top of a hill and looked down over the city and the water. The view was breathtaking and absolutely amazing!

A fun fact we learned before we left was the the airport we were flying out of is best known for very low-altitude flyover landing approaches due to one end of its runway being extremely close to the shore. We got to sit and watch the planes fly in on the beach. Let's just say I can't believe I was in one of those planes that landed there. It flies right in so close to beach, but is a very cool site to see.


As for advertising my mom found the company online and starting looking into it. Then she got talking to a gal that she knew and they used this company and said they were good. The company we went through was Festiva Sailing Vacations, and would recommend them to anyone!


I can't even tell you what my favorite part of this trip was because it was all so amazing! We did so many different things and saw so many beautiful views. We got to go to some remote places that can only be reached by boat. I would love to go on something like this again, it was a trip of a lifetime, and I am so glad to have spent it with my mom :)

Come Sail Away... Check!