Antigua & Barbuda Yacht Charters

Your week begins at Nelson's Dockyard inside English Harbour, on Antigua's south coast — a 40-minute transfer from V.C. Bird International. Your captain and chef meet you at the dock with cold drinks and a chart briefing, walk you through the boat, and get your gear stowed. The dockyard itself is the briefing's backdrop: a restored 18th-century Georgian naval base of stone warehouses, sail lofts, and the old Admiral's Inn, still working, still berthing yachts, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016.

There's no rush to leave on day one. Most crews take a short shakedown sail the three miles around to Falmouth Harbour next door — a wide horseshoe bay where the season's largest yachts lie at anchor — or simply settle into Freeman's Bay at the mouth of English Harbour, where the swimming is good off the back of the boat and Galleon Beach is a tender ride away.

Late afternoon, take the climb up to Shirley Heights — the restored 1780s military lookout 490 feet above the harbour. The view down over English and Falmouth Harbours at golden hour is the postcard of Antigua, and on Sunday evenings the lookout turns into the island's long-running barbecue and steel-pan party. Dinner aboard tonight or ashore at the Admiral's Inn in the dockyard; the boat sits quiet on its chain in one of the most protected anchorages in the islands.

After breakfast aboard, your captain clears English Harbour and turns west along the south coast. The morning is an easy reach in the trades, the green hills of the interior rising to starboard and the open Caribbean to port. Antigua's south coast is a string of deep bays and headlands, and the sailing here is the gentle, sun-on-the-deck kind — a turn at the wheel if you want it, the foredeck if you don't.

The day's anchorage is Carlisle Bay, a curved white-sand bay backed by green hills on the south coast, fronting the discreet Carlisle Bay resort. It's a calm, protected spot for a lunch on the hook and an afternoon swim. The water is flat, the beach is long, and the pace drops the moment the anchor sets.

The afternoon highlight is just offshore: Cades Reef, a two-mile barrier reef running parallel to the south coast inside a marine reserve. It's the island's best snorkel — coral heads, reef fish, and clear water with almost no current. Your captain runs you out by tender or repositions the boat to drift the reef, then it's back to Carlisle Bay for sundowners and dinner aboard.

Today rounds the southwest corner of the island and heads up the leeward west coast — the calm, protected side, in the lee of the land and out of the swell. It's a short, soft sailing day with time to slow down. The west coast is where Antigua keeps its quietest anchorages, away from the harbours and the cruise traffic of St. John's further north.

The day's destination is Hermitage Bay and the cluster of anchorages around Five Islands Harbour — a string of secluded coves on the west coast fronting low green hills, with the exclusive Hermitage Bay resort tucked into one of them. The beaches here are quiet and the water is flat; some afternoons you'll share the bay with one or two other boats and no one ashore.

This is a deliberate rest day in the middle of the week — paddleboards and kayaks off the swim platform, a long lunch, an afternoon swim, and nothing on the schedule. Your chef provisions for a dinner aboard, the boat barely moving on its chain, the sun setting straight off the bow into the Caribbean on the island's west-facing side.

A short hop up the coast brings you to Deep Bay, one of Antigua's most rewarding anchorages and one of the few where the highlight is in the water you're floating on. In the middle of the bay, in about twenty feet, lie the masts and hull of the Andes — a wooden sailing ship that caught fire and sank here in 1905, fully loaded. The masts come close enough to the surface to snorkel, and the wreck has become a small reef of its own.

Above the beach on the northern headland stand the ruins of Fort Barrington, an 18th-century gun emplacement that guarded the approach to St. John's Harbour. The short walk up is worth it for the view back over the bay, the boat at anchor below, and the whole sweep of the west coast you've sailed.

Deep Bay is a calm, sand-bottomed anchorage with a good beach, so the day splits naturally between the wreck snorkel, the walk to the fort, and an afternoon in the water. Dinner aboard tonight with St. John's — the island's capital and its only real town — a short distance up the coast if you want to provision or step ashore.

The longest sailing day of the week takes you around the north of the island and into the North Sound — a shallow, reef-strewn corner of turquoise water and small uninhabited islands off Antigua's northeast tip. The route passes Long Island, home to the exclusive Jumby Bay resort, before threading into the Sound proper. Your captain will pick the line through the reefs; this is good-light, eyeball-navigation water, and all the better for it.

The anchorage is off Great Bird Island, a small wildlife sanctuary inside the North Sound National Park. It's a classic desert-island stop — no development, a short hike up to a ridge with a panoramic view over the Sound and its reefs, and the home of the rare Antiguan racer, once the world's most endangered snake, now recovering on the protected islets.

This is the wild, quiet end of Antigua — turtle grass and reef in clear shallow water, birds working the cays, and an anchorage that feels a long way from the harbours of the south coast. Swim, hike the ridge for the view, and have dinner aboard on the hook with the reef breaking gently in the distance.

Down the east coast today to Nonsuch Bay — a large bay on Antigua's windward side, sheltered from the open Atlantic by a barrier reef that runs across its mouth. Behind the reef the water goes flat and clear, and the sailing inside the bay is some of the prettiest of the week: protected water with a real breeze, the kind of conditions that make Antigua a sailor's island.

You anchor off Green Island, an uninhabited islet on the east side of the bay with a handful of small coves and white-sand beaches, almost nothing built ashore, and reef snorkeling straight off the boat. It's the windward coast's answer to the calm of the west — turquoise, breezy, and empty, with the Atlantic breaking white on the reef a half-mile off.

Spend the afternoon working the coves — a different beach for lunch, a snorkel on the reef, paddleboards across the flat water inside the bay. Nonsuch is also one of the Caribbean's best flat-water sailing and kiting venues for exactly the reason it's a good anchorage: steady trades, protected water. Last dinner aboard tonight in one of Antigua's quietest corners before the short run back to the dockyard.

A final morning on the hook at Green Island — a swim, a slow breakfast on the aft deck, a last snorkel on the reef — before lines off for the short reach back around the southeast corner of the island to English Harbour. It's an easy closing sail, the windward coast giving way to the familiar headlands of the south, and the dockyard opening up on the bow as you round into the harbour.

Charters typically disembark in the morning, so the last night is usually spent back at English Harbour or Falmouth, with a farewell dinner aboard or ashore in the dockyard. If the timing's right, one more climb to Shirley Heights closes the loop where it started.

Seven days, a full circle of the island, and not a single long passage — Antigua done the way the island rewards: under sail in steady trades, anchored somewhere different every night, and back to flat water by sundown.

Your week begins at Nelson's Dockyard inside English Harbour, a 40-minute transfer from V.C. Bird International. Your captain and chef meet you at the dock with cold drinks and a chart briefing — including the plan for the Barbuda crossing later in the week — then walk you through the boat and stow your gear. The dockyard is a restored 18th-century Georgian naval base of stone warehouses and sail lofts, still working, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Day one stays close to home: a short shakedown around to Falmouth Harbour, where the season's largest yachts lie at anchor, or a settle-in at Freeman's Bay at the harbour mouth, with good swimming off the back of the boat and Galleon Beach a tender ride away.

Late afternoon, climb to Shirley Heights, the 1780s lookout 490 feet above the harbour, for the view down over both bays at golden hour — and, on Sundays, the steel-pan barbecue that is Antigua's one shoreside fixture. Dinner aboard or ashore at the Admiral's Inn, the boat quiet on its chain in a well-protected harbour.

Lines off after breakfast for the sail up Antigua's leeward west coast — the calm side, in the lee of the land. The morning is an easy reach past the southwest headlands and up toward St. John's, the island's capital, with the green interior rising to starboard. This leg stages you north, shortening the open-water crossing to Barbuda you'll make in two days.

The anchorage is Deep Bay, one of Antigua's most rewarding stops. In the middle of the bay, in about twenty feet of water, lie the masts and hull of the Andes — a wooden sailing ship that burned and sank here in 1905, now snorkelable straight off the boat. On the northern headland stand the ruins of Fort Barrington, an 18th-century gun emplacement guarding the approach to St. John's, a short walk up for the view back over the bay.

Spend the afternoon between the wreck snorkel, the walk to the fort, and the swimming beach. St. John's is close by for any last provisioning before the wilder days ahead. Dinner aboard tonight in a calm, sand-bottomed anchorage.

Today rounds the north of the island into the North Sound — a shallow, reef-strewn corner of turquoise water and small uninhabited islands off Antigua's northeast tip. The route passes Long Island, home to the exclusive Jumby Bay, before threading into the Sound. Your captain picks the line through the reefs in good light; this is eyeball-navigation water and all the better for it.

You anchor off Great Bird Island, a small wildlife sanctuary in the North Sound National Park — a desert-island stop with a short hike to a ridge that looks out over the Sound and its reefs, and the home of the recovering Antiguan racer, once the world's rarest snake.

This is the wild, quiet northeast end of Antigua, and a deliberate staging point: from here the crossing to Barbuda is a clean run north. Swim, hike the ridge, and have an early dinner aboard — tomorrow is the passage, and most crews like to be away in the morning trades.

Today is the passage that makes the trip. Away in the morning trades for the roughly 30-nautical-mile run north across open Atlantic to Barbuda — a half-day sail, and in the steady winter wind a comfortable reach rather than a hard beat. There's no land between for most of the crossing; it's blue water, the boat settled into its stride, and the low profile of Barbuda slowly rising on the bow.

Barbuda is flat, low, and almost entirely undeveloped — the opposite of everywhere else on the trip. The boat anchors off Low Bay on the island's west side, behind a long sandbar that separates the open sea from the Codrington Lagoon, with the famous 17 Mile Beach stretching north and south as far as you can see. The sand here is pale pink, tinted by crushed conch shell, and most days a yacht has a long stretch of it to itself.

The afternoon is simply Barbuda: a swim off the boat, a walk on empty pink sand, paddleboards along the shore. There's almost nothing built here and no crowd to share it with — the reason the island is the one stop on the trip that guests don't expect and don't forget. Sundowners on the aft deck and dinner aboard at anchor off the beach.

A full day on Barbuda, and the morning's highlight is the Codrington Lagoon Frigate Bird Sanctuary — one of the largest frigate-bird colonies in the world. Several thousand magnificent frigatebirds nest in the mangroves on the north side of the lagoon, and from September through April the males inflate their scarlet throat pouches in display. The colony is reachable only by water: a short licensed sea-taxi run from Codrington village glides you right up to the mangroves where the birds nest at eye level.

Codrington is Barbuda's only settlement — small, quiet, and the departure point for the lagoon tour. The rest of the island is sand, scrub, and reef, with a wild, frontier feel and a population that measures in the hundreds. It's the least developed island a Caribbean charter can easily reach, and the day is shaped accordingly: the sanctuary in the cool of the morning, the beach in the afternoon.

Back out to the boat for a long afternoon on the pink sand — swimming, walking, paddleboarding the lagoon's edge. Barbuda's reefs are also some of the least-fished in the region; your captain may run you to a snorkel spot off the south end near Spanish Point and Coco Point. For guests who'd like one night ashore, Nobu Barbuda sits on the island's south end — the Nobu kitchen in one of the most remote settings it operates — and takes outside dinner reservations; it's a striking contrast to the wild emptiness of the rest of the island. Otherwise, a last sundowner off the empty beach before the run back to Antigua tomorrow.

The return crossing today runs back south to Antigua's windward east coast — another open-water sail in the trades, with Barbuda dropping astern and the green hills of Antigua rising ahead. Your captain lays a course for Nonsuch Bay, a large bay on the east coast sheltered from the Atlantic by a barrier reef across its mouth.

Behind the reef the water goes flat and clear, and you anchor off Green Island — an uninhabited islet with a handful of small coves and white-sand beaches, almost nothing built ashore, and reef snorkeling straight off the boat. After the wide-open emptiness of Barbuda, Nonsuch is the protected, turquoise counterpoint: a real breeze, flat water, and a string of coves to work through.

Spend the afternoon swimming the coves, snorkeling the reef, and paddleboarding the flat water inside the bay — one of the Caribbean's best protected sailing and kiting venues. Last dinner aboard tonight in one of Antigua's quietest anchorages before the short hop back to the dockyard.

A final morning at Green Island — a swim, a slow breakfast on the aft deck, a last snorkel on the reef — before the short reach back around the southeast corner of the island to English Harbour. It's an easy closing sail, the windward coast giving way to the familiar south, and the dockyard opening up on the bow.

Charters typically disembark in the morning, so the last night is usually back at English Harbour or Falmouth, with a farewell dinner aboard or in the dockyard, and one more climb to Shirley Heights if the timing's right.

Seven days, the historic heart of Antigua, a genuine bluewater passage, and an empty pink-sand island almost no one else reaches — the week that shows why Antigua and Barbuda is more than another Caribbean charter.

Your week begins at Nelson's Dockyard inside English Harbour, a 40-minute transfer from V.C. Bird International. Your captain and chef meet you with cold drinks and a chart briefing — including the weather plan for the Montserrat crossing — then walk you through the boat and stow your gear. The dockyard is a restored 18th-century Georgian naval base, still working, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Day one stays close: a short shakedown around to Falmouth Harbour where the largest yachts anchor, or a settle-in at Freeman's Bay with good swimming off the boat. English Harbour faces southwest — the direction you'll sail toward Montserrat — so the volcano's island is sometimes visible on the horizon from up at the lookout on a clear evening.

Late afternoon, climb to Shirley Heights, the 1780s lookout above the harbour, for the view over both bays and, on Sundays, the steel-pan barbecue. Dinner aboard or at the Admiral's Inn in the dockyard.

After breakfast aboard, your captain clears English Harbour and reaches west along the south coast in the morning trades — green hills to starboard, open Caribbean to port. It's the gentle, sun-on-the-deck kind of sailing Antigua does so well, and a good warm-up for the open-water day ahead.

The anchorage is Carlisle Bay, a curved white-sand bay on the south coast backed by green hills, calm and protected for a lunch on the hook and an afternoon swim. The pace drops the moment the anchor sets.

Offshore lies Cades Reef, a two-mile barrier reef inside a marine reserve and the island's best snorkel — coral, reef fish, clear water with little current. Your captain runs you out by tender or drifts the boat along the reef before returning to Carlisle Bay for sundowners and dinner aboard.

Today rounds the southwest corner onto Antigua's leeward west coast — the calm side, out of the swell. It's a short, soft sailing day with time to slow down before the crossing, and the west coast keeps the island's quietest anchorages: secluded coves, flat water, low green hills.

The day's anchorage is Hermitage Bay and the cluster around Five Islands Harbour, a string of protected coves on the west coast. Paddleboards and kayaks off the swim platform, a long lunch, an afternoon swim — a deliberate easy day before the open-water run.

This is also the staging point: from Antigua's southwest corner, Montserrat is a clean roughly 30-mile reach. Your captain watches the forecast tonight and makes the call on the morning window. Early dinner aboard, the boat quiet, the west-facing sunset straight off the bow.

Away in the morning trades for the roughly 30-nautical-mile run southwest to Montserrat — a half-day open-water sail, and in the right window a comfortable reach. As the island grows on the bow, the Soufrière Hills volcano comes into view: a green-and-grey peak that has been intermittently active since 1995, still venting steam and ash from its dome, dominating the southern half of the island.

Your captain works up the west coast for the sail-by of the southern exclusion zone — the maritime no-go area around the volcano — past the buried capital of Plymouth. Once Montserrat's main town and port, Plymouth was overrun by pyroclastic flows and ash in 1997 and abandoned; from offshore you can still pick out the rooftops and the church spire half-entombed in grey. It's the closest thing the Caribbean has to a modern Pompeii, and it's startling from the water.

The boat anchors at Little Bay on the quiet north end of the island, well clear of the exclusion zone and the only practical overnight stop — an open roadstead, so the night depends on the conditions your captain chose the window for. Dinner aboard tonight under a very dark sky, the volcano a presence to the south.

A full day to take Montserrat in from the land. A guided tour — arranged through your captain — runs up to the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, the monitoring station perched on a ridge with a direct view across to the Soufrière Hills dome and down over the buried south. The guides tell the whole story: the dome's growth, the 1995–97 eruptions that destroyed Plymouth and two-thirds of the island, the evacuation, and the way the surviving population rebuilt entirely on the green northern third.

From the safe viewpoints at the edge of the exclusion zone you look down on a landscape no charter prepares you for — neighborhoods, an airport, and a capital city sitting under metres of hardened ash, slowly being reclaimed by scrub. The northern half of the island, by contrast, is lush, friendly, and almost untouched by tourism: a few hundred residents, green hills, black-sand coves, and a pace that feels like the Caribbean of decades ago.

Back aboard at Little Bay for the afternoon — a swim if the anchorage is calm, or simply the volcano on one horizon and open sea on the other. It's a different kind of charter day: less about the beach, more about standing somewhere genuinely extraordinary. Dinner aboard before the return crossing tomorrow.

The return crossing runs northeast back to Antigua, the volcano dropping astern and the familiar green hills of the south coast rising ahead — another open-water sail in the trades, the last big leg of the week. After two days of ash and exclusion zones, the turquoise bays of Antigua feel especially bright on the way in.

Your captain makes landfall on the south coast and picks an anchorage to suit the evening — Carlisle Bay for a calm swim and a beach, or back into Falmouth Harbour among the big yachts, a short tender from the dockyard. The afternoon is a return to easy Caribbean rhythm: a swim, water toys, a long sundowner.

Last dinner aboard tonight, or ashore at one of the harbour restaurants around Falmouth and English Harbour — Cloggy's at the yacht club, or a table in the dockyard. The week's wild chapter is behind you; tonight is back in Antigua's comfortable heart.

A short final morning brings you the few miles back into English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard, where the week started. A last breakfast on the aft deck, a final wander through the dockyard's stone warehouses, and time for one more look at the harbour before stepping ashore.

Charters typically disembark in the morning, with the last night spent back at English Harbour or Falmouth and a farewell dinner aboard or in the dockyard — a closing climb to Shirley Heights if the timing's right.

Seven days, the best of Antigua, and a crossing to an active volcano and a buried city that almost no other charter in the world can offer. It's the week guests talk about long after the tan fades.