Guide · 5 minute read
You arrive fifteen minutes early at a numbered berth, the crew take your bags and brief you in about two minutes, and the boat leaves. The clock starts when the lines come off, not when you arrive, which is the single most useful thing to know.
Published
You will get a message the day before with a berth number, a pin, the captain's name and a time to be there. Read it — the Marina has a lot of pontoons and the pin is not decorative.
This is the point to say anything the crew should know: someone who cannot swim, a child under three, an allergy, a surprise you are planning, a photographer meeting you. All of it changes something onboard and all of it is easier the day before than on the pontoon.
Arrive fifteen minutes before the departure time. Charter time is measured from when the boat leaves the berth to when it returns, so a group that turns up twenty minutes late has bought twenty fewer minutes on the water rather than a later finish.
Boarding is over a small gangway or from the swim platform. Shoes come off at that point — heels always, most other shoes by preference. The crew take coolers, cake boxes and bags aboard for you.
The safety brief takes about two minutes: where the life jackets are, where not to stand while under way, and how to use the heads. Nobody makes a performance of it.
The first twenty minutes are the Marina channel at low speed, which is where everyone takes photographs. Once past the breakwater the boat opens up and the noise and motion both increase — this is normal and it settles.
On any charter of three hours or more the boat anchors somewhere sheltered, the engines go off, and it goes quiet. The ladder drops, the snorkels and floats come out, and this is the part people remember. Two-hour charters do not anchor because there is not time.
Ask the crew for things. A different route, slower, music down, an extra stop, staying at anchor twenty minutes longer if the schedule allows — most of it is possible and none of it is an imposition.
Bring sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, a layer if the charter runs past sunset, and your own food if you have not booked catering. Towels, water, soft drinks, ice, snorkels and life jackets are already aboard.
Leave the heels, anything that cannot get wet, and glass if you can avoid it. Do not bring more people than the licence allows — the number is a hard limit and includes children, and a crew turning someone away on the pontoon is an unpleasant start to an afternoon.
FAQ
Check a date
Leave the date and roughly how many of you there are and we will come back with the boats that are free and what each costs. No deposit at this stage.