By Jay Lloyd

FAJARDO, P.R. (CBS) — There’s a whole world of warm weather to cut the winter chill.

How about a water-borne getaway in a Caribbean latitude?

The Caribbean in winter — with its steady, 20 knot wind, 80-degree days, and exotic islands to explore — is a charter sailor’s dream.  A charter sailor is anyone who can rent a boat for a week and indulge in lazy days and dynamic nights, under a cloudless, star-filled sky.

Go as you please and your highway is the sea!

“It’ll be beautiful and sunny,” says Jim Veiga, of Sail Caribe in Puerto Rico.  “The water will be transparent. You may see some sea turtles swimming beside the boat.”

Veiga will rent you a sailboat to carry two or three couples, at a cost of less than $1,500 per couple for a full week.

If you don’t know how to sail, Veiga will also find you a skipper -– even a cook.  Just drop anchor, scuba dive, swim to the nearest beach bar, and luxuriate in Caribbean ease.

(A pristine beach on St. John, US Virgin Islands. Credit: Jay Lloyd)

—–

Other popular charter operations can be found in the British and US Virgin Islands.  Look up The Moorings or Sun Sail on Tortola, or Island Yachts in St. Thomas.

But beware — it’s habit forming!

“Jay Lloyd’s Getaway” Main Page