TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Dirk and Sandy, next chapter...

In early August, after traveling almost monthly to São Paulo this year, Dirk’s role as Global Director at Avenues was moved to Brazil full time. While Sandy and Dirk were willing to relocate to a variety of locations, São Paulo was not on the top of our list. Instead of moving to Brazil, we decided that we were ready to realize our long-term goal of running our yachting business together full-time.

Since 2007, we have been growing our yachting interests: offering all-inclusive term charters on Catatonic in the Virgin Islands, doing day charters on our motor yachts Knotty Tigress and Knotty Kitty, as well as growing our charter yacht brokerage business, Cool Cat Charters.

Previously, we have worked with fantastic Captains and Mates who have done a great job on Catatonic in showing our guests the vacation of a lifetime. Finally, we were ready to seize the opportunity to step into those roles ourselves and be an even bigger part of the adventure! We have looked forward to this transition for years, and we were planning to make the jump in October of 2017 on our beloved Lagoon 440 Catamaran, and the flagship of our fleet, Catatonic.

On September 6, 2017, even after the best preparation in Hurricane Hole St. John by Dirk and our captain Robert, Catatonic was lost to Irma. Catatonic was more than just a boat to us. She represented some of the best memories of our lifetimes with our guests, our closest friends and family, carried us safely over ocean passages, and has always been dear to our hearts and loved by so many. The outpouring of support from everyone has helped us greatly as we work through our grief from losing Catatonic.

We are deeply committed to carrying on Catatonic’s legacy in the Caribbean. After looking at many yachts, we narrowed the field to three, and are taking delivery of a very pristine 4 cabin owners’ version Lagoon 500 next week. We plan to christen this yacht “Catatonic 500” as a tribute to the wonderful yacht that started this fantastic journey for all of us.

We will fulfill our 2017 charters in the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas aboard the vessel Catatonic 500. These are the cruising grounds where we we were married and honeymooned in 2002, and where we visited again in 2016. We have a very special connection here.

We will make the crossing to the Virgin Islands as soon as the infrastructure is ready to support us, as we do not want to be a drain on limited resources. We look forward to every opportunity to have Catatonic 500 contribute to the recovery of the economy of our home cruising grounds of the Virgin Islands.

Until Catatonic 500 arrives in the Virgins, we are looking at other vessels that we can use to contribute to recovery efforts immediately. There are a few vessels that we are working with in this regard and we will get moving on these efforts as soon as possible (http://www.vistrongcharters.org).

Thank you for your support of our initiatives at Cool Cat Charters as well as your overwhelming love and support for the US and British Virgin Islands. To help with the recovery effort, the best thing to do is to visit us! We would love to have you join us this year in the Abacos or later in the Virgin Islands.

Together we will rebuild! Captain Dirk and First Mate Sandy #VIStrong

This is such fantastic news!!! Congrats to you both - I know it will be a huge success!

Flotilla 2018 soon come!!!

Congrats you two..cant wait to get a ride on the new Cat..I'll bring the bubbles!

Congrat's and goodluck!

I think this is wonderful news for you two and success in this will be forthcoming...the spirt of Catatonic will live on for many of us...I look forward to being part of that as does Bonnie in the future...

Good luck to you!!