The most common way travelers visit Antigua is by land. They pick a resort, settle in, and see the island from the shore looking out. That’s a perfectly fine way to do it. But sailing around Antigua on a catamaran — specifically circumnavigating the entire island over seven days — gives you a version of this place that a land-based stay simply cannot replicate. The coastline looks different from the water. The pace is different. And after a few days, something else shifts too.
That shift is hard to name until you’re in it. By midweek, I realized the destination had become secondary. Antigua was lovely — but I could have been anywhere. What I was actually experiencing was the boat life — the freedom of it, the rhythm of it, the way a week lived entirely on the water rearranges your sense of what a vacation is supposed to feel like.
A look at the newest catamaran from TradeWinds, the all electric Mahalo.
(Dream Network Media)
What TradeWinds Is — and Why It Matters
TradeWinds is a fully crewed, all-inclusive luxury catamaran company that has been operating since 1998. With a fleet of nearly 50 vessels, they sail destinations across the Caribbean, Mediterranean, South Pacific, and beyond — ranging from 50 to 77 feet, with yacht classes that span from cruising-level to full flagship luxury. A complete private charter can be a significant investment. But TradeWinds also offers something most luxury charter operators don’t: the option to book a single cabin. You get the same fully crewed vessel, the same private chef cooking every meal from scratch, the same all-inclusive experience — without needing to fill the entire boat or gather a group large enough to justify it. That is the mind-blowing thing about the entire experience to me.
That single-cabin option is the access point that makes a trip like this realistic for travelers who aren’t yacht owners and aren’t traveling with ten people. It’s also the detail most people don’t know exists! But this is the detail that is the game-changer for me. This kind of celebrity-lifestyle trip is not that far out of reach.
Read my Travel Math breakdown for this trip on my travel resources website Travel with Dayvee.
What Sailing Around Antigua on a Catamaran Actually Looks Like
I spent seven nights aboard the Mohala, TradeWinds’ newest vessel — a 60-foot TW6e electric catamaran that launched in Spring 2026 and is based out of Jolly Harbour Marina on Antigua’s western coast. Captain Austin navigated and sailed the boat. First Mate Sammie ran the galley and, quietly, everything else.
The Antigua itinerary is a circumnavigation — a closed loop around the entire island. The western coast offers sheltered bays and calm water. The north opens into a shallow, reef-threaded maze of sandbars and small islets that a deeper-draft vessel couldn’t navigate. The eastern side runs exposed to the Atlantic, with stronger winds and the kind of sailing that explains why Antigua hosts one of the Caribbean’s most respected sailing weeks each spring. The southern coast, under the cliff faces near the Pillars of Hercules, is the most visually striking stretch of the week. Each passage looks and feels different from the last.
The goal as a guest is simple: wake up, eat, and get in the water. You don’t navigate, dock, or make a single logistical decision. The crew handles all of it. What takes a little longer to adjust to is the absence of connectivity — the Mohala doesn’t have Wi-Fi on board, and that’s deliberate. TradeWinds built the experience around the idea that the point is to actually be here, and be present. The first day, you may feel the visceral resistance. You become so conscious about how much we are tied to our phones and checking in. By day two, it starts to feel a little more freeing. By day three, you’ve stopped reaching for your phone without realizing it happened. It becomes a little nostalgic — the way things felt when you were a kid. The only option is to engage and play with the experience presented in front of you.
The Boat
Being on the Mohala was pretty special. It runs on electric propulsion, which means near silence when the sails aren’t up, no diesel smell, and a noticeably reduced environmental footprint on the water. TradeWinds launched its first electric luxury yacht through a partnership with Fountaine Pajot and now operates six electric catamarans with plans to eventually transition its entire fleet. On the Mohala, that sustainability commitment isn’t a talking point — it’s just how the boat operates, quietly and cleanly. That, of course, is important to me. Luxury can also be sustainable.
The six cabins sit in the hulls below the main deck. Full-sized beds. Private en-suite bathrooms with glass-door showers — not the wet-room setup common on smaller vessels, where the toilet and shower share the same undivided space. That distinction matters more than it sounds after a full day in salt water. Nothing about the layout felt like a compromise. The cabins are compact by design, but comfortable in every practical sense.
The main deck is where most of the time gets spent — a wide cockpit aft, a flybridge above, and a trampoline net stretched between the twin hulls at the bow. There were so many places to settle into—whether you felt social and wanted to hang with the other travelers, or if you wanted to read in a nook by yourself—it was quite the delight to find so many options to spend your time.
For the activities, you don’t have to worry about bringing a thing. Water sports equipment — paddleboards, kayaks, snorkeling gear, floaties — is available on deck. If you dive, up to three are included for certified divers, right off the boat. If you want to fish, there are poles available; and if you or the captain make a catch—of course you already know, they will cook up for one of the meals later.
The Food
We know the food can make or break your travel experience. Well, the food on Mohala exceeded any expectation I had going in. I imagined a limited menu with repeated meals. Not a bad thing. It’s just what I expected from a small vessel. Well, to my surprise and delight, the galley on the Mohala operates on a scratch-cooking model, and the variety across seven days was simply impressive. First mate Sammie really did her thing. Breakfast and lunch were served daily on board, along with five dinners; two evenings were spent dining ashore, which kept the rhythm from feeling repetitive. The meals were consistently fresh, locally informed, and made with enough range to feel genuinely thought through rather than provisioned in advance.
One morning, breakfast was pancakes — made fresh, unannounced, just there when you came up from the cabin. TradeWinds’ signature chicken salad had to be my favorite. It’s their famous signature recipe that long-time travelers with the company look forward to on every sailing. I now understand why. There were also tacos — a meal that, when it was presented, put an instant smile on my face.
If you have dietary restrictions or food allergies — I don’t eat fish, and flagged it before boarding — the crew quietly accommodates without friction. In fact, at the first breakfast I simply asked which eggs were hard boiled (as opposed to soft), and every morning there after, Sammie presented me with separate hard boiled eggs. By day two, Austin and Sammie knew how everyone liked their coffee and brought it without being asked. That level of attentiveness is either something a crew has or doesn’t. This crew had it. It was magical. We were spoiled. It was hard to leave knowing I’d now have to prepare my own meals once again.
The Part That Doesn’t Show Up in the Brochure
Somewhere around day three, I realized how comfortable I had gotten not wearing shoes for days at a time. Not just that I’d taken them off — that I genuinely hadn’t thought about them. That sounds like a small thing. It is a small thing. But it was also a signal that something had changed in how I was moving through the days.
The morning routine on the Mohala starts with a message from the captain describing the day’s route and stops. The crew was so cute. They made a little production of it — something we found ourselves looking forward to each morning. You absorb that information and then, essentially, release the logistics entirely. There is no itinerary to manage, no transportation to arrange, no decisions about where to eat or how to get there. The boat moves. The day unfolds. The most effortful thing you do is decide whether to snorkel or paddleboard.
There is a word in Caribbean culture — liming — that means something like unhurried presence. Sitting, being, letting time pass without agenda. It’s not a concept most American travelers know how to do. But by midweek on the Mohala, we all settled into it.
Midweek, all the TradeWinds boats sailing in Antigua at that time converged near Green Island for what the company calls a “board meeting.” Every boat anchored in the same stretch of water. The crews set out snacks on paddleboards in the shallows. Guests from the different boats gathered on the beach, and mingled. It was more genuinely fun than the name suggests. The ease of it came from a shared context — everyone had been living the same yacht-life for the past three days. We all unlocked the same dream life experience. There was no need for small talk scaffolding. We already had something very special in common before even saying a word.
Who Books This and How
TradeWinds operates across 19 destinations globally, including multiple Caribbean itineraries. The Antigua circumnavigation is specific to this island — a closed loop that gives the week a sense of completeness that open-ended island-hopping doesn’t always deliver. You leave from Jolly Harbour. You return to Jolly Harbour. In between, you’ve seen every face of the island from the water, without unpacking once. Of course, the captain navigates everything according to weather conditions. You’ll have a general sense of the route going in. But, as with all sailing, you will adapt according to what is safest.
Single-cabin bookings and full charters are both available on TradeWinds. For travelers who want to try the experience before committing to a full charter, booking one cabin on a shared sailing is the straightforward entry point. TradeWinds also offers a membership program for repeat guests — one you can only join after you’ve sailed with them once.
