St. Barths

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Photo by: Kim Kavin

“This is an apple tartlet with almond crust,” chef Anna-Maria Zorgman says with a smile as she places the small plate of nature’s sweetness on the table before me. “And there is a kuzu glaze on top. This will help with your digestion.”

I don’t quite know what to make of that last sentence. Typically, when I’m aboard charter yach`ts with weekly base rates in the $100,000 range, the chefs proudly introduce desserts that include the phrases “chocolate lava” and “whipped decadence,” words that seem laden with calories before I even dip my fork into the gooey concoctions. I’ve never heard of kuzu (it’s apparently a fan favorite of traditional medicine men in China), and I’ve never before been asked to consider my digestion after a three-course gourmet dinner on the afterdeck of a luxurious yacht. Usually, I’m stuffed like a piñata full of fats and sugars, then sent off to a bed whose very form seems challenged by the sheer number of throw pillows atop it. I spend more time than is humanly tolerable fumbling with air-conditioning controls and TV remotes, trying desperately to find comfort and rest within my own gluttonous skin.

Not so aboard the 114-foot Sunreef Che (see the complete photo gallery here). After I finish my apple tartlet, I make my way down to my cabin, where the berth is covered in crisp white linens, a single oversize pillow and precisely one lightweight blanket woven in the soothing shade of eggplant. There’s no artwork on the walls, only the natural beauty in panel after panel of bamboo wood. I sink into the memory-foam mattress, feel the Caribbean breeze flowing through the open hatch and hear nothing but the gentle surf, since the crew turns off the generator each night at anchor. I feel satisfied. I feel content. I fall asleep in less than five minutes, thinking about the offerings I saw to the Buddha statue up in the main salon.



Until this kuzu evening, I had never before considered just how much the word luxury has become synonymous with the word heavy. All of my previous yacht charter experiences suddenly feel so encumbered, so complicated, so clearly thick with unnecessary accoutrements in décor and diet. What I discovered aboard Che is truly unique, not so much a vacation as a chance to experience a different way of life. She will be easily marketed as a luxury yacht offering top-notch spa-style charters — which she does, with twin-size berths in every cabin for groups of friends traveling together — but she is also, in fact, far more. Che is infused with the meaning of her name, the balance that comes with the perfect blending of yin and yang. Being aboard made me feel, in a word, light, which is really saying something given that she is, at this writing, the largest sloop-rigged catamaran in the world.