CATCHING THE WIND ON SEA CLOUD SPIRIT

Silence. It's not the word that usually comes to mind when cruising the Caribbean, but it is the best word to describe the aftermath of setting sails (up to 28 of them) aboard Sea Cloud Spirit.

- Tracey Minkin

Because when as many as 44,100 square feet of sailcloth catch the trade winds in their bellies to propel us across the southern Caribbean Sea, that's suddenly all I hear. The surprising lack of engine. Wait, there's a clink of ice in a glass at the ship's breezy Lido bar. There's a laugh from a pair of deckhands who have clambered down from the vertiginous rigging high above deck. There's a caw of a seabird catching a ride in our atmospheric wake. Not all silence, quite, then. But what a rare, rewarding thing: the sound of sailing.

This is the hallmark of cruising the Caribbean aboard Spirit, the third ship in the Sea Cloud fleet, which joined newly built in 2021. With 76 commodious, classically styled luxury cabins and suites, the square-rigged tall ship with its sweeping lines and skyscraping trio of masts puts sailing at the heart of its voyages. On an eight-night journey originating in Curaçao's historic port of Willemstad, our virtuoso crew climbed masts and set sails by hand every day. And so we sailed every day, often for hours at a time, at a pace that felt just right—not dawdling in low wind but cutting gracefully and confidently across the deep blues that took us to nearby Aruba and then southwest to Colombia, on to the San Blas Islands of Panama and finally to Panama City.