Bluewater Academy

Bluewater Academy points its whole curriculum offshore. The pathway starts conventionally enough, a two-day Basic Keelboat course out of Burnt Store Marina, but nearly everything after it happens living aboard: Bareboat Cruising runs three days and two nights on the water, and the combo formats stack Basic Keelboat through the catamaran endorsement into five- and six-day liveaboard weeks.

The teaching fleet splits between a Beneteau Oceanis 30.1 for the monohull work and two Excess catamarans, an 11 and a 14, for the catamaran endorsement and the big trips. Alongside the US Sailing ladder the school teaches the NauticEd curriculum through its international SLC license and an offshore captain course, which matters to students whose end goal is a charter base abroad rather than a certificate on the wall.

The flagship is the Full Circle Voyage, a long offshore passage broken into bookable training legs: the 2026 route runs from Burnt Store Marina to the Dry Tortugas and Key West, then works up through Miami, the Abacos, Charleston, and Newport to finish in Bermuda, with night watches, meals aboard, and certification work built into each leg. Shorter flotillas to the Dry Tortugas and along the Gulf coast fill the calendar between voyages.

Instruction is captain-led. The lead instructor carries flotilla-skipper and charter-captain time in international waters, and the staff includes a USCG 50-ton Master with sailing endorsement holding both ASA and US Sailing credentials.