Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine August 2015

ing Fandango than you do selling insurance, trying tolaunch the Imray Iolaire charts, writing guides andtaking paying guests on Iolaire. If you will, in the nextprinting of your guide, state that I found an anchorageyou did not know of, I will buy us a dinner, a bottle ofwine and drinks afterwards.”Needless to say I accepted the offer and it was anexcellent evening.Don StreetGlandore, IrelandAUGUST 2015 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 30Stock Upon the widest selection and thebest prices in Grenada at our twoconveniently located supermarkets.Whether it’s canned goods, dairyproducts, meat, fresh vegetablesor fruits, toiletries, household goods,or a fine selection of liquor and wine,The Food Fair has it all and a lot more.Hubbard’sJONAS BROWNE & HUBBARD (G’da.) Ltd.The Carenage:Monday - Thursday8 am to 5:30 pmFriday until 8:45 pmSaturday until1:00 pmTel: (473) 440-2588Grand Anse:Monday - Thursday9 am to 5:30 pmFriday & Saturdayuntil 7:00 pmTel: (473) 444-4573Read in NextMonth’s Compass:Planning for Next Sailing Season —Using Tradewinds and WindowsHow to Make Your Sails LastSeasoned Sailors’ Top Advicefor New Arrivals… and much, much more!READERS'FORUMSOMETIMES WE ARE ‘THEM’!Dear Compass,We just finished browsing the July issue of Compassand were amused to read one of the letters referring tothose “inexperienced charterers” and defending same.Throughout our nine-year circumnavigation, wealways looked askance at charter boats as they arrivedin an anchorage, crossing our fingers and hoping thatthey not anchor on top of us as, like all cruisers, thishad happened to us several times.However, we should remind cruisers that some ofthe bareboats cruising around are sometimes crewedby sailors with significant experience. We popped intoAdmiralty Bay, Bequia just over a year ago as skipperand mate of a Moorings 50.5 with five non-sailors.We’ve done three such bareboat charters since we soldArgonauta I and when we arrive in an anchorage sportingMoorings colors, we wonder to ourselves what theseasoned crews of cruising boats might be thinking aswe maneuver to anchor!Hugh and Heather BaconOntario, CanadaSARGASSO, THEN AND NOWDear Compass,Re: the informative articles on sargasso weed in thelast two issues of Compass. I first arrived in St.Thomas, USVI in November of 1956. That winter —1956-57 — there were patches of sargasso weed thesize of football fields within the Eastern Caribbean.The following winter the patches were only the size oftennis courts. By 1960 there were only small patchesof sargasso weed.From 1961 to 1985 I saw no sargasso weed inthe Caribbean.In 1985, sailing direct from Venezuela to St. Thomas,we picked up some small bits of sargasso weed on ourtowed Ampair taffrail generator. I showed the weed tomy Grenadian mate, Leslie Duncan. He had neverseen it before and did not know what it was.When delivering boats from the Caribbean to theStates in the spring of 1969 and in the early 1970s,when electronic speed gauges were unreliable and GPSa figment of the imagination, our navigation was complicatedby sargasso weed. We relied on the sextantand a towed taffrail log. From about 300 miles northto St. Thomas until we entered the Gulf Stream, thetaffrail log was useless as it would regularly pick upsmall bits of sargasso weed and give false readings.I am told that from about 2012 on, small patches ofsargasso weed started piling up on the windward sidesof the Eastern Caribbean islands.In the fall of 2014 huge patches of sargasso weedwere well inside the Caribbean and it worked its wayinside some harbors. Christiansted, St. Croix wasbadly obstructed by sargasso weed at Christmas timein 2014.What caused the sargasso weed to return to theCaribbean? I do not think anyone yet has the answer,nor do we know how long the Caribbean will beplagued with it before it disappears as it did in the1960s, not to reappear for 50 years.On another subject: In reply to Chris Doyle’s articlein the April issue, where he describes discovering anew anchorage in Barbuda:Yes, Chris, next time we meet the drinks are on me,as you have certainly found a harbor that I have notmentioned in any of my guides!Since I first made this offer in 1980 you are only thesecond person to collect. But in the first case, in theend, I did not have to pay for the drinks. Hans Hoff,skipper of Fandango, a 98-foot Rhodes-designedmotorsailor, had discovered that the BA chart ofAnguilla was wrong: there was, in fact, deep water andan anchorage inside the barrier reef. After we had afew beers while discussing the anchorage, Hansrefused to let me pay.Hans said, “Don, I make a lot more money skipper-PANAMA CHECK-INDear Caribbean Compass,I have just read issue number 237 of June 2015. Thearticle by Reinhilde van der Kroef (“Welcome toPanama — A Cautionary Tale”) is entertaining, and Ilook forward to Part Two. Certainly from a story perspective,it’s a great piece for Caribbean Compassreaders.Holly and I were anchored nearby Bella Ciao justbefore they left for Panama, but we hadn’t had thechance to say hello. If we had, perhaps their entry toPanama wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable.There are many boats that sail between Cartagena,Colombia and the San Blas archipelago in Panama. IfReinhilde and Frits had only spoken to any one ofthem or looked at a cruising guide on-line, they’dhave realized that not only could they have checkedinto Panama at Isla El Porvenir, but that it is widelyregarded as the best place to check into (or out of) thecountry on the Caribbean side, as it has a small officewith very friendly officials. They could have sailed toPorvenir in the great comfort of being behind theouter reef (which keeps the waves down, but the windremains fresh and generally abeam for fantastic sailing),checked in and then sailed on to Carti very easily.Of course, if they’d done this, they wouldn’t havehad much of a story, other than they had a wonderfulsail to Panama, checked in with friendly officials, andenjoyed an adventurous 4x4 ride through the jungleto pick up Janny in the rather surprisingly large andmodern Panama City.At the outset of the article, the author indicates thatthey’ve been voyaging through the Caribbean on BellaCiao. Holly and I have just arrived in the Caribbeanourselves, after two years on the Pacific side inMexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica andPanama. Perhaps the Caribbean is different than thePacific, and that the van der Kroefs have visited countrieswhere it’s considered okay to enter withoutchecking in right away, but in traveling by boat,plane, train, and car to many countries, I’ve not yetrun across one.The cautionary take-away from this story is that wevoyaging sailors are guests in other countries, and weshould abide by their rules, even if we don’t agree withthem or think they are silly. If we don’t want to do this,we should give the country a miss. Sailors whoexpressly disregard the rules give all of us a bad name,and could ultimately reduce the freedoms that all voyagingsailors enjoy.PS: Regarding the article on pelagic sargassum, werecently sailed a boat from Panama to Antigua [seearticle on page 16], and we experienced it the entireway — it was so thick in places that it got hung up onthe propeller shaft, strut and rudder causing us to loseas much as a knot or two of speed, requiring us toback to clear it. It was definitely aggravating to dealwith for 1,200 nautical miles of sailing to windward!Mike SandersonS/V Wanuskewin1995 Catalina 42 MKIIWE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!Dear Compass Readers,We want to hear from YOU!Be sure to include your name, boat name or shoresideaddress, and a way we can contact you (preferably bye-mail) if clarification is required.We do not publish individual consumer complaints orindividual regatta results complaints. (Kudos are okay!)We do not publish anonymous letters; however, yourname may be withheld from print at your request.Please keep letters shorter than 600 words. Letters maybe edited for length, clarity and fair play.Send your letters to sally@caribbeancompass.com.