Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - March 2020

— Continued from previous page
In 1987 we sailed via Bermuda, Block Island, Newport and Tarpaulin Cove to
Martha’s Vineyard where Gaucho was one of the first three boats to haul out at
the Gannon & Benjamin yard. That fall we sailed back to the Caribbean, and
on to Venezuela the following year. Eight lovely months in Venezuela made us
feel very lucky to have had that experience while it was still relatively safe to
cruise Venezuela.
After a few years back in Carriacou doing charters, with Kylie and Iain attending
the local schools, we again sailed to Martha’s Vineyard, where we spent the winter
tending the Lothrop Merry Guest House while the kids attended school. After a
spring haulout we were off to Nova Scotia, where I got a job as a boat wrangler on
the set of The Scarlet Letter with Robert Duval, Demi Moore and Gary Oldham. We
finally got out of there in the fall and sailed back to the Vineyard, then on to the
Caribbean, where schooling and chartering continued in Carriacou.
In 1999 we sailed via the Old Bahama Channel up to Charleston, South Carolina,
where I worked with a siding crew building millionaires’ beachfront properties on
Sullivans Island and the Isle of Palms while we anchored at Breach Inlet and the kids
experienced new schools. After Gaucho’s keel fell off the following spring and a twoand-a-half-month
haulout replacing the floor timber bolts and bolting the keel back
on, we sailed up to the Chesapeake Bay sans engine (the old Ford Industrial died on
the trip) and ended up in Deltaville, Virginia, for the next seven years. I worked
ashore in a boatyard for two winters, helped build a three-masted strip-planked
schooner over two winters, and rebuilt the docks at Ruarks Marina, Fishing Bay,
after Hurricane Isabel.
“Raising our children aboard is our proudest achievement”
The year 2004 saw us ready to head back to the Caribbean, but we didn’t get
underway until December 15th due to working on the movie The New World (Colin
Farrell, Christopher Plummer and Korianka) as a shallop crew on the Chickahominy
and James Rivers. The 35-foot double-ended clinker-built shallop, which had ten
rowing stations and sported a sprits’l, fores’l and an electric engine concealed underwater,
was built at Plymouth Plantation in 1958 to greet the replica of the Mayflower,
which was built in Plymouth, England, and sailed across the Atlantic captained by
Alan Villiers.
After the movie we had a long haulout. Finally we were ready to leave the
Chesapeake. Don Street says, “I will not risk a North Atlantic gale in December.”
I found out he was right the hard way. Our gale turned into a storm that pummeled
Gaucho and her crew all night. Luckily she was overbuilt and is so seaworthy
(she was recognized by the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta 2013 and awarded
the Arnie Frizell Award), but definitely it was my most uncomfortable night at sea,
before or since.
After a couple more enjoyable Caribbean years we sailed back to Deltaville for
another year. The following fall we left Virginia on October 20th for the last time on
Gaucho, with Kylie and Iain, now grown-up crew. It was the last time the four of us
did an offshore passage together, and it was our best passage ever — 14 days
straight to St. Barts for Le Select’s 60th Anniversary.
After that we kept Gaucho in the Caribbean, cruising up and down the Lesser
Antilles until finally, at Grenada Marine in 2017, we sadly and happily sold her to
Ben and Phillippa Jefferies.
Since 2018 Roni and I have had a 35-foot Warrior sloop that we’ve sailed to
Bermuda. We are currently hauled out at Tyrrell Bay Marina in Carriacou. Our son
is a tugboat captain in the Chesapeake; our daughter works on an Eagle Class 53
catamaran with a wing and foils — she also holds a captain’s license.
Everyone has achievements they are proud of. Alongside my wife, Roni — my loyal
and hardworking first mate, who shares my passion for boats — raising our children
aboard is our proudest achievement. An expansion of that is recently sailing with our
two-and-a-half-year-old grandson, Knox, seeing him loving sailing, being in the
water and on beaches, and taking a delight in life in general. His previous obsession
was bulldozers, but since visiting us in the Caribbean it is outboard motors!
Communicating Similar Values
Congratulations on Caribbean Compass reaching 25
years of age. We are proud to have been associated
with your publication and to have successfully grown
alongside you over these many years.
You have for so long, in our opinion, been the stalwart
publication for those cruising the Caribbean. Not only a
source of news and information and a platform for sailors
to express their opinions and often desires to help local
communities; but also importantly a voice of reason, and
sometimes change, to that very sailing community and
the island nations that host these traveling nomads.
This cruising community and the local island mariners are
the core of Island Water World’s business and we appreciate
our association with you and your ability to communicate
our similar values.
We wish you all the very best and the continued success
of Compass.
Sean Kennelly, Managing Director
Island Water World Inc N.V.
Advertising since 1998
What Makes Compass Great
My journey with the Caribbean Compass started as an avid
reader of the publication. I loved the insightful and interesting
articles, especially during our early days as new arrivals to the
Caribbean, only armed with our Doyle Guides and little knowledge
of the greater Caribbean area.
Since then I have been able to provide my written contributions
to the Compass and I will be forever grateful to the team
to have given a novice writer the chance to have some of her
work published. This to me is what makes the Caribbean
Compass great: it is loaded with quality articles and also provides
amateur writers with a platform.
Cheers to 25 Years of excellence and to 25 more!
Darelle Snyman
“Get to Know Your Caribbean Marine Life” columnist
march 2020 CARIBBEAN COMPAss pAGE 27
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