Sailing Magazine News

The nooks and crannies of Panama’s San Blas archipelago, made accessible aboard a family’s catamaran, are paradise found

There are 360 or so islands in the San Blas archipelago of Panama, roughly one for each date on the calendar, which explains why George, Melinda and Joshua Salley have made this spectacular Caribbean setting a yearlong destination.
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“This is the closest thing to paradise that we’ve come across,” Melinda said. “The islands are unmatched—beautiful, unspoiled, not littered with high rises and resorts. The water is clear, the reefs are beautiful and the people are friendly.”

Yearning to feel­—at least for a few days—like a rock-star sailor, one woman heads to J World and gets a feel for adrenaline-fueled learning

Another gust upward of 20 knots pushes the starboard rail of our J/80 into the waters of the Chesapeake again. With a chill rain stinging down and waves splashing, I thank my lucky stars that I decided to invest in waterproof socks and neoprene gloves the day before. A few hundred yards away, a Melges 24 screams upwind with its crew hiking out, even though nobody is racing. Off in the distance, we see our classmates in another J/80 risk a spinnaker set. After a few seconds of pandemonium, the kite puffs out nicely in the strong breeze and the boat begins to plane.   
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Old friends journey by catboat into the heart of the Everglades

A lot can happen when a band of geriatric sailors try to defy the elements and logic by sailing their 15-foot Marshall catboats from one Florida coast to the other in water so shallow they could have walked most of the way. Our first clue came a year earlier on a sail in the shallow body of water known as Florida Bay.

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We were just outside the channel leading to the aptly named Dump Key, about 20 miles due west of Key Largo, Florida. Our trusty catboat Catsup was hard aground, with the wind pushing us farther onto the mud flats. Our cantankerous outboard motor had long since given up the ghost. As the youngest member of our crew at the tender age of 61, I was delegated to go over the side and lend muscle to the extraction process.

As the fallout from the most massive oil spill in the United States continues to be ascertained, Gulf Coast sailors can take steps to protect their boats and the environment with the help of a new website launched by BoatUS.

The website, www.BoatUS.com/oilspill, brings together a range of public and private resources and information for sailors, including how to protect your boat and the environment as well as boat cleanup tips. You’ll also find links to the most current information from a diverse range of state and federal sites including a NOAA Trajectory Map showing daily forecasted movement and locations of the oil spill.

For more information, go to www.BoatUS.com/oilspill

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We offer up some of the best inland lakes in the country to trailersail{highslide type="img"class="photo"url="http://www.sailingmagazine.net/images/trailersail0510.jpg"width=150}{/highslide}

Sailors admittedly have a tendency to dream big. Imaginations catch fire at the thought of undertaking a circumnavigation, milk-running to distant tropical islands, Med-mooring in ancient ports. Yet we dreamers would be wise to remember what the trailersailors among us have known for a long time: You need not cross an ocean to find adventure, excitement, remoteness and even the spiritual. It’s all right here, within our country’s borders, if you know where to look.

A group of sailors book around-the-world plane tickets and charter four exotic places in 34 days
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Stepping off the plane at Tahiti Faa’a International Airport in Papeete I finally let my guard down. Warm southeast trade winds swept the tarmac as I made my way to the terminal. The South Pacific embraces you the moment you arrive and I could feel my mood lighten as a lovely Tahitian customs official stamped my passport and welcomed me to paradise. A year’s worth of preparations were behind us, now it was time to savor the next the 34 days.