Editor’s Log
Hmm, where to go? Or maybe the question is, when to begin? As sailors, most of us have a routine and a plan we follow before setting off from familiar home waters. We check the forecast and look for a favorable breeze, consult the tide tables to avoid a current on the nose, if we can. We thumb through cruising guides and read up on harbor entrances, and take a close look at the chart so we have at least some idea of what to look out for along the way.
But as a citizen of planet Earth at this particular point in time? Like just about everyone else, I wouldn’t have a clue as to how to answer those questions.
This week I spoke to a Canadian friend, Paul Jamieson, who hails from Cape Breton, where he runs a small charter company and a large security firm, among other things. His pressing concern? How to help a pal who is stuck on an Island Packet 38 down in Antigua, along with a handful of other snowbirds, all Canadians, who want to sail home.
They have a pressing problem. Like a lot of other cruisers who set off to chase their dreams, they aren’t welcome ashore where they are right now, but then again, they can’t just pick up and leave. It’s a long way, after all, from English Harbour to Halifax, and the North Atlantic is an inhospitable place to be in mid-april and early May. As we talked on the phone, it was pouring rain in Boston, and the wind was forecast to gust past 60 knots as the storm headed for the Gulf of Maine and intensified on its way to the Canadian Maritimes. It’s tough picking a 10-plus-day weather window when the spring lows are rolling off the coast a couple of times a week.
Talking to him reminded me of the old saw, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” That’s, after all, the very dilemma his friend was facing. Where to go, and when to begin?
Islands across the Caribbean —heck, islands around the world—are closed for business. Places that once welcomed sailors with open arms want nothing to do with strangers who might carry infection and who certainly will need to access scarce resources.
One option, according to Paul, is for the Canadians to join the Salty Dawg Homeward Bound Flotilla (saltydawgsailing.org), an informal gathering of sailors trying to make their way back to the States. With the start of hurricane season looming, departures were being planned from Antigua and the Virgin Islands, and possibly other islands where sailors have congregated. Passage-makers will be supported with weather-routing advice and position reports, and Salty Dawg Sailing Association volunteers will offer shore support and assistance with entering US waters.
But even for Americans, a US landfall raises questions. Places such as Maryland and San Diego have banned recreational boating until further notice. Harbors like Newport, Rhode Island, and Block Island have issued 14day stay-on-board quarantine orders for any new arrival.
The Canadians, meanwhile, are unsure if they will even be able to enter US harbors. Or if
It’s a long way from English Harbour to Halifax, and the North Atlantic is an inhospitable place to be in mid-april and early May.
they even want to, given how widespread the novel coronavirus is here right now.
Judging by the story submissions Cruising World has been receiving almost daily, “Where to?” and “When?” are questions being asked up and down the Caribbean, across the vast Pacific, and around the world, really. There is no apparent right answer. Part of seamanship is being aware of your surroundings and deciding for yourself how best to proceed. Those are valuable skills for sailing these uncharted waters.