Yep, it’s true. Hard to believe that I have sailed 2725 miles over the past 9 months.
I cannot deny that this trip has had a steep learning curve for me, and I think the first couple of months down here I was so focused on coping that it was hard to see the larger picture. We headed south determinedly, and did the more remote areas first. Now that we’re in the Abacos, everything seems so easy! Short sailing distances, lots of provisions, more forgiving weather….
Once I got past how hard things were going to be and got a little experience under my belt, I had time to take a look around me.
The community of sailors is about as small as the community of tapestry weavers. There just aren’t a lot of us. I have tried to find the number of personal sailing craft that have cleared customs in the Bahamas for the winter of 2013, but I can’t find an answer to that yet. Seasoned sailors who have been coming down here for years tell me that it’s usually between 1500 and 2000 boats. In the vast world of people taking some leisure time or vacation time, this is a very small number.
I’ve been keeping track of the foreign home flags down here, though, of course all of us are foreigners. Canadians just might outnumber Americans down here this year, but both nationalities are certainly the majority. I noticed that many Quebecois do not fly a home flag at all, and I have heard a number of times (but not from the Quebecois themselves) that there are some political reasons for this. Beyond Canada and the US, we have seen flags from Germany, Switzerland, France, the UK (they are not keen on flying their home flag either!), Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Oh, I almost forgot South Africa….now that is a journey. It’s a cultural melting pot down here!
It is no surprise that the visitors down here are almost entirely from northern climates. However, just yesterday we noticed a flag we did not recognize flying on the stern of the boat right next to us in Hope Town. It is from Suriname. Where’s that?? It’s on the northern coast of South America, between Guyana and French Guiana (I had to google this!), and it’s the only South American country that has Dutch as its national language. We hope to meet the Surinamian couple later this morning.
Here is the flag:
Another surprise to me is the list of home ports on the US boats. I expected to see mostly boats from the East Coast… maybe a few boats from the West Coast, those adventurous sailors who would cross a hemisphere and go through the Panama Canal. Maybe even a few boats from the Great Lakes. And yes, boats from these places are certainly down here. The surprise is how many US-flagged boats down here have home ports that are completely land-locked. There are boats from Iowa (no kidding!), Arkansas, Kentucky! We just met a couple who split their time between their house in Montana and the boat they just bought in Florida. I’m just naming a few. I’ve seen lots of boats from Texas, with home ports no where near the Gulf Coast–Ft. Worth, Austin… Right now there is a boat in Hope Town harbor with a home port of Boulder City, Nevada!
In talking to some of these travelers, we’ve learned that the lure of sailing can entice those who’ve never been anywhere near a coast. I can’t imagine buying a boat and immediately heading offshore, but there are a good number of folks down here who don’t know much about sailing and are not yet familiar with their brand new boats. Now that’s a learning curve.
The experienced cruisers we’ve met are a marvelous group of people. They are out to explore, not to exploit. They are are impressively self reliant and very generous with their hard earned knowledge. I cringe at the thought of making stereotypes, but there just aren’t that many of them and they seem to have similar goals and values: to leave a clean wake, to be respectful of the cultures they are visiting, and to help others in need by sharing their sailing knowledge… or even their supplies, or by lending a helping hand. Bob and I have been the recipient of tremendous help from these seasoned sailors. It has made a world of difference to me.
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