Sommaire pour November - December 2018 de PassageMaker

FLIBS PREVIEW The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, the largest boat show in North America, will kick off its 59th year a few days after this issue hits newsstands. For those who are missing out or for those of you who are already en route, here is a preview of a few of the new models, new tech, and other news that is being unveiled at the 2018 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show. THE BOATS Three New Nordhavns Nordhavn is known for innovating and improving on their existing products to bring the best cruising boats to market. This year is no different as three new models are scheduled to debut in Fort Lauderdale. Nordhavn 59 Coastal Pilot Motoryacht Edition: The Motoryacht edition is a significant change to the Coastal Pilot introduced in…

So why should you cruise to the southern Bahamas? Our family–Jim (old), Cuqui (??), Nico (18), Andy (16), and our dog, Flecha (19 lbs.)—decided to find out on a six-week summer cruise aboard Thing 1 Thing 2, our 34-foot PDQ powercat. The answer: the friendly, welcoming people, beautiful deserted beaches, crystal clear water, and absence of other cruisers in the least traveled, most remote part of The Bahamas. Charting the Southern Bahamas The “southern Bahamas” is more a concept than a strict geographical designation–many of the islands generally considered part of the region are actually located in what is, geographically speaking, the central Bahamas. These islands—the Ragged Islands, Long Island, Crooked Island, Acklins, Conception, Cat Island, Mayaguana, Rum Cay, San Salvador, Little Inagua, Great Inagua, and others—have names that are…

If you have had trouble lately plugging into shorepower, you are not alone. What used to be a relatively simple and reliable procedure has become a bit of a guessing game with new regulations aimed at reducing risk of electric shock, both to those onboard and those swimming near boats in marinas. While the transition will take some time to adapt to, it will ultimately save lives. Let’s look into the reasoning behind the change, the new technology, and what you can do to avoid problems with your shorepower setup at marinas. For the last 30 to 40 years, most boats have been built with protective measures such as reversed polarity warning devices. These devices, combined with wiring standards, greatly reduce the risk of electrocution while onboard a vessel plugged…

Recommended Equipment • Quality mirrorless or dSLR camera with manual settings • Wide-angle lens that is fast (low f-stop of f2.8 or less is preferred) • Sturdy tripod • Flashlight (or cellphone) to navigate safely in the dark Shooting Tips • Find an area with minimal light pollution (or none at all), preferably during a new moon. • Find and get to know the infinity focus point on the lens you’ll be using. • Use this simple formula to calculate your exposure time (t): t = 500/y Where y is the length (mm) of the lens you are using, t is your exposure time, in seconds. - For example, if you’re shooting with a 24mm lens: 500/24 = 20 seconds • Take your astrophotography to the next level with this…

This is the kind of anchorage my husband Don and I dream of, with our anchor set at 27 feet in clean white sand and our stern at the edge of a coral wall that drops off hundreds of feet. Perfect for two cruising scuba enthusiasts; it is just what we hoped to find in Cuba. It’s just like our favorite secret spot in The Bahamas. The water is crystal clear, the air is 88 degrees, the water is 88 degrees, and we can’t wait to get in. But in Cuba, we are never quite sure if we are about to break the law. Consider that just a few hours from the Florida coast these two island nations entice us to explore their cruising grounds. Both have marvelously clear waters…

For many people (or at least for me), the array of islands that make up the Caribbean Sea, West Indies, and The Bahamas can be difficult to keep straight. “The Bahamas are not part of the Caribbean,” my colleague and shipmate for the week, Peter Swanson, reminds me for the umpteenth time since I stepped off the plane. I have just arrived in steamy Nassau on New Providence Island by way of Atlanta and Seattle. I am about to spend five August days exploring the Bahamian island chain called The Exumas. To many that read this magazine, the Exuma Cays are old hat (and you don’t have to be reminded that it is pronounced “keys”). But to someone like me from the Pacific time zone whose tropical vacations are usually…

Our 11-person team from Project Recover, along with four active-duty U.S. Navy sailors, set sail on July 11, 2018, aboard the Research Vessel Norseman II. We were headed to Kiska Island in the Aleutian Islands to survey one of the most remote and austere underwater battlefield sites of World War II. FIELD OBJECTIVES & OPERATIONS Traveling to Kiska Island is no small feat. Our team had to catch the twice-a-week flight to Adak, Alaska, a former U.S. Navy base. Closed in the mid-1990s at the end of the Cold War, the base now only houses a few hundred hardy individuals. After arriving in Adak, we faced a 250-nautical-mile westerly transit across the unforgiving rough waters of the Bering Sea. The Aleutian Chain, where the Bering Sea meets the Pacific Ocean,…

The business of marine protected areas (MPAs for short) is as diverse and complex as the environment we are managing. Recently my wife Nicola and I were afforded the great honor to serve as Administrator and Administrative Assistant of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (ECLSP) here in The Bahamas. Designated as a national park in 1959 and as a “no-take zone” in 1986, ECLSP is one of the oldest marine parks in the world. It is managed by the Bahamas National Trust, a non-governmental organization that operates the entire national parks system of The Bahamas. The success of the ECLSP in protecting populations of key species and preserving the health of coral reef ecosystems is a testament to the foresight of its founders, who recommended protecting an entire…

When my wife and I vacationed to Tuscany in 2005, I knew we were a match when she agreed to detour from our travel plans in order to visit the Piaggio Museum located 40 miles west of Florence. In those days I was obsessed with motor scooters and badly wanted to see the birthplace of one of the premier marques in history: Vespa. Dating back to the early 1940s, the name Vespa was coined when company founder, Enrico Piaggio (not to be confused with Enrico Palazzo from The Naked Gun), saw the original MP6 scooter for the first time. “Sembra una vespa!” he exclaimed. “It looks like a wasp!” Vespa’s ascent to the throne of the highest regarded scooter in the land wasn’t by accident. Over the decades, the scooter…

Sailors like to complain that power-boaters are too quick to shine their searchlights, and it’s an opinion that I share. No one likes to have a bright light shined in one’s eyes while operating a boat because it destroys night vision. In the last issue we discussed the best lighting practices for night running—mainly using dim white rather than red light for nighttime navigating. Another important thing to consider when running at night is how to protect your night vision from fellow boaters who are, well, not quite as enlightened. My theory for the overreliance on searchlights is that many of these powerboat skippers use them because they have already lost their own dark adaptation. This is not a comment on anyone’s competence. The reason that sailors better maintain their…