We’ve been ocean sailing at night a bit lately, which has reminded us of one of our big grips — what’s the deal with cruise ships and navigation lights? All the ones we’ve seen have been equipped with the proper navigation lights, yet on every one, the navigation lights have been all but overwhelmed by all the other lights on the ship. More »

No, they’re not supernatural sailors, it’s just that their charts are a wee bit off. Feel Free
©2012 Latitude 38 Media, LLC By the highly unusual route that their chartplotter recorded, you might think that Tom Morkin and Liz Tosoni were really anxious to get around Mexico’s Cabo Corrientes late last month. More »

There’s something about this tropical ridge line that gave it a special name. If you’ve sailed these waters, the red marker in the foreground will give you a clue to the location. More »

In Friday’s preview of the four-race Voiles de St. Barth, which begins tomorrow and will run through Saturday, we incorrectly reported that one of the entries would be Rambler 100, which participated last year — and then late in the summer flipped off Fastnet Rock during England’s Fastnet Race. More »

Cruisers and racers duked it out on Banderas Bay last weekend during the 20th Annual Banderas Bay Regatta. Vallarta YC
© Latitude 38 Media, LLC "The 20th Annual Banderas Bay Regatta was held last Thursday through Saturday, March 22-24," reports Richard Williams of the Vallarta YC. More »

"My wife Heather and I have recently been sorting through all our sailing memorabilia," writes Ted Taylor of the Canada-based Coast 34 Tether, "and one of the items was a series of articles from Latitude listing the ‘Some Like It Hot Rally’ participants who had registered at the Broken Surfboard Restaurant in Cabo between November ’94 and February ’95. More »

Crossing the bar at Bahia del Sol can be a bit daunting, but with the help of a Jet Ski-mounted guide, its relatively safe and painless. Cirque
©2012 Latitude 38 Media, LLC Three years ago when organizers first announced plans for an annual El Salvador Rally at the coastal resort Bahia del Sol, the concept left some cruisers scratching their heads. More »

Since many long-term cruisers now have their own blogs — which tend to detail every tiny moment of every single day of their travels — sailors new to the cruising life may find themselves smothered under an avalanche of information, in contrast to a couple of decades ago when topical cruising info was relatively hard to find. More »

We’re at Latitude‘s cruising editor’s spring office aboard ‘ti Profligate at St. Barth in the Eastern Caribbean, where the busy youth sailing program starts at 7:30 a.m. every morning, where you can tell the cruise ships from the private motor yachts by the fact the cruise ships are the small ones, and where there’s a constant parade of magnificent sailing yachts, including two from Silicon Valley’s Jim Clark, the 295-ft three-masted schooner Athena and the 138-ft J Class Hanuman. More »

If you were to set sail from the West Coast and voyage around the world via the tropics, the largest patch of open water you’d have to face would be the first: the 3,000-mile crossing from the Coast to French Polynesia. More »