Summer Sailing in the Slow Lane

Thanks to the economic slowdown, sailing Caribbean waters this summer is more laid back than ever. So says Cap’n Kent Benedict of Aptos, who’s been bareboat sailing in the Grenadines and British Virgins for the past six weeks with first mate Paula Gomez and a variety of friends.

They say this extended trip is especially sweet because Gomez recently won a hellish battle to regain full motor control after being almost completely paralyzed two years ago due to a freak accident. Previously, they’d both traveled the world extensively as medical officers aboard Cal Maritime’s training ship, Golden Bear, in addition to doing frequent bareboat charter trips to Belize, Mexico and the Caribbean. Kent and Paula began the sixth week of their trip yesterday, running a Moorings 4600 cat for the 25th annual HIHO — "Hook In, Hold On" — windsurfing regatta which takes an international roster of entrants on a whirlwind tour of the British Virgins, with daily inter-island racing.

After catching up with Kent and Paula, we gleaned a few useful notes: At Mustique, you must pay a three-day $80 USD mooring fee, even if you stay only one night. The coral at The Tobago Cays sadly seems to be in very poor shape, although there are still many types of juvenile fish to observe. On the upside, they’ve never seen so few boats in Caribbean anchorages, and islanders are exceedingly friendly to the few sailors who are traveling this season. The ‘boat boy’ problem seems to be a thing of the past. Kent and Paula never got a hard sell or bad attitude from these young entrepreneurs during their three weeks in the Grenadines. Welcome back Paula!