I think this was originally written in 1990. It has been interesting to see how the world and some of my opinions have changed. Among other things, since then I have been called: “sailing’s worst lunatic--and its best living writer.” So, encompassing them both, I feel doubly qualified to write about:
The Best and The Worst
Because I have noticed that people make reputations by emphatically stating their opinions as facts, I hereby present the best and worst in the sailing world. Facts, of course, not opinions.
Best anchorage to find horses swimming round boats: Apia, Western Samoa. At dawn local trainers swim race horses around the harbor for conditioning. This results in some rude awakenings
Most beautiful islands: Moorea, Bora Bora, Lord Howe. The first two are in the Society Islands, French Polynesia; the last is in the Tasman Sea and part of Australia.
Hardest rows ashore: Lord Howe Island, Darwin, and Cairns--all in Australia; and Key West, Florida. Lord Howe, Darwin and Key West are all at least 1/2 mile. Lord Howe because the lagoon is so shallow; Darwin because of 25’ tides; Key West because regulations prohibit anchoring closer. Key West is also made much worse by uncontrolled power boats wakes. Cairns isn’t so far, but has a strong current.
Coldest beer: Darwin and Bali, Indonesia. At least there is a reward when you finally reach the shore in Darwin.
Most consistently spectacular sunsets: Darwin in June. Often viewed while rowing a dinghy.
Best small marina: Horta, the Azores. When I was last there a few years ago, the high season rate for a 36’ boat was $3 a day in a real slip in a real marina at a beautiful island where sailors are welcome.
(While the Azores are still beautiful and the people welcoming, when Carol and I sailed to Horta in 2001 it was dangerously overcrowded.)
People with biggest fingers: Samoans. The smallest wedding rings we could find fell off our thumbs, much less our ring fingers.
Coldest showers: On the quay, Papeete, Tahiti. Water in the drinking fountain outside is hot; in the showers, freezing. The French are still studying the instruction book. (I sailed into Papeete again in 2004 and found the waterfront completely changed. The French never did understand the plumbing and tore the shower building down.)
Cleanest showers: Port Elizabeth Yacht Club, South Africa.
No showers: Benoa, Bali. (There is now a small marina in Bali, which presumably has showers.)
Best inexpensive addition to cruising gear: Solar shower bags.
Greatest cruising gear: self-steering vanes, jib furlers, and GPS. RESURGAM made a three sail circumnavigation: mainsail, cruising spinnaker, and one jib, a 135%. Although we had a working jib and a storm jib, neither was set after 1984. True, the furling jib wore out after a circumnavigation, but buying a new jib every time you sail around the world does not seem excessive. Knowing exactly where you are all the time thanks to GPS is a revelation, sometimes startlingly so. (THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is also a three sail boat, though her furling jib is only a 130%. I have now not set any other sails in more than 20 years.)
Best fish: Mahimahi. Grilled.
Best big harbor: Sydney, Australia. On an average summer weekend, Sydney is alive with sailboats and color, complete with a hilly shoreline and a convenient bridge from which to view the spectacle. It is more intimate than San Francisco Bay and has a better climate and opera house.
Best deserted anchorage: Suvarov, unless the Cook Islands have put an official on site to make you move on. (They have.)
Most sharks: Suvarov. I didn’t say the place was perfect, although a resident official might eat some of the sharks. On the brighter side, the resident sharks might eat the official. (I am told the officials are very nice men and don’t deserve to be eaten by sharks. I am also told by people who have visited the island recently that there are few sharks. So perhaps my forecast about the officials eating them has been proven accurate.)
Best beach for girl watching: Kuta or Legian, Bali.
Best place to buy dress fabric: Suva, Fiji. Jill made a number of dresses, including some of silk, at an average cost of $5.
Biggest mosquitoes: Willemstad, Curacao. These insects are so big that the swing bridge into the harbor opens for them to pass through.
Worst new idea of the decade: The annual cruising ‘race’ across the Atlantic from the Canaries to Barbados. Herds are for elephants.
Best fish market: Quarteira, Portugal, about 1 mile east of Vilamoura Marina.
Friendliest yacht clubs: Darwin Sailing Club, Australia; and all South African clubs. (To which I would now add The Fremantle Sailing Club, Australia; and The Opua Cruising Club, New Zealand.)
Unfriendliest yacht club: Balboa, Panama. And this was even before the U.S. went in to arrest Noriega and blew up the country.
Most wretched excess: The America’s Cup. And I said this even before the farce with the catamaran or the outlandish expenditures of 1992. What is even more amazing than the amount of money spent, is how little the achievement: a few seconds a mile for $100,000,000.
Best snorkeling: Las Aves Islands, Venezuela.
Most expensive laundry: Willemstad, Curacao. They charge a king’s ransom for each piece, but I had carried the bag so far that I left it anyway.
Most expensive beer: Papeete. I have sailed to Tahiti five times, (now six) and each time the beer, and everything else, is more expensive. In 1990 a small bottle of local brew was $6 and rising. In Tahiti, it is best, but difficult, not to be thirsty.
Best place to pig out: Feast in Vava’u, Tonga.
Dirtiest harbors: Noumea, New Caledonia; Port Louis, Mauritius; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (In 1992 locals referred to Marina da Gloria, the municipal marina near the heart of Rio de Janeiro, as Latrina da Gloria. I was pleasantly surprised to find in 2002 that Rio’s harbor is dramatically cleaner. This was achieved in part by putting in proper sewage for the favelas on the hillsides.)
Most officials: Indonesia; Brazil; and Egypt.
Worst big marina: Puerto Banus, Spain. This is one of the ports for the jet set. For an absurd amount of money you get to tie Med-style to a dock. The only advantages to Med ties are to marina operators, who reduce construction costs and can jam in more boats. Ashore there are a lot of Rolls Royce, Mercedes, helicopters, and beautiful people parading cheetahs with diamond collars in front of extremely overpriced restaurants and boutiques. There are very few facilities for sailors. Jet-setters are, of course, not sailors. Apparently they are not bathers either, for there is only one shower stall available for 1,000 boats. Curiously, this seldom entails a wait, giving new meaning to the expression “the filthy rich.”
Greatest myth: The green flash. I have sailed west around the world twice--that is, into the sunset, and east once. (Now twice.) That is a lot of sunsets without a green flash. Jill claims to have seen the green flash from the shore in Portugal. The correlation between this sighting and Portuguese vinho verde (green wine) does not bear close scrutiny.
Toughest town: Colón, Panama, the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal. People great one another not with “Hello,” but with “Have you been mugged yet?”
Longest beach: Namibia. Sand dunes come down to the water for a thousand miles.
Best current: The Benguela, running up the west coast of Africa, supports more seals, fish, whales, penguins, and birds than we saw anywhere else.
Best place to get lobster: Dassen Island, about 30 miles north of Cape Town, South Africa. We were given three big ones free by a local diver. Back on the coast they would have cost all of $4 each.
Best ocean: The South Pacific for pleasure; the Southern around the Horn for the epic.
Best nation for throwing boats together and going sailing: France.
Worst at anchoring: Tie between New Zealand and Australia. This may be unfair because it excludes those who sail from marina to marina in Europe and the U.S. and never anchor at all. (This is no longer true. New Zealanders and Australians now are no better or worse than other nationalities. However, there are many more marinas in the world, particularly in Europe, and many more people who don’t know how to anchor at all.)
Most obnoxious wind: The southeaster, Cape Town.
Best tomb: Napoleon's, St. Helena. It is an unmarked slab hidden among trees down a hillside. No inscription was carved, because the British and the French could not agree on whether the title “Emperor” should be included. A prize will not be awarded for guessing who wanted what.
Best place to buy curry powder: Indian market, Durban, South Africa.
Best cape: Tie between Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Sir Francis Drake called the former “the fairest cape and the most stately thing we saw in the whole circumference of the globe.” Although Drake also rounded the Horn, he did not ever see it. It gets equal billing on reputation, not beauty.
Best stairs: Jacob’s Ladder, Jamestown, St. Helena, is almost 700 steps long. Schoolchildren have to climb and descend it twice each school day. Going home for lunch seems a bit much, but they are really healthy kids. For visitors, climbing this wonder once is enough.
Most misnamed cape: Cape of Good Hope. Dias, the first European to sight it, chose “The Cape of Storms.” The Portuguese navigator also called Namibia “The Sands of Hell.” He really wanted to be a gold pro, but the game hadn’t been invented yet. The king of Portugal did not think Dias’s names were good PR, and his ad agency came up with “Good Hope.” Obviously, Dias was not easily persuaded. On his next rounding of the cape, he made his point by drowning in a storm just off “Good Hope.” His last words as he went down were, “I told you so.”
Best hemisphere: Southern. It has the best oceans, the best beaches, the best sailing, the most beautiful islands, the coldest beer, and is far less crowded and generally less expensive than the Northern. I wrote this in the Northern, having just sailed up after some years in the Southern. I have talked myself into going halfway around again. But then perhaps the sea is always greener on the other side of the line.
Biggest problem in circumnavigation: Mail. The sailing is a cinch. (Email and ATM machines have changed the land part of the sailing life. I now almost never receive postal mail when outside the U.S.)
Best direction to sail around the world: West. (If ‘best’ equates with ‘easier’, then this is true. But as I consider a possible fifth circumnavigation, after having done two east and two west, Cape Horn and the Southern Ocean have their attractions.)
Best route: North of Australia and South American and south of Africa. (See above.)