Midnight, Mid-Summer's Day,
on the Arctic Circle
Alone on a beach in the Tuamotos
One of the joys of world cruising is the vast range of experiences you get and the opportunity to explore 'the best in the world'. Every cruiser will have different experiences and thus preferences, but our votes for the best of the best are:
Best higher latitude anchorage: Puerto Hoppner, Isla De Los Estados, Argentina (2nd choice Caleta Brecknock, Chile)
Best tropical anchorage: Direction Island, Cocos Keeling (2nd choice Robinson Crusoe cove, Moorea, Polynesia)
Best castle: Castle Dunvagen, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Best interaction with ‘locals’: Kandavu, Fiji
Best Indian ruins/artifacts: Queen Charlotte Island, Canada
Best touring ashore: South Africa – wildlife, wine, & rugged country (2nd choice Iceland)
Best whale watching: Early summer east coast Newfoundland (2nd choice Peninsula Valdes, Argentina)
Best walks ashore: Aqueduct walks on Madeira Island (2nd choice Tasmania)
Best place to watch the sun go down: Mid-summer's day right on the Arctic Circle just north of Iceland
Best place to watch the sun come up: Morning of the fifth day on any passage, when you finally have your sea legs
Best entertainment: Evening musical soiree in Castle Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, Scotland (2nd choice "Cave music" in the Faroes Islands)
Best diving: Pass dives in Tuamotus
Best glacier: Seno Iceberg, Chile
Best place to safely sail up to icebergs: Early summer, Strait of Belle Isle, Labrador
Best pubs: Kinsale, Ireland (2nd choice Horta, Faial, Azores)
Best drink: Dark & Stormy: Bermuda (2nd choice Pisco Sour, Puerto Williams, Chile)
Best fish & chips: Fowey, Cornwall (2nd choice St. Johns, Newfoundland)
Best meat/steaks: Asados in Argentina
Best celebrity watching: Falmouth Harbor, Antigua
Best haul-out: Fremantle Sailing Club, Fremantle, Australia
Best place to get work done on the hard: Thailand, Trinidad, BC Canada, and New Zealand
Best place/customs service for flying in parts: Ireland, no paperwork or hassles at all.
Best sailmaker for repairs: Any of the Auckland sailmakers - America's Cup resources without the America's Cup anymore
Best place to hide from a hurricane: Outside the hurricane belt - there is no such thing as a safe hurricane hole
Best place to hide from the tax man: Chagos Archipelago, Suvarov atoll
Best place if you have to grab a plane and leave the admiral: St Katherine's docks, London
Best laundry: Mighty White, St. Johns, Newfoundland
Best used book stores: Sydney, Vancouver Island, Canada
Best ocean passage: Cape Town to St. Helena to Antigua
Best day sailing: Inner Hebrides, Scotland (2nd choice Newfoundland, 3rd D’Entrecasteaux Channel, Hobart, Australia)
Best local racing: San Francisco harbor
Best, most friendly place: We have been treated exceptionally well almost every place we have been. One of the joys of the cruising life is that it revitalizes your faith in the basic good nature of humanity. While ashore we always get a bit cynical about people's motivations. But once out cruising we stop seeing all the news about violence, greed and corruption and start meeting strangers face to face who are almost always generous and friendly and helpful. In addition, one of the main shared values of the cruising community is that we help each other, with no questions and no quid pro quo. I will note that the harsh high latitude fishing villages stand out as even more friendly and helpful than elsewhere. People living in tough conditions just naturally help each other.
Freedom
"What is freedom? We say of a boat skimming the water with light feet, 'How free she runs,' when we mean how perfectly she is adjusted to the force of the wind, how perfectly she obeys the great breath out of the heavens that fill her sails. Throw her head into the wind and she how she will halt and stagger. She is free only when you have let her fall off again and have recovered once more her nice adjustment to the natural forces she must obey and cannot defy."