Roatan Closing To Boating

[Mike]

loosing yachters is no big deal other than they make the view look prettier. anyone who lives or has lived on a caribbean island for any length of time, never misses yachters when they leave. they spend very little money, drag anchor all over the reef and only befriend expat home owners so they can bring their tenders to their dock, use their laundry facilities and pump fresh water from their cistern. prior to my island life i had a very romantic notion of what yachters were like, reality experience has taught me they are a bunch of charming scroungers.

The other side of the coin is islands that have embraced sailing see a different side to the sailing economy. They establish regattas, become sailing friendly and greatly benefit from them. Lots of jobs are created with the resulting infastructure, sail making, chandlery, boat yards, provisioning etc...

Not to mention the sailing community is super low impact on an environment. Dragging anchors over reefs? Please now. Intelligent management of the marine environment entails the installation of mooring balls in non-sandy areas to do just that.

And mooring balls are a loss leader compared to the economic influx of a good sized regatta that brings an annual hundreds of sailboats, crews, booking of hotel rooms, restaurants etc...

Roatan on the other hand obviously can't see more the 3 inches in front of it's nose, focusing on the tiny picture instead of the bigger one.

 

[flareside]

Not to mention the sailing community is super low impact on an environment...

This is not entirely true...

While I can't speak for Roatan because I don't have a lengthy time reference but in the BVI which is a sailor's paradise and has become a major long term hangout for the sailing community since the addition of a significant number of mooring buoys, the water quality has tanked in the last 20 years in the areas around Norman Island, having a visibly adverse effect on the marine environment and reef life. Sailboats in motion during the day are fairly clean but they park at night and fill the bays with nitrates. And because of the protected nature of the bays, they don't flush out nearly as fast as they are being poisoned.