The South American country of Venezuela is much in the headlines this week. The Caribbean Sea has been in turmoil with folks trapped by the cancellation of flights in the no-fly zones. And the U.S. Naval armada in the southern Caribbean has put the Venezuelan coast as well and Trinadad and Tobego off limits to cruisers.
So, obviously, Caribbean cruisers are not heading there and will content themselves with islands in the northern regions of the sea. But, that fact stirred a upwelling of happy memories in my friend John Arndt who is the publisher of Latitude 38.
In 1977, john and three friends took a year off from college to sail a Nicholson 35 from New England to the Caribbean and spent many happy weeks cruising the north coast and off-lying islands of Venezuela. It was a different and more innocent time and his tales evoke the “old days” cruising before GPS, Starlink and satphones.
