Sandboxes Rated

1. Vero Beach

NoLL

Yesterday, I posted The 45-25 Box article about our sandbox. I gave the criteria for a sandbox as follows.

1. Warm in winter, cool in summer.
2. Numerous anchorages. We can't afford to stay in marinas very often.
3. Allows us to avoid hurricanes and typhoons.

So, what other sandboxes in the world might meet those criteria? I mapped some out and rank them below. Please bear in mind that the actual size and placement of these boxes and my knowledge of their facts are only rough.

1. US East Coast: This is our current sandbox. It meets all the criteria very well.
   
   
2. British Columbia: This area is outstandingly beautiful to sail. Infinite free anchorages. Juneau, AK is very nice in the summer. Perpahs Seattle, WA is not warm enough in the winter.
   
   
3. Chile: I think the west coast of the Americas is rough, with safe harbors many hundreds of miles apart.
   
   
4. Brazil-Uruguay-Argentina: This part of the world may be very nice. I'm not sure about anchorages.
   
   
5. Western Europe: I heard horror stories about sailing in the English Channel. I have not heard of any coastal places where one can anchor free. It may also be necessary to stretch to box to summer in the Baltic and winter in Portugal to achieve the weather we would need.
   
   
6. West Africa: This doesn't sound practical. To get south enough to avoid the Namibian Desert, the lower half of the box extends into the terrible 40s of the Antarctic Ocean.
   
   
7. East Africa: This area could be very nice. However, I'm afraid that political instability rules it out.
   
   
8. West Austrailia: I hear that Perth is very nice, but the rest of the west coast of Austrailia is unknown to me.
   
   
9. Japan-Korea-China: I fear that every place from Japan down to Viet Nam is prone to Typhoons. I would also worry about the politics of some of the countries -- we might not be welcome.
   
   
10. East Austrailia: The Great Barrier Reef in winter and Sydney in summer. Sounds nice. I know nothing about the rest of that coast.
    
    
11. Fiji-New Zealand: Fiji-New Zealand sounds very nice, but the attractions are on either ends with vast open ocean in the middle. Perhaps this box should have been drawn to cover just New Zealand. One could do the North Island in winter and the South Island in summer. I think it would be great to spend a year or more sailing New Zealand.
    
    

So there we go. There well may be other very attractive sandboxes in the world. Nevertheless, it is hard to beat zone A, the USA East Coast. If all the facts were exhaustively investigated, I suspect that zone A would rate #1 in the world.