Your Cruising Editor

07/03/2026

02/10/2025

Need a great place to dock your boat in the Caribbean? Check out this amazing opportunity... Charter Biz opportunity or simply relax and enjoy this amazing locale.

A waterfront property in Roatán’s Jonesville Bight has just hit the market. This turnkey waterfront home is located in the safe, calm waters of Jonesville

04/07/2025

Street Scenes

04/07/2025

The very large Madrid airport

21/05/2025

Life's Not Meant To Be Lived In One Place!

01/05/2025

I pray for our oceans🙏🏻🌎😩🤬

In the dark waters of the Pacific, a new kind of gold rush is underway. But this time, the gold is cobalt, nickel, and manganese and the rush is being led not by private industry alone, but by a U.S. government agency once devoted to protecting the very ocean it's now being weaponized to exploit.

In April 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources," directing what remains of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expedite deep-sea mining permits. Behind that dry bureaucratic language is a devastating reality: the dismantling of NOAA's conservation mission in favor of an extractive agenda that ignores science, international law, and ecological sanity.

The order bypasses the United Nations’ International Seabed Authority (ISA), a body tasked with regulating ocean floor mining in international waters. The U.S. has never ratified the UNCLOS treaty that empowers the ISA, and Trump’s executive order effectively gives U.S.-affiliated companies the green light to mine without waiting for global consensus. It’s a unilateral play that undermines decades of legal precedent and global ocean governance.

The most immediate target? The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a stretch of the Pacific Ocean seabed roughly the size of the continental United States. It's rich in polymetallic nodules and even richer in biodiversity, much of it still unexplored. Companies like The Metals Company, a Canadian firm with close ties to this administration’s energy advisors, have already filed permit applications. NOAA, under pressure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is expected to rubber-stamp them.

This is no longer the NOAA we once knew. According to internal sources, the Marine Habitat Conservation division, particularly in the Pacific, has been gutted. Senior staff were dismissed or forced out, and the entire Pacific branch dismantled. While not every program was zeroed out, the agency’s ability to provide ecological oversight has been neutered. What's left is a husk, one now forced to facilitate what it once sought to prevent.

Environmental groups and Pacific Island leaders are sounding the alarm. For communities already facing the frontlines of climate change, deep-sea mining represents an existential threat. As Michael Lujan Bevacqua wrote, "For those of us in the Pacific, most affected by climate change, the gutting of NOAA is really scary."

More than 30 nations have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, joined by scientists, legal experts, and even some tech companies wary of associating their green reputations with deep ocean destruction. But the Trump administration has chosen to isolate the U.S., betting that critical minerals justify ecological devastation and geopolitical recklessness.

This is a systematic transformation of government agencies from stewards of the public good into blunt instruments of private and political power. It’s about the silencing of scientific voices, the purging of watchdogs, and the reconfiguration of NOAA into a compliant cog in a corporate extraction machine.

And it's about all of us who are watching, speaking out and fighting back. When the abyss is plundered, it doesn’t just swallow nodules and sediment, it swallows truth, trust, and the fragile hope of sustainability.

follow me at marygeddry.substack.com and .bsky.social

20/04/2025

ATTN: Cruisers! Please read the attached memo and email your Senators today!

Anchoring is under attack in the Florida Legislature!

If SB594 and HB481 pass, many of the inlets we and other cruisers use will be unavailable for anchoring. There is no reason for this, and it will create dangerous situations for crossing and will just move the "Issue" to the next town.

Please consider writing the following Senators before tomorrow, Monday April 21 at 11am, so they can see your notes before going into session.

Here's the list and what I wrote. We need at least 100 emails.

When you email, please personalize your message as much as possible especially if you have used any of the inlets associated with these ports. Personalized stories have the best chance of actually being seen by legislators instead just their staffs. Address as "Dear Senator LName". Last name is first in the list below.

[email protected]
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Dear Senator ,

As a Florida resident and active cruiser, I ask you to oppose SB594. The bill extends no-anchoring zones around established mooring/anchoring areas, severely impacting responsible boaters because of surrounding depths. It will place transient cruisers, leaving or arriving from the Bahamas and other points South, at risk as they will need to anchor much further from inlets. We, as cruisers, as well as Florida residents, spend thousands each month on food, entertainment, restaurants, boat services, and dockage (when available). There simply are not enough docks for the number of boats in Florida, and the situation is getting worse each year. Additionally, commercial dock prices, including "City Owned Docks" such as Ft. Pierce City Marina has more than doubled in the last few years. Some other points to consider:Common recreational anchoring areas are almost eliminated in this bill. Fernandina, Port Canaveral, Ft Pierce, Lake Worth, Miami and Key West will lose much or all of their anchoring area.The setback is excessive and not supported by any events. The water depths are 10ft or less, making it ideal for us to anchor but not by shipsState Parks where anchoring is currently enjoyed are within the potential no-anchoring zones created by this bill. These include the Ports of Everglades, Panama City, Fernandina, Fort Pierce, Pensacola, Key West, and Tampa Port security concerns are not highlighted in publicly available minutes from meetings of the Ports Council, Port of Palm Beach, and Port of Miami.Generally, federal law controls the regulation of navigation, seaport security and other aspects of admiralty law in and upon the navigable waters of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently determined that federal supremacy principles mandate that federal law preempts state and local government efforts to impose conditions on port entry that federal laws already cover. Federal law allows a state to regulate its ports and waterways, as long as the regulation is based on the peculiarities of local waters that call for special precautionary measures. We believe these waters do not call for special precautionary measures, and the state of Florida lacks jurisdiction in this matter. There is substantial case law that supports this assertion.The US Coast Guard (USCG) is the lead federal agency for maritime security and the primary enforcer of security zones around seaport facilities and vessels, not the Florida Wildlife and Conservation Commission. The USCG issues security zone orders, conducts patrols and inspections, coordinates with other agencies and stakeholders, and responds to incidents and emergencies within security zones.Existing state law allows counties to establish Anchoring Limitation Areas (ALA), which restrict anchoring to 45 days within established areas. With only a few exceptions, the populous counties listed in this bill have not attempted to establish ALAs within their county limits as allowed by existing state law. These counties should establish ALAs before attempting to change the law.The problem in Florida is not well-found boats but derelict boats abandoned on our waterways. This bill punishes responsible boat owners and does nothing to address derelict boats. Furthermore, continued water quality monitoring by outside environmental groups in the areas impacted by this bill shows no concerns with boater-discharged sewage in these areas. We however, do support more pump out facilities, including mobile pump-out boats, like Monroe County has implemented.I recognize that many landowners are distressed to see unsightly boats in front of their houses. Having had a home on a canal in Broward County and also regularly cruising for extended periods, I share their concern for derelict boats and boats at risk of becoming derelict. But landowners do not own the waters and bottomlands near their properties—those are held in the public trust, and available for the use of everyone. This bill is in direct opposition to the concept of lands held in the Public Trust.Your consideration and opposition to this bill is appreciated.
Sincerely,

Please let us know if you've emailed the senators. Thanks!

18/04/2025

Scenes from Dinner Key, Miami.