Once more I'll stick my head above the parapet, though hopefully some people will find less to criticise here. Barry Bowen has again supplied a new channel marker for the main channel opposite the Yacht Club, and he fixed it in place yesterday. We were able for the first time in a long while to take night divers outside the reef without fear of becoming San Pedro's latest wreck attraction on our return.

Our very grateful thanks to him.

Does that mean there are now two channel markers? I seem to always remember just one on the north side of the channel.

I can only speak from personal experience for the past three or four years. There used to be a substantial one to the south, where there are lots of crunchy bits just waiting for the unwary boat driver. And there was a simple plastic pole on the north side, with a lamp on it. Both disappeared over the past couple of years due to storms. Barry has replaced the big (expensive) one on the south side (the new one looks like a WW2 mine!), but so far as I am aware not the one to the north. I don't know whether he intends to add that one, but for anyone who knows the channel it isn't really needed. For anyone else, of course, they can see the marker but don't know which side of it the channel is.....

I haven't been here long enough to have seen many replacement markers, but I am told that they are regularly displaced or destroyed by storms and replaced (every few years, that is), and that has been by Barry Bowen at his own expense more than once. As I said, we should all be grateful to him and express our thanks.

I know this isn't received wisdom, but I think San Pedro would be better off if the channel were blasted with explosives. Not widened, just made deeper and more predictable. The coral in the channel doesn't do anyone much good anyway, and I've lost count of the number of boats that have caught bad waves there and had major difficulties. The difficulty of getting through the reef sometimes prevents boats leaving when once out they could safely go about their normal business of diving, fishing, etc. With the number of visitors coming for marine activities San Pedro needs a safer and more predictable way of navigating the reef than it has at present.

Amen
Inside the reef just isn't even close.

If I remember correctly, the different reports I saw last year on that big sailboat that ended up on the reef was due to procedure the captain had stating that he should head north along the reef till he hit the marker, then head left through the channel. Since the only marker at that time was on the north side of the channel, that put him right into the coral. I assume his directions came from some published source, and if that source is still active, putting the marker on the south side of the channel would be the logical place. Thanks again to Barry Bowen

I believe it was the other way around. The sailboat was heading south and the captain thought the north marker was the south marker. I was there the week after this happened, and the boat was on the reef facing south. Anyone know if that boat was ever repaired?

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I did a search here on the board, and apparently the boat was pulled off and taken to Belize City for repair or whatever.

The photos I saw (I wasn't here) showed, I believe, the sailboat sitting on the coral just south of the cut. Didn't the skipper get fined for damaging the reef?

Bump.
Anyone know what really transpired?