Marinas or Mangroves?

Ambitious marina plan scaled back, and to those with environmental conserns, that's a good thing

My colleague, Jimm Budd, a Mexico City-based travel journalist who sends out daily reports about Mexican tourism, today reported that "Escalera Nautica today has 8 marinas open with seven more in planning stage according to Raul Lopez, manager at San Blas. Not exactly what had been dreamed of a decade ago, but still something. A decade ago, when the project was announced, goal was to open more than 30 marinas along both coasts of the Baja California peninsula as well as along the west coast of the mainland. The government would provide the basic infrastructure, and it was hoped that private investors would come in with the amenities. Lack of enthusiasm on the part of private investors had apparently almost killed the scheme, although Lopez said laws protecting mangroves on the coast were more to blame. Eventual idea is to attract boaters starved for marinas in their home states to come to Mexico."

A website called BajaQuest had other numbers but quoted an earlier report on the same concept:

"The plan calls for 22 full-service marinas, 10 of them new. Of the 12
existing, seven will be improved and five are judged as already adequate. The 10
new marinas will be located on sites with natural shelter, or bays, a feature
the peninsula has in abundance. Five of these are to be in Baja California,
three in Baja California Sur, and one each in Sonora and Sinaloa."

"Additionally, the plan calls for an 84-mile highway route for towing boats
from one side of the peninsula to the other. This feature will allow boat
travelers quick access to either body of water for those without time or
interest in sailing around the southernmost tip of Baja California Sur. Further,
the plan calls for improving the road between Mexicali and San Felipe to allow
bigger-boat towing rigs crossborder access to the Sea of Cortes."

The map (above right) was released in 2001, showing the ambitious scale of the project then. Some people probably still support it. Along the Sea of Cortes, tourism officials have been calling it "the mega-tourism project of the XXI century." That in itself is scary -- especially if you're a mangrove tree or a critter that lives in the mangroves. Environmental authorities call mangroves "the nursery of the seas." These miraculous trees survive and thrive in brackish coastal waters. Their complex root systems provide safe havens for hatchlings of all sorts, and birds nest in the dense foliage. Insects and everything above them in the food chain thrive in mangroves.

Miraculous Mangroves

Below is a mangrove swamp near Ventanilla in the state of Oaxaca. The top photo shows a shallow-draft boat taking tourists to an alligator sanctuary on an island amid the mangroves.

Below, a large turtle suns itself on a stump.


Below is a mangrove habitat, seemingly serene but full of life.


Researchers Speak

The early stages of the Escalara Nautica were not encouraging vis-a-vis environmental stewardship. Back in April 2003 (more than six years ago), the California-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation published its "Preliminary Coastal Analysis of Escalera Nautica at Bahia Santa Rosaliita." This first marina did not involve mangroves, but if the Mexican government and/or developers didn't begin pay more attention to what it was doing, it must be bad news for mangroves and everything else along the Escalera Nautica. According to the report,

"The new marina is located in the northwest somewhat sheltered corner of
Bahia Santa Rosaliita (also spelled Rosalillita, Rosalilita, Rosalia)....The new
marina is located in the northwest somewhat sheltered corner of Bahia Santa
Rosaliita (also spelled Rosalillita, Rosalilita, Rosalia)....

"A new concrete wall (less than one year old) was observed to be heavily
damaged, with extensive cracking, spalling, and exposed rebar. Likely reasons
for this rapid deterioration are poor materials and construction
methods.

"Due to the short jetty length and ample availability of sediment in the
area, it is expected to be difficult to maintain the entrance depth required for
a navigable entrance.... aves will likely break across the marina entrance
during high wave events. Continuous dredging will be required to maintain the
requisite entrance depth and sufficient basin depth.

"Currently, the east jetty extends landward to approximately 10 meters
landward of the vegetation line. It is reasonable to expect the beach east of
the marina to continue to recede landward, likely resulting in erosion behind
the landward end of the east jetty.

"Extensive downcoast erosion has been measured during the first year after
jetty construction. It is expected that some structures will be lost to the sea
within another year. The historic sandy beach that did exist on the east of the
marina has been replaced by a steep cobble and stone berm with some exposed
bedrock and vertical sandstone beach scarping. The downcoast erosion will likely
reach a dynamic equilibrium within a few years."

"The first marina of the Escalera Nautica system is deeply troubled.
The lack of planning and poor selection of location has resulted in a marina
that will be very expensive to maintain. If it is determined that the marina is
essential, we recommend some improvements that will make the marina useful some of the time....

Future Escalera Nautica projects should consult qualified consultants and
perform adequate studies prior to construction."

I sure hope the government and developers have been doing precisely that, but I'm not taking bets.

UNESCO to Inspect a Pair of National Parks

Mining is threatening International Peace Park; UN agency to look into the situation

When it comes to global warming, ice is the canary in the mine. The shore-fast ice along the north coast of Alaska and Canada has been thinner and breaking up earlier every spring. Huge chunks of the Ross Ice Shelf and other tracts of frozen water have been breaking off the Antarctic continent. And glaciers all over the world have been visibly shrinking -- not just measurably in scientific terms but visibly in this lifetime. Glacier National Park in northern Montana, with its shrinking and disappearing glaciers, has been a the poster child for climate change.

But there is another threat to Glacier and its neighbor to the north. Coal mining could be a greter problem for Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, composed of contiguous Glacier National Park in northern Montana and Waterton National Park (above right) across the Canadian border. National Parks Traveler reported that UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to look into the "threat posed to the two parks by [coal] mining proposals for the headwaters of the Flathead River just to the north of Glacier and just west of Waterton Lakes." A dozen US and Canadian conservation and environmental organizations "asked the World Heritage Committee to declare the two parks a 'World Heritage Site In Danger' due to the mining possibilities that Canadian officials so far seem to have supported," according to National Parks Traveler.

"While U.S. politicians ranging from those in Montana counties all the way up to the U.S. secretary of state's office want Canada to block Cline Mining Corp. from scraping away mountaintops in the headwaters of the Flathead River to reach millions of tons of coal, Canadian officials so far have not been keen on the idea," National Parks Traveler had reported earlier.

The UNESCO report is supposed to be completed in 2010, but pardon me if I note that this issue has been around for several years. U.S. and Canadian officials were supposed to be dealing with the mining proposal since at least 2007. The North Fork Preservation Association has been keeping tabs on the situation, including the appearance of the North Fork of the Flathead on an increasing number of lists of endangered rivers, Check out Toronto-based Cline Mining's website to see images of the kinds of mining infrastructure most of us don't want to see in the backyard of our precious national parks or in pristine river valleys. The Cline map shows two coal projects in southeastern British Columbia, where the Flathead River originates: Sage Creek and Lodgepole. I'm not sure whether one or both are what UNESCO will be studying.

In any case, while the inspection team is in the neighborhood, perhaps they might take a look at the remaining glaciers too.

Dreamliner Becoming a Nightmare for Boeing

Production of 21st-century airliner delayed for a fifth time



It isn't exactly news we can use for immediate travel, but the much anticipated Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been delayed yet again. The plane's ultra-modern materials are supposed to make it lighter and therefore more fuel efficient aren't standing up well in pre-flight tests. This mid-size, long-range airliner has gone back to the drawing board, or at least the lab. The concept was announced in 2005 and planes carryinbg 223 passengers in three cabin classes were supposed to be in commercial service last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "postponed the first flight of its much-delayed 787 Dreamliner due to a structural flaw that executives said was small, but which further dents the company's credibility and could hurt the new jet's future profitability." Nobody would want an airplane with "a structural flaw" to take off, even on test flights, but it is noteworthy. The Dreamliner's potential profitability was enormous, since well over 600 aircraft had been ordered -- the largest commercial aircraft sale in history -- but some orders have already been canceled or delayed.

Clear Closes Up Shop

Clear customers rejoin the rest of us in airport security lines

Clear, part of New York-based Verified Identity Pass Inc. (VIP, get it?), which charged customers up to $199 a year for a faster approach to TSA security checkpoints, disappeared overnight. The Clear website now has just one page of short-and-to-the-point content:

At 11:00 p.m. PST on June 22, 2009, Clear will cease operations. Clear’s parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement
with its senior creditor to continue operations.

The company's premise was that if Clear cleared your ID, you could fast-track directly to the screening area, which at most airports meant significantly shorter lines. The preclearing process included fingerprinting and iris scanning. Clear launched with great fanfare (and a $99 initial fee) on July 18, 2005, and sank with barely a bubble breaking the transportation industry surface less than four years later, having signed up 18 or 20 airports and at its peak reportedly had some 250,000 customers, which had shrunk to 150,000, according to the Wall Street Journal. Verified Identity Pass, a private company, was initially funded by Lockheed Martin, GE Security, Lehman Bros. and some venture-capital firms.

The concept was that frequent travelers or the terminally impatient (yes, that pun was intended) would happy pay to speed their way to the screening checkpoint, where they would still have to take off their shoes and belts, empty their pockets, remove their laptops from their cases and undergo the normal indignities of getting to their airline membership clubs or departure gates.

A perfect storm sank Clear. Travelers who fly enough to make Clear worthwhile also are elite members of one or more frequent-flyer programs that have their own shorter lines at many major airports. A number of airports themselves have worked hard to streamline security lines, and the TSA itself has instituted its black/blue/green ranking system right at the checkpoints in order to unclog back-ups of inexperience travelers or families that take longer to get through the Xray/metal-detector process. Many people begin their flights at smaller regional airports that don't have long lines to begin with. And now, of course, fewer people are flying, relieving pressure. The corollary is that financing is more difficult to obtain, which drove the final nail in Clear's coffin.

According to Danny Sullivan's posting on his blog, Daggle (which included the image above right), problems began surfacing when Clear started hustling for multi-year memberships. Sullivan, a search-engine wizard, wrote: "...I’ve been a regular user since it started. In fact, I was probably one of the program’s most successful affiliates. I’d written about it from an early point, and so many people used my code to get an extra month (and giving me one in the process) that my card was good through 2064. Poof. Now all that credit is apparently gone. And so is any time left on cards for people who bought the 2, 3, 5 or 10 year options that Clear recently promoted."

In an earlier post Sullivan had warned his readers, that "a 3 year or longer period is that Clear itself isn’t guaranteed to exist that long. So far, they seem to be expanding and doing well. They probably will be around for 3-5 years. But in 10 years, who knows how airport security is going to change — and $1,190 is a lot to gamble on that."

Do I miss Clear? Not for a minute. Unlike Sullivan, I wouldn't dream of paying for express-lane access to the TSA checkpoint. Now if I could manage to avoid that step altogether.....

Re-examing Rules After Pillot's Death at the Controls

Health risks versus experience weighed for pilots over 60

The mid-air death of Captain Craig Lenell, a 60-year-old Continental pilot who succumbed to a fatal heart attack last week rekindled the debate over the age limits for commercial pilots in the US. The retirement age was 60 until 2007, when Congress raised it to 65. When I wrote a post about it, I focused in the weird media reports, and now, there's an oddball debate.

Think back to July 1989, when a United DC-10 flying from Denver's old Stapleton Airport to Chicago's O'Hare crash landed in Sioux City, Iowa. One engine disintegrated destroying all three of the plane's hydraulic systems that were routed through a single conduit. The only working controls were the two remaining engines' thrust levers. The mechanics of the crisis are beyond my comprehension, but the bottom line is that a DC-10 flight instructor deadheading on that flight helped by manually adjusting the throttles to keep in minimal control.

The crippled plane broke up during its emergency landing in Sioux City, killing 110 of 285 passengers and one of 11 crew members. Experts praised Captain Alfred C. Haynes, his first officer and flight engineer and instructor Dennis E. Fitch for their skill in preventing an even greater loss of life. Haynes had to retire in 1991 at the age of 60 (Charlton Heston played him in a movie the next year). Fitch was injured in the crash but went back to work. Many experts feel that the while older pilots might have increased health risks, their experience in the air compensates in emergency situations. And of course, they are required to have regular physicals

According to a USA Today report, "Since the FAA started keeping track 15 years ago, there have been six pilot deaths mid-flight ranging in age from upper-40s to upper-50s. Pilots are required to undergo medical exams every six months once they reach age 40, according to the FAA. Pilots over 40 must have an annual electrocardiogram, and captains are required to get one every six months.

"Justin Green, a former military pilot and an aviation attorney, told CNN that 'there's no magic age for pilots. Big airline pilots, especially those flying internationally, are among the most carefully monitored people in terms of their health.'" Furthermore, flights of eight hours or longer are required to have a captain, a first officer and a relief pilot on board, and those longer than 12 hours must have two captains and two first officers."

Given the millions of commercial aircraft operations in the last 15 years, it seems that no good case can be made for rolling back the mandatory retirement age to 60 because of one fatality in the cockpit.

Revised Resource for Disabled Tavelers

Guide to barrier-free travel addresses needs of mobility-impaired travelers

I never thought much about the challenges faced by wheelchair users until my now-grown was an infant. There I was, an agile woman who often had problems navigating a carriage or stroller into some buildings, up steep stairs or places with oddball angles. I wondered then how people in wheelchairs managed to get around, and I quickly realized that they didn't. "Shut-in" is a word we we heard then but fortunately don't anymore, because the laws have changed and accessibility is now mandated in the US.

Knock on lots of wood, I remain healthy and mobile, but I have friends and family members who no longer are. I've gone to their homes, gone out to dinner, been to museums and shops and so forth, and I am impressed at how much more user-friendly our country has become since the Americans with Disabilities Act. But when I go to other countries, and see foot-high curbs, broken pavement and other impediments to getting around to see the sights, I realize that there are lots of places that people with physical challenges simply can't travel. These are of concerns for those with mobility issues and also for their families and travel companions.

The newly released third edition of Barrier-Free Travels: A Nuts and Bolts Guide for Wheelers and Slow Walkers by Candy Harrington, an authority on the subject, is a godsend when researching how feasible a trip might be. It is a definitive guide to accessible travel including detailed information about the logistics of planning travel by plane, train, bus and ship. She addresses such nitty-gritty details as finding an understanding travel agent, dealing with airport and pier security (a hassle for the able-bodied, let alone a traveler with special needs), traveling with supplemental oxygen and more.

A few years ago on my first cruise, I saw how many fellow passengers had trouble getting around, how helpful the crew was and how suitable cruise ships are for people with such problems. Harrington has found 45 shore-excursion operators on popular cruise itineraries with vans that include wheelchair lifts, so that people don't need to be stuck on the ship all the time. The new edition also includes recent updates to access laws, new resources and an expanded list of companies that rent accessible vans in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The book is $19.95 from Demos Publishing. It is available at bookstores, from the publisher (800-532-8663) or online.

Travel Writers Vote for World's 10 Best Trains

North American and European trains prevail on SATW list

The Society of American Travel Writers recently polled its members (including moi) to come up with the “Top 10” train rides in the world in terms of excitement and scenery. SATW listed the world’s “Top 10” train rides in order of the number of votes. The top five of the top 10 include one in my own Colorado, three in two of my favorite countries (Switzerland and Canada) and one that I long to visit (Peru). In fact, every one of the top 10 is in the Western Hemisphere or Europe, which is tad odd considering how widely traveled SATW members are. In any case, these trains offer trips from multi-day rail excursions to a tourist ride of less than an hour.

Below are the Top 10 in SATW's words and a few of my images of trains that take travelers on such memorable journeys.

1. The Rocky Mountaineer offers spectacular two-day journeys through the Canadian Rocky Mountains from Vancouver to Banff or Jasper.

2. The Glacier Express is the famous Swiss mountain railway from St. Moritz to Zermatt, a 7 12-hour railway journey that crosses 291 bridges and burrows through 91 tunnels.

3. Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (top right) winds through rugged canyons in the remote wilderness of Colorado’s two-million-acre San Juan National Forest. The narrow-gauge train is pulled by a coal-fired, steam-powered locomotive along the same tracks traveled over a century ago by miners, cowboys and settlers of the Old West.

4. The Bernina Express from Chur, Switzerland to Tirano, Italy, makes the highest rail crossing of the Alps, passing from icy glaciers to palm-shaded piazzas in just a few hours. It crosses 196 bridges and passes through 55 tunnels, while winding around countless spectacular switchbacks. You can take the scenic stretch from St. Moritz to Tirano for lunch in Italy in just three hours.

5. Peru Rail, Cusco to Machu Picchu, carries passengers on a spectacular journey through the high Andes. There are three levels of service, from backpacker trains to Vistadome cars to the luxurious blue and gold Hiram Bingham train, named in honor of Hiram Bingham, the explorer who discovered the Inca citadel in 1911. The train passes by lush green fields and colorful villages in the foothills of the Andes and climbs along the Urubamba River through a dramatic canyon before reaching Machu Picchu.

6. The Coastal Classic Train on the Alaska Railroad winds through the wilderness between Anchorage and Seward. Massive glaciers are visible from the track as the train climbs into the Kenai Mountains and travels to the shores of Resurrection Bay for convenient connection to Kenai Fjords National Park, offering whale watching, sea kayaking, tidewater glacier viewing, fishing, and dog sled rides.

7. The Royal Scotsman rolls through the ever-changing landscapes of sweeping glens, towering peaks and mirror-calm lochs as the train weaves through wild countryside and along virgin stretches of coast on two to seven night journeys in the Scottish highlands.

8. The Whistler Mountaineer in Canada is a three-hour ride along the magnificent coast of British Columbia, from Vancouver to Whistler, famous for its views of cities, old-growth forests, deep valleys, snowcapped peaks and seascapes.

9. Mexico’s El Chepe ventures into the imposing landscapes of the Sierra Tarahumara and into Mexico’s famed Copper Canyon, passing through 87 tunnels and crossing 37 bridges. The Copper Canyon is four times the size of the Grand Canyon – and deeper.

10. The Flam Railway is regarded as one of the highlights of the “Norway in a Nutshell” tour. The 20-km-long train journey from the mountain station of Myrdal down to Flam, beside a fjord, takes 55 minutes. On the journey, you have views of some of the most magnificent mountain scenery in Norway with a panorama of tall mountains and cascading waterfalls. The train moves slowly or stops at the best views.