Monthly Archives: May 2022

Department of Defense Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth L. Hoffman provided the following readout:

On May 25, 2022, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, Western Hemisphere Affairs, Mr. Daniel Erikson, represented the Department of Defense at the 10th Caribbean-U.S. Security Cooperation Dialogue, the annual ministerial-level meeting under the Caribbean-United States Framework for Security Cooperation. The Dialogue was hosted by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and co-chaired by CARICOM, the Dominican Republic, and the United States.

The Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Dialogue is an established forum to address our shared security challenges in the Caribbean, review progress under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), and strengthen collaboration to overcome these challenges. The Dialogue provides a mechanism to discuss strategic level security issues and to explore future cooperation activities in the areas of security and defense. The Dialogue centered around this years theme Advancing the Safety and Security of our Citizens.

The participants for the United States and the Caribbean discussed: 1) combatting firearms trafficking; 2) countering illicit maritime trafficking and transnational organized crime; 3) preventing youth crime and violence; 4) cyber security and cybercrime; and 5) human trafficking.

The representatives underscored the importance of continued partnership and regional collaboration to overcome these security challenges.

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Readout of the 10th Caribbean-United States Security Cooperation Dialogue - Department of Defense

Sailing through the British Virgin Islands on a chartered catamaran is every bit the fantasy journey it sounds like, but heres one surprise I got during my time cruising around Tortola, Virgin Gorda, and Jost Van Dyke on a Moorings charter yacht: the trip can actually be pretty affordable as well as remarkably customizable.

Design your own vacation in advance, or on the fly

During my most recent BVI trip with Moorings in February 2022, I had a fairly rigid plan to make stops at all the major islands, along with two resorts, Saba Rock and the Bitter End Yacht Club both beautifully restored and reopened after being heavily damaged by hurricanes in 2017.

On past trips, however, we were more or less able to plot each days itinerary the night before based on weather, distance, and mood. A stop for snorkeling at The Indians, perhaps, or drinks aboard the legendary party boat Willy T? A nice meal at Pirates Bight, or sampling from the rum bar at Cooper Island? And when do we make the obligatory stop for our Painkillers at the Soggy Dollar on Jost Van Dyke?

Every day can be an adventure of choices (almost) all of them fun.

The beauty of a yacht charter vacation, and especially a charter vacation in the British Virgin Islands, is the flexibility, says Ian Pedersen, senior marketing manager at the Moorings. The number of islands in the region and the wide variety of picturesque stops to explore allow visitors to craft their own unique schedule and itinerary, and being aboard your very own yacht means you can go anywhere you like, whenever you like.

If youre a first-timer, the range of options can be intimidating. Thats why Moorings provides sample itineraries on its website, and employs a staff of vacation planners who can help you iron out the finer details.

Your captain also can be an invaluable planning resource if youre not certain about what to do and a literal lifesaver when things go a bit sideways.

On my 2022 trip, for example, my itinerary called for a dinner stop at Guana Island, one of the top private island resorts in the Caribbean and famous for its natural beauty. On this evening, however, nature wasnt in an accommodating mood.

My captain, Ben Moreton, an affable Brit who came to the BVI after years spent sailing off the coast of Australia, made a valiant effort to get us to Guana against heavy wind and seas, but wisely made the choice to turn back to a safe port. The meal we had together at a beach bar back on Tortola that night might not have been quite as glamorous as a resort dinner, but it made a whole lot more sense. And Guana Island will still be there the next time I go back to the BVI.

You should always be prepared for conditions to change during your trip and be open to options that are recommended by the captain, advises Moreton. They will always be looking for the most suitable locations around the conditions that are given. Remember that a boating holiday is unique for many reasons, and one of them being that your environment is always changing. The opportunity to sail on a boat is always a very fortunate position to be in, and you can always look back on the good and difficult times as an experience like no other.

The key to affordability: bring friends

Anyone familiar with traveling by RV can understand the basic premise of your means of transportation also serving as your hotel for the night. And its every bit as true on the waters of the Caribbean as on a roadtrip on land.

You wont really be spending much time in your cabin other than for sleeping. But the berths are comfortable, and Moorings captains are expert at finding the harbors and moorings with the calmest waters to ensure a good nights sleep. While youre sailing, youre likely going to spend most of your time on deck, but in poor weather the catamarans have spacious cabins to take shelter from the rain.

My February 2022 charter with the Moorings entailed a week on a four-cabin catamaran, called theMoorings4800. Its a 48-foot sailing catamaran that also can operate under power, available both as a bareback charter (meaning youre the captain) or crewed with a captain provided by Moorings.

In January 2023, a four-cabin sailing catamaran like the one I chartered in the BVI for 6 nights in starts at $16,000.

However, in low season, like October 2022, the same boat can be had for as little as $9,000 for the week.

An all-inclusive crewed yacht, including the captain, starts at around $17,000 for the week. Monohull boats, also available from Moorings, are slightly more affordable and also available as bareback or crewed charters.

Dont forget, however, that the costs of a one-week yacht charter include the price of the boat, fuel, and, if you choose, a captain, chef, and food. The latter two are optional if you know how to captain the boat yourself, and provision the boat yourself.

(If you do hire a captain and/or chef, keep in mind when youre calculating costs that a tip is customary for good service typically 20 percent of the cost of the charter. Trust me, once you see how much work a good captain does during your week at sea, youll realize the gratuity is well-earned.)

If you arent a sailor, you can also travel with a friend who is an experienced skipper, as I did on my previous trip to the BVI with Moorings. Sailing with friends who know how to sail also frees up one more cabin to help defray the cost of the charter youll be splitting four ways instead of three.

Because a yacht charter is so flexible and has so many different options available from bareboat, sail-it-yourself trips to luxury all-inclusive charters with captain and chef, the pricing can vary widely, notes Pedersen. The industry standard, however, is that the yacht is priced per-day, not per-person. So on a four-cabin sailing yacht costing $15,000 for a 7-day charter, for example, if four couples join together then the cost is roughly $535 per-couple, per-day, roughly the cost of what one might expect at an all-inclusive resort.

The Moorings has a broad network of bases across the Caribbean, meaning you can take this kind of sailing vacation from bases in Antigua, Belize, the BVI, The Bahamas, Grenada, Martinique, Saint Lucia, St Thomas and St Martin.

The difference, of course, is that aboard a yacht charter you essentially take your hotel room with you anywhere you wish, so the yacht acts as your hotel room, rental car, and daily excursions in one nice, neat package, he says.

Provisioning the boat with food and drink, and making meals for yourself, is another way to keep costs down. Some market items are pricier than stateside, but Moorings is quite reasonable with their markups: a piece of salmon for dinner was $11, but I also paid just $2.50 for a dozen eggs and $13 for a bottle of Mount Gay Eclipse rum.

Either way, youre still paying less for onboard meals and drinks than you would at a restaurant or bar. Well-equipped galleys ensure that youll eat well whether you just want to boil some water for coffee in the morning or make a full-blown evening meal with friends.

Of course, dining on delicacies like Anegada lobster and other delicious Caribbean food is part of the destination youll want to experience, but even making your own breakfast, or mixing your own drinks when youre safely tied up at a mooring at the end of the day, can save you quite a bit of money.

And thats just a small part of what youll have to raise a glass to on a Moorings yacht charter.

For more, visit The Moorings.

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How to Take a Caribbean Sailing Vacation Right Now - Caribbean Journal

The cruise industry gets a raw deal from the media which has lazily advanced the "floating Petri dish" narrative. Yes, there have been a few instances of widespread illness spreading on a cruise ship, which makes for striking visuals and feverish media coverage.

In reality, the big cruise lines -- Royal Caribbean International (RCL) - Get Royal Caribbean Group Report, Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) - Get Carnival Corporation Report, and Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) - Get Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. Report -- invested heavily in passenger health well before the pandemic. Ships have always been in a near-constant state of being cleaned while handwashing was heavily emphasized long before covid.

When you walk into a cruise buffet, you are met with rows of handwashing stations along with a crew member telling you (often in song) to wash your hands. Once the pandemic hit, all three major cruise lines stepped up their cleaning and disinfection efforts working with medical panels to determine how to make cruising as safe as possible.

And, while the cruise lines were aggressive in their own safety efforts, they also had to deal with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). That agency kept the industry fully shut down from U.S. ports from March 2020 through July 2021. When the federal agency allowed cruises to return, they were heavily regulated, sailed with limited capacities, and required all crew as well as all passengers 12 or over to not only be vaccinated, but to provide a negative covid test result taken no more than two days before their sailing.

Despite all of those precautions questions remain as to whether it's safe to take a cruise.

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Covid has not gone away. It continues to spread and you can get it at the supermarket, at a concert, at a sporting event, at a theme park, on a cruise, or well, anyplace you come into contact with other people. The difference is that if you get covid someplace where you go for a while and then leave, you don't actually know where you caught it.

I've taken eight cruises since the July restart. The protocols have changed since the first one, but here's where they currently stand:

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Masks are no longer required for passengers, but crew members still wear them. Capacity has steadily increased since my first cruise back in July with passenger loads being close to full capacity on my most recent (May 13-16) weekend cruise on Freedom of the Seas.

With nearly every person onboard both vaccinated and tested, I've honestly felt safer at sea than I do visiting my local supermarket (where few people wear masks, and many are likely not vaccinated). The same could also be said for my covid era visits to Disney World, trips to Las Vegas, and a couple of live, sold out (albeit open air) sporting events.

That does not mean there's no risk. I have never caught covid, but I do have friends who caught it onboard (all experiencing mild symptoms).

My personal opinion is that it's safer to be in a closed environment with vaccinated people than living everyday with many people not being vaccinated. That opinion has been backed up by the CDC's actions. The federal agency has now eliminated its pandemic-related Cruise Travel Health Notices for cruise passengers and has also eliminated all risk warnings.

The agency does still offer the following guidance:

"The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships. If the virus is spreading on board a cruise ship, passengers and crew are at risk for infection, even if they are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines."

All three major cruise lines have procedures to quarantine passengers who show signs of covid or test positive. Those actions have limited outbreaks on ships. with no crew members for Royal Caribbean, Carnival, or Norwegian being hospitalized due to covid.

As long as covid exists, being around people comes with risk. Cruise lines, however, have taken significant measures to control those risks and limit spread. That makes taking a cruise a viable, safe option for healthy people.

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What It's Like On a Royal Caribbean or Carnival Cruise Right Now - TheStreet

The coconut is called the tree of life, for it has been providing humans food and drink, materials for housing, fuel and medicine for thousands of years. One of the most important cultivated trees in the world, Cocos nucifera of the palm family, Palmaceae, is now present in all tropical regions on the planet and enjoys well deserved popularity among food lovers and industrial producers.

Yet the origin of the coconut tree is shrouded in mystery and speculation. Many scholars believe it originated in the tropical islands of the Pacific, from there spreading to other tropical areas in the Americas, India, South Asia and Oceania. One legend relates the coconuts origins to CocosIsland, now part of Costa Ricas world-famous national park system.

Located hundreds of miles off the countrys Pacific coast, the island was visited by 14th-century explorers who found coconut forests that seemed to them native and also ancient.

Revered by ancient cultures, the coconut played a dignified role in religion as well as in the nutrition and well-being of humankind.

In South Asia, coconuts are known as sriphala, or fruit of the gods, and symbolize usefulness, selfless service, prosperity and generosity.

The palms are believed to be the embodiment of the ancient Indian concept of kalpavriksha the tree that grants all wishes.

We have found ways to use every single part of this crop to our benefit: the trunks for timber, leaves for thatch, fibrous coir husks as base material for ropes and coconut matting, and nuts for food. Unripe, green nuts contain coconut water, a powerful thirst quencher known here as agua de pipa. The nutmeat can be eaten fresh or dried (as desiccated or flaked coconut) and is also available in blocks of creamed coconut.

Valuable coconut oil is extracted from the nutmeat and used in margarines, soaps and detergents, as well as for cooking.

Though high in saturated fat, every 100 grams of fresh coconut contains 3.2 grams of protein in addition to 36 grams of fat.

Desiccated coconut contains 5.6 grams of protein and 62 grams of fat, as well as some vital trace elements. About 50% of coconut oil is lauric acid one of the good fats.

Found in both mothers milk and coconut oil, lauric acid is a rare fatty acid in its monoglyceride form (monolaurin, or ML), which supports healthy metabolism and is being studied for its antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial properties. It is also a good source of manganese, selenium, copper, iron and dietary fiber.

From a culinary standpoint, coconut is present in the cuisines of many regions, particularly Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, southern India, tropical Africa and the Caribbean. Each culture has utilized the flesh and milk of the coconut in its own ways.

The coconuts path to the table is varied in forms and styles of cooking, ranging from baked goods, drinks, cocktails and desserts to more savory dishes such as soups, creams and sauces. Of course, the use of coconut milk is unforgettable in the hot and spicy curries of South Indian and Thai cuisines.

Not shy is one way to describe coconut milks presence in many Caribbean stews and dishes, such as the famous rondn, or rundown, a traditional Afro-Caribbean dish from the Caribbean province of Limn. Usually made for a large group, rondn is a seafood stew featuring local tubers such as yuca (cassava or manioc) and camote (a type of Caribbean sweet potato).

The stew is gently simmered and exquisitely spiced with cinnamon, allspice, ginger, coffee and hot chilies. The Caribbean version of curry, rondn is a must when visiting the southern Caribbean beaches of Puerto Viejo and Cahuita.

Another example of coconuts use is rice and beans, Limns delicious take on gallo pinto, made with refreshing coconut milk and a symphony of spices and peppers. Regularly accompanying baked chicken with coconut gravy, this is a staple dish of the Caribbean diet.

In other parts of Costa Rica, coconut is used in sweets and desserts. Look for classic cocadas or trtaras delicious coconut and caramel brittle baked in pastry sold near bus stops and at busy intersections. Another typical dessert is cajetas de coco, coconutand-brown-sugar sweets similar to cocadas but chewier.

Agua de pipa is usually sold anywhere the heat strikes. Ice-cold young coconuts are decapitated to reveal a hole seemingly made for a straw. Enjoy pure and delicious natures own electrolyte power booster, with no added sugar, sodium or artificial colorings. It even makes a good mixer for other concoctions.

For this column, I offer a recipe for rice and beans with spiced coconut gravy, in honor of the coconut flair used in Caribbean cooking. Buen provecho!

In a wide skillet over medium heat, fry onions and peppers in oil for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add garlic and ginger and saut for one minute. Incorporate the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Adjust flavors and reserve.

In a saucepan, bring coconut milk to a boil. Add curry, sugar, soy sauce and lemon juice, and simmer for two minutes. In a bowl, mix cornstarch and 1/4 cup water until no lumps are visible. Add to coconut-curry mixture and whisk until gravy thickens. To serve, make a bed of the hot rice and beans and pour the gravy on top.

Makes five servings.

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In Costa Rica, Coconut is Used Liberally in Caribbean Cooking : - The Tico Times

After what is going on with Johnny Depp, Disney will not count on Depp for the Pirates of the Caribbean project.

Dwayne Johnson will replace Johnny Depp's role as Captain Jack Sparrow.

The celebrated actor will no longer be part of the iconic film saga following Amber Heard's indirect accusations in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the company is already looking for possible replacements for this situation.

Rumor says that Margot Robbie could take on this role in the new Pirates of the Caribbean project. However, there are still doubts about Robbie's incursion.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that they are working on two spin-offs. Specialized sources affirm that there could be a third with an unexpected protagonist.

According to Giant Freakin Robot, The Rock could be the main actor in the third spin-off.

Dwayne Johnson has a cordial relationship with Disney. The positive link was enough reason to advance Johnson as the new protagonist.

The Rock co-starred with Emily Blunt in Jungle Cruise, a film released in 2021.

Disney would like to include a makeover with one of Hollywood's most established stars.

Interestingly, Dwayne Johnson could relieve another actor in the spotlight in his recent career.

The performer would also replace Will Smith in the new Aladdin movie.

Obtaining Jack Sparrow's role would be another success for the Californian actor.

The Rock already knows to participate in films with great box-office returns such as Jumanji or The Fast & Furious saga.

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Is The Rock replacing Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in the new Pirates of the Caribbean project? - Marca

Scientists already knew that where the western Amazon rainforest sits today was once a vast wetland, almost four times the size of Texas and periodically flooded by pulses of seawater. Now, a new study posits that the source of these pulses was most likely the Caribbean Sea, and that there was another later and much more significant episode of marine incursions that contributed to the species richness of the region as we know it today, including its iconic river dolphins.

This new paper goes to great lengths to confirm this link between the Caribbean and the Amazon, Carina Hoorn, a researcher from the University of Amsterdam, who in the 1990s was the first to suggest the idea of marine incursions in the western Amazon, told Mongabay in a video call.

Previous research by Hoorn and other scientists dates these episodes to the early Miocene epoch (23 million to 16.3 million years ago) and the middle Miocene (14.9 million to 12.9 million years ago). Since then, these sea invasions have been the subject of several studies trying to delve into their timing, duration, intensity and origin.

The latest study, published in March by researchers from Brazil and the United States, makes the case for a much more intensive period of marine incursions during the late Miocene (11.1 million to 8.8 million years ago). It also uses fossil evidence to show that the source of this flooding was the Caribbean, with the water flowing down what is today the Orinoco River Basin in Venezuela.

Researchers talked about six possible routes to the marine incursions, lead author Lilian Leandro, a researcher at Unisinos University in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, told Mongabay in a video call. But now we have managed to hammer out that it came from the Caribbean Sea.

To get to the bottom of the mystery, Leandro and her colleagues compared microfossils from samples from three offshore cores in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with six core samples taken from onshore sites in Brazils Solimoes River Basin. (The Solimes is the stretch of the Amazon River in the western Amazon that runs from the border with Peru to where it meets the Negro River in the city of Manaus, in Amazonas state.)

The similarity between microfossil assemblages of the Solimoes Basin and the Caribbean Sea, and evidence of increased runoff from the Orinoco River drainage system, strongly suggest the Caribbean Sea as the primary source area of the marine incursions, supporting a Venezuelan seaway, the study says.

Carlos DApolito, who studies fossilized spores and pollen at the Federal University of Mato Grosso but was not involved in the recent study, said the mix of freshwater and saltwater environments, nutrients washed down with from the Andes, and the tropical climate all combined to conjure up a melting pot ready to produce [this] spectacular [Amazonian] biodiversity.

Leandros study also helps flesh out what researchers now understand about the intensity and the timing of this phenomenon. Since 1993, when Hoorn found evidence of fossilized pollen from coastal mangrove trees during her fieldwork deep inland in northwestern Brazil, there has been a general consensus among researchers that the region received repeated marine incursions for at least two periods of time, in the early and middle Miocene.

The possibility of a third and more recent period of incursions, during the late Miocene, was already suggested by researchers like Ana Paula Linhares, from the Museu Paraense Emlio Goeldi, in 2017, and Bruno Espinosa, from the Federal University of Mato Grosso, in 2021. The new study, co-authored by Linhares, not only confirms this hypothesis, but also identifies this third episode as being far more intense than the previous ones.

During this time interval we saw a greater magnitude of this marine incursion, meaning that it lasted longer than in previous periods, Leandro said. We found shark scales from the late Miocene in the Amazon.

DApolito, a co-author on Espinosas 2021 study, said the new study confirms their previous research, and adds a much larger amount of data to the scientific record. What makes this third incursion so important, he said in a video call, is that it means the duration and impact of this event over the Amazon biodiversity formation is greater than we thought.

All the researchers interviewed by Mongabay agreed that the effects of this period of marine incursions are still visible in the rainforest, in the form of animals and plants that originated in the ocean but have over the course of millions of years adapted to the freshwater environment.

The river dolphins are part of that history, they are a relic of the connection with the ocean, Hoorn said. And there is a lot we dont know yet.

Leandros paper also raises the possibility of a fourth and even more recent period of marine incursions, during the early Pliocene (4.7 million to 3.8 million years ago), but she said this still needs to be confirmed through further investigation.

There are two plausible explanations for the marine incursions into the Amazon, experts say: a global warming period, which led to the melting of the glaciers and a corresponding rise in the sea level; and the formation of the Andes mountain range, which created a vast area of lowlands in the western Amazon.

It transformed the Amazon into a large drain, a lower area that became a channel for these marine incursions, Leandro said.

The precise characteristics of this landscape are still uncertain, but several studies point to a vast wetland, known as the Pebas Mega Wetland, that was permanently flooded with freshwater and that periodically received pulses of seawater.

This landscape has been shaped over the years, but the data indicate that the western Amazon was generally a lacustrine [lake] environment with occasional saline and brackish records, Linhares said .

This wetland was home to an impressive array of animals, DApolito said: There are records of a dinosaur-sized crocodile, almost 12 meters long [39 feet], and a turtle the size of a car. It was an incredible swamp system.

Studies show there were at least three periods marked by marine incursions, all of them coming from the Caribbean Sea. They took place during the Miocene epoch, from 23 million to 8.8 million years ago, bringing saltwater to the western Amazon, which at the time was a vast swamp called the Pebas Mega Wetland. Image by Lilian Leandro.

The same rise of the Andes that allowed seawater into the continent eventually led to the end of the marine incursions, according to the study; the surging of the last part of the mountain range around 1.8 million years ago, in todays Mrida region of Venezuela, closed off the coastal channel that had allowed the seawater to surge inland. And the accumulation of Andean sediment created new ground in the wetland basin, raising the altitude of much of the western Amazon and shrinking the giant lake of the Pliocene to the Amazon River as we know it today, according to the findings. A period of global cooling, which lowered the sea level further, also contributed to ending the linkage between the ocean and the forest, the researchers say.

The Amazons history, however, still holds many mysteries.

The greatest difficulty in studying the Amazon is to obtain sediments, Leandro said. Many of these sediments we can only get on the riverbanks during the dry season. But even these outcrops dont reach very old ages.

Most of the time, the only way out is to analyze samples drilled for commercial purposes, especially mining, as Leandro and her colleagues had to rely on for their study.

To address this gap, an international group of scientists will begin the largest sampling project ever in the Amazon, drilling rock cores from three Brazilian sites: in the Acre, Solimes and Maraj basins. Hoorn, who is participating in the project, said the start of drilling was delayed because of the pandemic, but should begin by the end of this year.

The aim is to drill some key locations to get new sediment samples capable of offering much more precise information about the past, so we can see how the forest responded to climate change, for instance, she said.

Scientists say that understanding what happened in the Amazon in the distant past can give us a clue to what may happen in the near future, especially when it comes to climate change. The Miocene saw average temperatures around 14 Celsius (25.2 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels much higher than the 2C (3.6F) increase that the international community is trying to avoid with the Paris Agreement.

The difference is that the current rate of global warming is taking place much faster than during the Miocene, DApolito said.

These are very different time scales. In our studies, we analyzed changes that occurred over hundreds of thousands of years. What we are seeing now is a process of decades, he said.

The result, he added, is a higher risk of mass extinction. In hundreds and thousands or millions of years, species have time to adapt, he said. In a few tens of years, they do not.

In the Amazon, this process is being intensified by record rates of fire and deforestation.

The unbridled actions of the human species harm other species, mainly through the destruction of their natural habitats and further undermining the coping with environmental variations that already exist, Linhares said.

By cutting forest, Hoorn said, you change the landscape in a much more problematic way than with climate change. It changes the surface, it creates erosional processes that make it impossible for the forest to go back.

Citations:

Leandro,L.M., Linhares,A.P., De Lira Mota,M.A., Fauth,G., Santos,A., Villegas-Martn,J., Ramos,M.I. (2022). Multi-proxy evidence of Caribbean-sourced marine incursions in the Neogene of Western Amazonia, Brazil.Geology,50(4), 465-469. doi:10.1130/g49544.1

Hoorn,C. (1993). Marine incursions and the influence of Andean tectonics on the Miocene depositional history of northwestern Amazonia: Results of a palynostratigraphic study.Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology,105(3-4), 267-309. doi:10.1016/0031-0182(93)90087-y

Linhares,A.P., Gaia,V.D., & Ramos,M.I. (2017). The significance of marine microfossils for paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Solimes Formation (Miocene), western Amazonia, Brazil.Journal of South American Earth Sciences,79, 57-66. doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2017.07.007

Espinosa,B.S., DApolito,C., & Da Silva-Caminha,S.A. (2021). Marine influence in western Amazonia during the late Miocene.Global and Planetary Change,205, 103600. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103600

Banner image: A frog in Peruvian Amazon. Scientists say there is still a strong marine influence over the forest that created a melting pot ready to produce spectacular biodiversity. Image by Rhett A. Butler.

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Caribbean incursion into Amazon sparked a flurry of life, with lessons for the future - Mongabay.com

The Caribbeanmight be best known for its beryl-blue lagoons and palm-stooped beaches, its honeymoon hotels and reggae-echoing jerk towns, but it's also something of an undiscovered surfing mecca.

The Caribbean Sea is on just one side of most islands with the wide, wrathful Atlantic on the other. That's why the region can offer all sorts, from the bombing barrel waves right down to the whitecap rollers for the beginners.Here are the best places to surf in the Caribbean.

It should hardly come as a surprise that the whole island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas is littered with fantastic breaks. Just check the map. It bends like a laid-in hammock to face the whole open Atlantic on its eastern side. An eastern side, by the way, that's virtually completely lined by talcum sands with a fringing of ocean reef.

The highlight sits somewhere between Gregory Town and Alice Town, up some sand-doused tracks by a wide point. Cue Surfer's Beach. It's named for the consistent wintertime shorebreaks that roll in up and down its length. Depending on swell size and period, they can be bombing overheads or ankle-burning small waves, but are almost never busy.

Drop into Rebecca's Beach Shop en route to meet local ledge Surfer Pete. He has tips, does lessons, and even sells his own conch salad and chili sauce from the haberdashery shack.

Getting to Eleuthera: This one's off-radar and you'll need a car. It's about half an hour from North Eleuthera Airport.

Encuentro Beach (en-quen-tro) is an 800m-or-so (2625ft) squiggle on the north Dominican Republic coast. Spilling out into a shallow reef shelf from groves of twisted coralillo trees and pencil-straight palms, it's a shaded, secret spot that might as well be advertised as a theme park for board-touting travelers.

The reason? There are sections here for all levels. To the east, there's a designated beginner playground on stomach-deep reef that connects the beach to the outer breaks. When you're ready, paddle back a little to find Bobo's Point a consistent left-right reef break that loves head-on northerlies or Main Peak a relatively deep reef that attracts a cluster of chatting regulars. Experts can chase the right-hander barrel of Coco Pipe or hit the shallow-bottomed Destroyer at the far west end of the bay.

Spreading the lineup along different parts of the shore helps to keep Encuentro nice and chilled. That said, there has been a boom in surf schools in the last decade or so, although Bobo's is still the pick of the bunch. The crowd is very international, and gatherings in the hammock-strewn palms by the beginner area, cerveza welcome, are the norm once a session is done.

Getting to Encuentro Beach: Public buses run the main 5 highway out of Cabarete, but most people get a private transfer in from the airport in Puerto Plata.

No list of the top surf spots in the Caribbean could possibly skip out on Puerto Rico'sRincn. Hailed as the surfing capital of the whole region, it's home to about seven truly fantastic breaks that do Oahu impressions when the winter swells turn on the goods from November to March. And it's not just barrels. It's big, beefy, slabby overheads with XXL credentials.

The headline acts are the frothing walls at Dogman's and Tres Palmas. This is the duo that churns out the hollow lines, but they are unforgiving beasts that peel off shallow reefs and not for the faint of heart. Intermediates shouldn't despair options include Domes, an A-frame reef with a peeling right that's beloved of loggers in the late season, or Maria's, a small-swell crumbler that's downright fun.

Not to be confused with its Ventura-Santa Barbara namesake, Puerto Rico's Rincn backs up the action with a spread of bisque-colored beaches bathed in tropical air. The time to surf matches the Caribbean high season, so expect dry days in the 20Cs (70Fs) and cooling offshore trade winds throughout.

Getting to Rincn: Access from the air is into San Juan, from where it's a 2.5- to 3-hour drive. There's also the Rafael Hernndez Marn International Airport much closer, but not many flight links just yet.

There was a time not so long ago when even whispering about the existence of Palmetto Point would have been a serious breach of surfers' code. That all changed when plans were drawn up to develop the beaches here with lux hotels and matching golf courses. That prompted some of the quiet, in-the-know few to go public to corral the resistance.

Thankfully, this far-flung corner of Barbuda is so hard to reach that lineups are probably not going to be an issue (although the resorts would be!). The wave is something special, peeling in rows of perfect right-hand tubes off a sandbank into long, frothing rides where you can see the pink-tinged powder glisten in the water overhead. Paradise.

Getting to Palmetto Point: This is not easy. Private charter planes or ferries connect in from Antigua, then you'll need a 4WD to navigate tracks to the point.

Don't just take our word for the quality of the Bajan Soup Bowl eight-time Pipe Master champ and 11-time WSL champ Kelly Slater hails this as one of the most entertaining waves on the planet.

The muse to his lyrical waxing? A break that works like clockwork in the winter Atlantic swell season to offer a right-hander with an inviting C-shaped face. It's like a tailor-made performance wave that's just asking to be ripped with all sorts of turns and twists and airs.

You'll find Soup Bowl lipping into the bay at Bathsheba, east Barbados. It's very much the stomping ground of pros when it's in season (November to March), but mellows down to intermediate level in the summer. There are also some nearby breaks that are way less fought-over, Parlours especially, which fragments into multiple peaks to spread the crowds.

Getting to Soup Bowl: Head to Bathsheba, which is just about as far from Bridgetown as you can go. A hire car is your best bet.

If jostling with the crowds of Cabarete and Encuentro isn't really your idea of surfing in paradise, then scoot down the northern coast to Playa Preciosa. Enfolded by jungle-topped headlands and girdled by just a sliver of silvery sand, it's like something out of the marketing brochures.

Okay, so the waves dip in quality a little compared to its compadres. They are mainly wedgy little fingers to cut right and left on for 2050m (65164ft) or so. But it's the peace, the quiet, and the empty lineup that will entertain you here, not to mention the clutch of uber-luxurious villas with infinity pools that hide just through the orchid-filled coast jungles.

Getting to Playa Preciosa: Get to Puerto Jimenez first. From there, it's a 15-minute drive or private transfer.

Boston Bay is the top surf spot in Jamaica and for good reason. It's virtually the only location on the island that gets a little punch of the stronger winter systems from the open Atlantic, all thanks to a nice swell gap between Cuba and the island of Hispaniola to the northeast.

November to March is high time to catch it, when you'll get a refracting A-frame that peels into Lynches Bay. The right is softer and beginner-friendly. The left is cleaner and better for intermediates, but be ready to pump the front of the board to drag out the rides, as powerful days are rare. Surf aside, Boston Bay is a foodie mecca with some of the best jerk on the island.

Getting to Boston Bay: Try to fly to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and then do the three-hour trip from there. It's four hours or more from Montego Bay.

Rincn might steal the headlines in this unincorporated territory of the USA, but Aguadilla is worth a look in if you're cruising down the north-coast highways from Arecibo and San Juan. It's got competition pedigree and some quality waves

Chief among them is simply named Surfer's Beach, a reef break that rolls into pebbly sand and lines of wind-blasted date palms, offering fast rights and a lippy little left. The XL conditions will power up Wilderness, too, a wave that's remote and heavy. Bridges and Jobos are the options that suit all levels.

PR Surf Adventures run tailor-made trips in this part of the island. It's headed up by Pig, a qualified surf judge with intimate knowledge of the regional breaks both secret and named. If in doubt stay in Playa Jobos, where there's a palm-ringed beach, a break on the doorstep, and lots of seafood.

Getting to Aguadilla: Fly to the Rafael Hernndez Marn International Airport. There aren't many flights going there (yet), but it's a stone's throw from the main surf points.

Go here to read the rest:

8 of the best surf spots in the Caribbean: turquoise waves and paradise beach breaks - Lonely Planet Travel News

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Last Updated 1 day ago

During the past few weeks, weather experts have been alerting the population about hurricane season in the Atlantic. Now, the Government of the United States has issued a warning for American citizens in regions that can be affected.

The information has been published by the Department of State on the page of the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean, and the OECS. Authorities stated: Hurricane Season in the Atlantic begins June 1 and runs through November 30. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center expects the 2022 season to be above average for the seventh consecutive year.

Those considering traveling near the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea during the season, must stay aware and up to date. NOAA predicted that this hurricane season 2022 in the Atlantic will produce 14 to 21 storms, 6 to 10 hurricanes, and 3 to 6 major hurricanes.

There is a 65% chance of an above-normal season. Gina M. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, said: Early preparation and understanding your risk is key to being hurricane resilient and climate-ready.

Raimondo also added: Throughout the hurricane season, NOAA experts will work around-the-clock to provide early and accurate forecasts and warnings that communities in the path of storms can depend on to stay informed.

There are several climate factors related to the increasing amount of hurricanes, tropical cyclones, and storms, including the atmospheric phenomenon La Nia. Travelers can look up more scientific details on NOAAs website and should also follow the US Governments recommendations.

The government has shared advisory for US citizens visiting or living in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, or near the Atlantic ocean. These are the main recommendations:

Most travelers are eager to travel to all the fascinating destinations in the Hurricane Belt like Miami, The Bahamas, or Cancun. However, this season those interested in high-risk destinations should take some precautions besides the ones already mentioned by the US State Department.

A few weeks ago, Florida experienced one of the worst flight delays in years due to thunderstorms and over 10,000 flights were canceled or delayed. So travelers must consider that this is a possibility when traveling between June and November. Flexible tickets and rebooking alternatives might come in handy, as well as preparing for the unpredictable.

Another thing to consider is to opt for destinations that have historically remained safe in the Caribbean like Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago. Visiting sunny destinations also with beautiful beaches but the Pacific is a great alternative, like Hawaii or Mexicos Pacific coast: Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, Mazatlan or Acapulco. Likewise, Panama can offer visitors great beaches, warm weather, and no hurricane worry.

Read More:

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U.S. Government Issues Travel Advisory Regarding Hurricane Season In The Caribbean - Travel Off Path