The Las Palmas Carnival, on the volcanic Canary Island of Gran Canaria, is a spectacle of colour, dancing, singing and celebration and will certainly make for a more interesting and exciting family holiday next Spring or just a fun way to experience this beautiful island. The 2009 Carnival is just in time for the February break in the run up to Lent so your children won’t have to miss out on ther education to see it (if you want to take them with you that is) and spans three weeks from the 3rd to the 28th of February.

The Carnival is packed with all sorts of exciting parties, galas and contests, from the popular Gala of the Carnival Queen showcasing hours of loving work on beautiful costumes glittering with sequins, feathers and lavish luxury to the gaudy appeal of the Drag Queen Contest.  For the younger members of the family there is a dedicated Children’s Carnival where they have their very own Child Queen Gala along with fancy dress competitions, dancing and singing contests. Set against the spectacular backdrop of the volcanic Gran Canarian landscape, the effect is totally exhillerating. What better way to get close to the magic and then be able to cruise along to a peaceful beach when you want to relax afterwards than chartering a yacht, especially when all the hotels will be packed with eager carnival goers, to see what you could be relaxing in once the party is over these are the available yachts in the Canaries for the event. So book your flights, your yacht and your family and go!

As one of the biggest yard and marina owners in North East America, Brewer Yacht Yards and Marinas are planning a massive clean up of all 21 of its sites to bring them upto the standard of the ‘Clean Marina’. Starting with their largest, Brewer Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook, Connecticut, where they have been practising many of the Clean Marina policies before the Clean Marina guidelines came out, they are also helping the local authorities write a guide book to help smaller marinas understand the regulations and how to implement them in a practical sense.  Rives Potts, general manager of Pilots Point since 1980, says

œI think our customers have become more savvy on environmental issues because of the number of favorable comments on our efforts, I think our whole industry has been behind the ball, and we’re just becoming aware of it.

He has been keen on creating more environmentally aware and sustainable yards and marinas for at least the past 30 years and is happy that now people are encouraging these regulations to be enforced, after all, in the long term, it will be easier and cheaper to maintain your yacht and safer for you to use the water and enjoy it if the water it is in is clean.  The message coming through from all sides is clear, we need to create a sustainable environment or the yacht industry will become its own worst enemy, spoiling the reasons that so many people enjoy it.

[More information about how you can charter a yacht more greenly]
Some information courtesy of Trade Only Today online.