Guyana was first featured in the Doyle Cruising Guide for the Caribbean in its 3rd edition in 2006 as a potential destination for cruising yachts. The Doyle Guide is the bible for yachts cruising the Caribbean.
In 2006, Chris Doyle, the author of the Guide, accompanied by Donald Stollmeyer, son of the famous West Indies cricket captain Jeff Stollmeyer, and owner of a major boatyard in Trinidad and Tobago and renowned yachtsman Simon Wall, were encouraged to come to Guyana by Kit Nascimento to advise on how to develop Guyana and, in particular the Essequibo River, as a yachting destination. The visit had the full support of the government, which as Doyle wrote in the introduction to the Guide on Guyana, was “keen to see yachting develop and …wanted to get Guyana on the yachting map.”
Two years before, in 2004, Nascimento, along with David and Joyce Davis who had been sailing the Caribbean for a number of years, with the support of Nicole Correia of Evergreen Adventures and with the full encouragement of then minister of tourism Manzoor Nadir, organized a four-yacht flotilla to visit Bartica.
David Davis and Nascimento knew each other as members of the International Broadcasting Institute. He and his wife were looking for somewhere to settle at the end of their sailing days and chose the Essequibo River.
Wall had first sailed to Guyana in 1969 and helped compile the Doyle Guide feature on Guyana, including plotting the navigational waypoints from the entry to the Essequibo up river to Bartica.
When the first flotilla arrived in Guyana it had to clear Customs and Immigration under the regulations governing international shipping. This involved hiring a shipping agent and filling out extensive and complicated forms at significant cost, totally unsuitable for cruising yachts. In 2005, Cabinet approved new procedures on the recommendation of