An annual coastal circuit of the living reef edge — serious science by day, extraordinary living by night, and a story being written one circuit at a time. Mexico to Panama and back. Every year. As long as the seas permit.
The Rim Run™ is the annual Mexico-to-Panama coastal circuit that follows the living edge of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System south through seven countries and back. It is not recreational sailing with a scientific label attached. It is a structured, repeatable, GPS-referenced field observation program executed from a small boat by someone who built an entire career around doing difficult things correctly — and who happens to love doing them from the water.
Beginning each October, the expedition departs Mexico and sails south — anchoring over reef systems, conducting standardized observations daily, fishing responsibly, provisioning locally, and operating within disciplined daylight sailing segments. Every marine authority along the route is treated as a partner. Every government fisheries department is approached with transparency and genuine respect. Every coastal community is entered as a guest who intends to give back more than they take.
The data collected — water conditions, reef structure, coral health, biological observations, human impact — is documented with the precision of someone trained in submarine nuclear operations, where there is no margin for sloppiness and no one else to call. That data will be made available to selected scientific institutions and conservation organizations. Not because this expedition exists to serve academia — but because the data is real, and real data belongs in the hands of people who can use it.
The Rim Run™ is not a standalone science program. Every observation made on this circuit feeds into GROAN — Global Reef & Ocean Analytics Network — a five-level ocean decision intelligence system and the foundation of doctoral research in cross-ecosystem causal intelligence. The Mesoamerican Reef is GROAN's primary research environment. This expedition generates the original field data that the system's Cross-Module Interaction Engine works with. Field observation is the input. Better decisions about reef systems are the output.
Anchor Down — The Rim Run Way
From Mexico's Yucatán to Panama's San Blas and back — 1,500+ nautical miles, two ecosystem zones, two operational hubs. The same loop every year, refined each season. No leg is hurried. No government relationship is taken for granted. No coastal community is passed through without a genuine attempt to understand what they know, what they need, and what the expedition can contribute to their lives and their shoreline.
Rim Run™ Annual Circuit — Mexico to Panama and back
| Country | Key Stops | Days | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇲🇽 Mexico | Puerto Aventuras · Cozumel · Xcalak · Banco Chinchorro | ~21 | Northern hub — government coordination, REEF partnership & staging |
| 🇧🇿 Belize | Ambergris · Turneffe · Lighthouse Reef · Blue Hole · Glover's · South Water · Placencia | ~100 | World's 2nd largest barrier reef — home waters & citizen science base |
| 🇬🇹 Guatemala | Livingston · Río Dulce · Lake Izabal | ~35 | Most extraordinary inland waterway in the Americas — Q'eqchi' Maya oral traditions |
| 🇭🇳 Honduras | Cayos Cochinos · Utila · Roatán · Guanaja | ~80 | Bay Islands — whale sharks, 100+ ft visibility & Garfíuna maritime knowledge |
| 🇳🇮 Nicaragua | Big Corn Island · Little Corn Island · Pearl Cays | ~29 | Priority Year 1 — essentially unsurveyed, Miskito reef knowledge still intact |
| 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | Tortuguero · Cahuita NP · Puerto Viejo · Manzanillo | ~35 | Jungle meets reef — Afro-Caribbean oral tradition & dormant Reef Check sites |
| 🇵🇦 Panama | Bocas del Toro · Portobelo · San Blas / Guna Yala | ~44 | Southern hub — Reef Check EcoDiver training, Guna autonomy & finest snorkeling on circuit |
🇧🇿 Belize — Lighthouse Reef
🇧🇿 Belize — Turneffe Atoll
🇧🇿 Belize — Glover's Reef
🇧🇿 Belize — South Water Caye
🇬🇹 Guatemala — Río Dulce
🇭🇳 Honduras — Roatán
🇭🇳 Honduras — Guanaja
🇳🇮 Nicaragua — Corn Islands
🇵🇦 Panama — Bocas del Toro
🇵🇦 Panama — Guna Yala / San Blas
A Hobie Getaway catamaran — 17 feet of shoal-draft, wind-powered reef machine. Twenty-four inches of draft means Shamrocket goes places no keelboat can follow: inside the barrier reef, up against the caye, into the mangrove channel, onto the beach itself. Right up to where the people are. Where the stories live. Where the real knowledge is kept.
Wind and solar only. Zero diesel. Zero carbon. As GROAN Level 1 — the Mobile Ocean Observation Platform — Shamrocket is the physical decision arm of a five-level ocean intelligence system. Every deployment is decision-driven. Every data point feeds the architecture above it.
Shamrocket — Hobie Getaway · 24" draft · GROAN Level 1
The work is real. The evenings are extraordinary. When the data is logged and the anchor is set, something shifts — the cast net goes in, whatever the Caribbean gives up goes on the solar stove, and the Rim Runner™ gets made. This is how the day ends when the day has been done right. The food, the music, the company of people who belong here — this is not the reward for the expedition. It is the other half of it.
What the Mint Julep is to horse racing, Bourbon Storm™ is to the yachting community. Born on a blue-sky equatorial Pacific day in 1984 that turned dark, wet, and alive — then cleared just as fast. The recipe remained private for forty-one years. It belongs to the water and to the evenings the water gives you when you've earned them.
Heavy straight-sided rocks glass with a blue rim band. Rim mix: 2 parts coarse sea salt, 1 part sugar. Wet the outside rim with fresh lime and dip. Fill with fresh ice.
1½ oz white rum • ¾ oz blue curaçao • 1 oz pineapple juice • ½ oz fresh lime juice • 1 oz coconut water • 1–2 dashes ginger or aromatic bitters. Shake hard ~10 seconds. Strain over fresh ice.
Float ½–¾ oz dark rum over the back of a bar spoon. Blue below. Dark above. Salt and sky at the rim. Do not stir.
Same blue base. Float ½–¾ oz bourbon instead of dark rum. The bourbon is the star — the first nose, first sip, and finish live in that top layer.
Pineapple juice, coconut water, orange juice, lime, blue curaçao syrup (NA). Float iced tea or cola as the storm band. Same glass. Same rim. Same protocol.
The Rim Runner™
Rim Lightning — 1984 · The origin
