North America

Sound of Silence

by Sail Staff, Posted August 14, 2008

An early-season week in British Columbia desolation sound proves that you can still get away from it all.It wasn’t until our third day of cruising Desolation Sound that we began to feel, well, desolate. We’d overnighted in two anchorages that were almost empty by East Coast standards, but full by British Columbia measures—i.e., we still had other boats within earshot. The

The Best Of Times

by Charles Mason, Posted August 13, 2008

Charter a boat, sail your own boat; stay near home or cross the country to sample the waters. Summer is a good time to do it“To every thing there is a season,” said the writer of Ecclesiastes. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a sailor, and you don’t need me to tell you that this statement should be needlepointed on a pillow in the saloon of every sailboat. Generally,

Dreamcatcher

by Rebecca Waters, Posted August 7, 2008

Myth, mystery, and Midnight Magic evoke childhood adventures on a Lake Michigan charterWe were lost in the woods on Garden Island. The trail we followed from the Native American graveyard had melted into a woodland clearing, leaving us guessing at the path ahead. My brother Xander had even stopped pointing out peculiar vegetation and was instead studying the trail map

Five Mornings In Maine

by Sail Staff, Posted August 7, 2008

When you hit the weather right, the Maine coast is simply Shangri-laThe Maine cruise my new fiance, Caroline, and I took over the long Fourth of July weekend was a preemptive honeymoon. We’d been together and sailed together for over seven years when I donned my tuxedo and popped the question on a borrowed Rhodes 19 as the sun set over the Boston skyline on the summer

Whaling, Whaling

by Sail Staff, Posted August 6, 2008

It doesn’t take much to lure me out of the Northeast in February—just a little warm salt water and a sailboat will always do it. But it was pure East Coast envy that brought me to Magdalena Bay, on the Pacific Coast of the Baja peninsula, for a whale-watching/sea-kayaking/camping adventure run by Sea Kayak Adventures. Mag Bay is the northernmost of the three bays on that coast to which

Superior Sailing

by Sail Staff, Posted September 22, 2006

Just as we were about to ease into a quiet evening at anchor in Presque Isle Bay, on the south side of Wisconsin’s Stockton Island, the crowd rushed in. The procession of cruising sailboats resembled a busy airport with planes lined up miles to leeward of the main runway. We watched as the cruisers came from all over the Apostle Islands and dropped into formation, motoring one by one into the