Cruising Grounds

Cruising the Panhandle

by Adam Cort, Posted May 9, 2011

Walking down the dock to the Beneteau 393 Splendid Adventure I felt like I was arriving at the scene of a crime. It was late October, and the overcast night sky was pitch black. The air was sweltering hot, absolutely still. To the right I could see the lights of the port of Pensacola, Florida, to the left the lights of the city’s historic Seville Square district. What I was really looking for,

Sailing the Arctic

by Nicolas Peissel, Posted May 5, 2011

Since my partner, Edvin Buregren, and I started planning to sail the Northwest Passage this summer aboard our 31-foot fiberglass sloop Belzebub II—on a shoestring budget, no less—we have realized that a polar voyage is unlike any other.Route Planning: Picking a route through the Northwest Passage requires methodical planning. The majority of charted Arctic waters were surveyed with

Great Lakes Solo

by Charles Scott, Posted April 25, 2011

I have always been drawn to solo sailing. I’m not sure if it’s the challenge, the peace and solitude, or just the difficulty of finding good crew. Singlehanding has its risks, but I’ve also found sailing alone very rewarding.Aboard my Westsail 32, Antares, I cruised from Detroit up Lake Huron and into Lake Michigan. The first leg, from Port Huron to Mackinac

One Fine Bay

by Meredith Laitos, Posted March 11, 2011

The great thing about sailing in a new location for the first time is that you have no idea what to expect. Without a laundry list of hot-spots-we-always-visit, your itinerary is a blank canvas, ready to be painted and repainted as you see fit.This was the case last April when a crew of comrades and I chartered a boat from Annapolis Bay Charters in Annapolis, Maryland, for a week of

Cruising Croatia

by Fred Bagley, Posted March 10, 2011

I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy, but here I am sampling octopus salad. When I grab it's usually a Bud, but today I'm enjoying a Karlovacko. I usually anchor in monosyllabic places like Gore Bay, but tonight the hook is dropping in Starogradski Zaljev. My chartplotter has always read longitude west of Greenwich, but this screen says 16 degrees east. Where am I?Croatia,

A Photographic Journey of Star Flyer

by Meredith Laitos, Posted February 7, 2011

At 360 feet long and 220 feet tall, the barquentine clipper ship Star Flyer is a sight to behold under sail.It takes three officers and over two dozen crew to manage the sixteen sails aboard Star Flyer, one of the three clipper ships in the Star Clippers family. Here, the crew poses from the bowsprit while

Paradise Found

by Cheetah Haysom, Posted January 25, 2011

In an age of instant knowledge, it’s rare to hear of places that are still “undiscovered.” This past summer, however, I had the opportunity to explore a cruising ground that, at least to the Western world, is still undiscovered: Montenegro’s Gulf of Kotor.For years, Montenegro was considered out of bounds for Western sailors. With a population of 650,000—roughly the size of Baltimore—the

It's Not All Cocktails in the Cockpit

by Nan Scrimgeour Weston, Posted January 24, 2011

Ten days gone, five things wrong…forget it!” How often have these words been uttered by a captain in a state of complete frustration?We’d said our goodbyes at Georgia’s Brunswick Landing Marina and cast our lines. All was bright until we headed across St. Andrew’s Sound. The sunny weather changed quickly, and we were surrounded by patchy fog for the half hour we had to point our bow into

Dry Tortugas Adventure

by Jack Foard, Posted January 24, 2011

Drop your hook in crystal clear turquoise water, walk these white sandy beaches under the bright warm sun and blue sky, and you might just think you are somewhere deep in the Bahamas or Caribbean. It’s hard to believe the Dry Tortugas, my favorite sailing destination in Florida, is only 70 miles west of Key West.It was 2000 on a warm September evening when my wife, Desir, my sister Jane,

Port of Call: Beaufort, North Carolina

by Peter Nielsen, Posted January 13, 2011

For cruisers bound south from points north, the long slog down the Intracoastal Waterway often ends at Beaufort, North Carolina, on the Crystal Coast, at the southern end of the Outer Banks. For some weary sailors, this backwater (in the best sense of the word) provides a chance to recuperate, repair, regroup, refuel and re-provision before firing up the diesel once more and plugging on down