SAIL.SailMagazine

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

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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

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Sailing your home waters in summer is fun; sailing someone else’s home waters is an adventure.

Now, as you read this magazine, is the time to think about where you’d like to spend your summer sailing vacation. Some mighty fine North American cruising grounds offer chartering—the way most of us get to sail outside our home waters—only in May through September or at least enjoy their finest

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One of the pleasant aspects of chartering is the opportunity to give new and different boats and/or gear an extended test-sail. If you’re a lifelong monohull sailor, you can give a catamaran a week’s workout to see if sailing on two hulls is a good fit for your future sailing plans; if you wonder how the very latest modern conveniences might enhance your lifestyle afloat, give them a try before
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Charles Darwin wasn’t impressed when in 1835 the Beagle arrived at her first landfall in the Galapagos Islands at San Cristbal (then Chatham Island), which was my starting point too. “Nothing could be less inviting than the first appearance,” he wrote. “A broken field of black basaltic lava, thrown into the most rugged waves, and crossed by great fissures, is everywhere covered

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