Cruising Grounds

During the gloomy winter of 2011, while temperatures in Minneapolis hovered around -10F, my fiancée, Christine, and I made a pledge to sail as many of Minnesota’s lakes as possible in one summer.
If happiness is in the journey, then ecstasy is in the destination—just ask a trailer-sailor. Neither long road trips nor unfamiliar waters intimidate these stalwarts, who are always on the lookout for a new place to splash.

What Heat Wave?

by Robby Robinson, Posted August 11, 2008
Yes, temperatures may be high, but there are brisk southeasterlies, warm waters, and the biminiEvening was still very hot. Friends had told us not to miss the unique monastery on Cat Island, and my wife, Carol, seemed eager and able. But as we traipsed the beachfront in the sun, I was waiting for my life to flash before my eyes. Going out in the noonday sun has never seemed
By the time you read this, Kinship, an American-flagged Saga 43, will have made its second Atlantic crossing in little over half a year. As I write, the yacht is staging in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, just off the coast of Morocco.
On May 20, 2009, we were in St. Marys, Georgia, and it had been raining as hard as it could for 10 straight days. The wind was blowing a steady 30 knots with gusts over 40. Everything was soaked.
D.C. may be a city on a swamp, but the Potomac River offers a surprising variety of sailing options that beats the hour-long trip to nearby Annapolis. 
We cruised by the Strawberry Island Lighthouse in Canada’s North Channel at 7 knots in a brisk 25-knot wind. I was aboard Henk Vanderhulst’s Precision 23, Go Gently, and he, despite his 80 years, was unwilling to risk his reputation for leaving the fleet in his wake.
When I was 11, my Dad, his buddies and I sailed Wind Dancer, his C&C 37, from Long Island Sound to Chesapeake Bay. It was my second offshore passage.
“I always put the fear of God into people that this is the world’s third-largest barrier reef,” says Capt. Joe Dyll of the western Florida Keys, which have long been one of his favorite cruising grounds.
When Dr. Seuss wrote these words, he must have had cruisers on his mind. Rare is the cruiser who doesn’t dream of sailing over the horizon, of exploring remote areas.
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