Opinion

In November 2014, my wife, Kathy, and I joined the ARC Bahamas to sail off into our retirement aboard our new-to-us 2003 Fountaine Pajot Belize

Ping! It was the tiniest little squeak of a sound, but it was out of place amid the pounding waves and constant groaning of the

It was a typical late August afternoon on the Chesapeake Bay, where the winds were light and my mood anything but. NOAA radio had predicted

I had planned a six-day family cruise with my wife and two daughters on Dreamer, our new Catalina 36 Mark II. This was the fourth sailboat

It was 1000 and already the temperature was 80 degrees. There was no wind, and Banderas Bay looked like a glass lake. My husband, Jay,

We set off before lunch to cross Chesapeake Bay from our home base in Heathsville, Virginia, where the Potomac River merges with the bay. Point

We’ve all heard the old adage, “the two happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it.”

I’m racing over the impossibly blue waters of a very feisty Exuma Sound and to port there’s nothing but fiberglass-hungry rocks as far as I can see. The forecast warned of 25-knot winds, which seems about right, but the waves are sure a lot bigger than the three feet they had forecast.

At sea, the boundary between dream and reality can prove rather elusive. Could my shipmate actually be waking me with these confusing words: “Ray, wake up! We’re way off course, and we need to reef the deck chairs!”