Why were we in French Polynesia during cyclone season and an El Niño year? Well, our plan was to sail to New Zealand after six months of cruising in Tahiti, but we fell in love and stayed. So, we ran into cyclone season, which is from November through April in the South Pacific.

The behavior of cyclones changes during El Niño because of differences in sea surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions, influencing the frequency, intensity and paths of the storms. El Niño started in 2023 and continued into 2024, giving the central and eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean warmer sea surface. This can shift the cyclone formation zones eastward. Islands that are typically less affected by cyclones, such as the Southern Cook Islands and French Polynesia, have higher risk.

The Marquesas Islands are outside the typical cyclone belt; their only close call was Tropical Cyclone Nisha-Orama in February 1983. It developed north of the Marquesas during an El Niño year and had sustained winds of 115 mph in the Tuamotus. Areas more frequently affected by cyclones include Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga—but it is not impossible for cyclones to affect the Marquesas if conditions are right, such as during El Niño years.

Preparation in Tahiti

After a wonderful time diving with humpback whales in Mo’orea, we went to Tahiti to prepare the boat for the journey east to the Marquesas. Wanderlust, our Seawind 1600 catamaran, is equipped with daggerboards. It adeptly sails upwind. This feature, combined with the robust design and comfortable living space, has made it the ideal vessel for us in our long voyages across challenging waters.

In Tahiti, we inspected the rigging and systems, and unfortunately found cracked wires in the cap shrouds and the cross-beam cable (the martingale). The good news was that there are excellent riggers in Tahiti, but the bad news was that the cable had to come from Australia with a lead time of at least two weeks that turned out to be a month. By then, the easterly trade winds would be in full force and on our nose.

Meanwhile, we stocked up at the island’s markets, which are brimming with fresh produce. At every visit, we packed our bags, ensuring our boat was ready to face whatever the ocean had in store.

Papeete Marina

Papeete Marina is on the northwest side of Tahiti, which means it’s open to northern wind and swell. Large waves enter the basin, creating a significant commotion, chafing and breaking dock lines, ripping off docks or surging them over the pilings. In cyclone season, when the northern swells are more frequent, boats are often asked to seek shelter at anchor. As the inclement weather was approaching, we could already feel some of its effects. The monohulls started to behave like bucking broncos.

Finally, our cables for the repair arrived, and Wanderlust was ready.

Strategy

We tossed the lines on December 4 with a plan to sail to Fakarava, setting us up for a good angle to the Marquesas, but the next round of squalls was hot on our tail so we decided to pull into Tikehau, 150 nautical miles to the northwest. The atoll’s sparse population and natural beauty provided a serene backdrop and time to plan the journey ahead. We were held by the weather, but it wasn’t bad at all.

A couple days later, the weather changed, and we had a spectacular sail during the day. Wanderlust chugged miles quicker than expected, and we realized we would arrive in darkness—when it is unsafe to enter the atoll. We furled our screecher and set the jib to slow down a knot or two. A few hours later, the wind disappeared and was replaced by torrential rain. We had to motor and arrived at the atoll’s pass almost two hours after the desired slack tide. Not a real problem with two 80 hp engines, but it could have been with a smaller boat.

Fakarava greeted us with the rare convenience of a fuel dock. However, we did not make use of it, thinking we would be fine with the fuel we had. Rookie mistake. This amenity would have allowed us to bypass the cumbersome process of ferrying fuel in 5-gallon jerry cans, saving time, effort and my rotator cuffs, which I later destroyed in Hiva Oa by shlepping more than three dozen of them.

Fakarava hosts a vibrant underwater world and UNESCO-protected status, with unbelievable diving at the south pass, the famous wall of sharks, and the grouper spawning under a full moon in July. We were fortunate enough to enjoy that during our previous stay. This time around, the squally weather continued, and we did not even take a dip in the water.

Final Leg to Fatu Hiva

With a northwest wind, we sailed close-hauled for three days. Then the wind disappeared, and we motored in flat-calm waters that are unusual for that time of the year. The silver lining was that we were able to land a 143-pound yellowfin tuna that fed us and our friends delicious sushi and tuna tartar for months. And we learned another important lesson: While trying to lift the tuna using the main winch, I may have used the wrong size rope (I admit nothing). The winch stripper arm broke. It was a most expensive tuna, too.

On day four as the sun was starting to set, the southernmost island of the Marquesas, Fatu Hiva, presented its rugged landscape: the perfect gift on Christmas Eve. Giant clouds resting on jagged peaks, the sun’s evening light casting a golden hue on its face. A distant squall reminding us of what we’d been through. We had navigated Wanderlust about 1,000 nautical miles from Tahiti, upwind, to this Jurassic-like sanctuary for cyclone season. In the day’s final light, we anchored in the stunning Bay of Virgins, a spot already marked on the chart plotter from our previous visit.

Fatu Hiva

This land boasts a rich cultural heritage, friendly people and breathtaking landscapes. After spending some time on the island, we found ourselves reverently walking paths surrounded by raw beauty. Eventually, we stopped trying to articulate our awe, and we became part of the larger tapestry of life and nature. Gently running our fingers on the leaves of holy basil to release the magical scent, inhaling the pungent whiffs of drying copra, and bowing over gardenia flowers to take in their exhilarating aroma. Long-tail tropical birds circled above us in the backdrop of lush volcanic peaks.

Kahoha was the greeting we exchanged with the locals. Even Yoda, our dog, became a beloved figure on the island, responding joyously to calls from across the river. We made friends, bartered rope and other items for fruits, and for wild pig and goat meat. We felt a profound connection to this island.

Getting there was worth every bit of effort it took. We lived an unforgettable adventure that brought us closer to each other.

The post Dodging Storms, Chasing Thrills in French Polynesia appeared first on Cruising World.

I’m walking down the street with a roll of new navigation charts under my arm, and it makes me smile like a drunken fool. The tight, heavy roll gives off the sour scent of new paper, telling me that I’ll soon be smelling the salty air of the sea.

I want to shout, sing, crow out this welling of joy. I want to call out to the woman with the kid hanging off one arm and a shopping bag on the other: “Hey! I’m going off to sea. Look at my new charts! Yes, I’m going sailing ­somewhere new!”

The thrill began as soon as I stepped into the map seller’s shop. The fact that I stepped through that door meant I was a sailor because no one else does business there. I told him my plans, the region of the world I wanted to see in paper and ink. Out came the catalogs, and we compared scale and coverage for the waters I’d planned to sail. I jotted down the numbers of the charts I wanted, and he went to the storeroom to retrieve my order. I browsed the bookshelves filled with almanacs and pilot guides, and admired brass instruments measuring time, humidity, and pressure and space—and I waited for my treasures to appear.

I had second thoughts when the map seller jotted up the total—Holy! I could buy new running rigging for that! Heavyweight, 50 percent cotton nautical-chart paper isn’t cheap, with each sheet big enough to paper your bulkhead. But the ink doesn’t run when the sea finds its way through an open hatch to douse the navigation station. Paper charts are so expensive that I’ve been forced to sell mine after a long voyage to pay for my flight home.

Then the map seller updated my charts, accounting for all the changes that had taken place in the physical sea while this chart lay waiting for me. With a fine-point violet pen, he noted changes in depths, buoys that had moved, and coordinates that might be off by a second or two. If there had been land reclaimed or new sea walls built, he would have glued an entire patch onto the chart, bringing it up to date. Then he rolled them tightly and wrapped them in protective paper, and finally I felt their precious weight tucked under my arm.

I bought a chart that shows an entire sea, its ratio 1-to-3,500,000, which means I’m going on a long voyage. Long enough for the weather to change, the waves to turn against me, and the sea to show its rage. We’ll lose sight of land for days and nights, and maybe even a week, just to get across this one chart. The harbor charts, 1-to-10,000, show me the rocks that the locals know by heart, the sandbanks and the curve of the jetty wall. These charts mean I’ll arrive in unfamiliar waters, where strange lights will wink at me in the night. I’ve bought the chart for that little port, this protected bay. I have charts for places I don’t plan to go—small insurances in case we don’t make it across the sea and must run and hide due to a broken spar, a storm that blows too hard.

It’s a dying thing, these lithographic charts. Most commercial ships don’t carry them anymore. Charter yachts no longer have a navigation table big enough to spread out a chart, or a designated cupboard to store them in. On my yacht, the paper charts are a back-back-backup plan for chart plotters, a handheld GPS and a smartphone. I’ve sailed many miles with only the glow of a digital screen to guide me—it worked out just fine. Chart plotters track your every mile, show you exactly where you are, and contain more chart information than you will ever need. Paper versus digital has been debated ad nauseam, and paper lost. I don’t need paper charts—just like I don’t need to write with a fountain pen or whistle when I walk through the park—but I buy them because they give me joy. They give me a joy that a zoomable, adjustable screen with endless functions can’t deliver.

I know that once at sea I’ll spend more time staring at my chart plotter than I will poring over my very expensive paper charts. But it’s a tactile thing. The snap of the rubber band that holds the roll together. The yesteryear quality of the paper. The ritual of unrolling them on my dining table at home, weighting down the paper and letting my finger trace the depth lines. Tiny squiggles and letters and numbers, each rich with meaning. The comforting palette of mustard yellow and pale blue with magenta highlights marking the traffic zones. Calibrating my brass divider on the left-hand side, and then dancing it across a clean chart like a ballerina twirling across the stage. The deliciously monumental first pencil mark, the first tiny X at a crucial waypoint. Carrying the charts in a cardboard tube as I board an airplane that will take me to a foreign port and a waiting boat.

It’s the little surprises I stumble upon while perusing a chart, seeing the entire coastline in one sweep of the eye. Finding out that there’s a beach on the far side of that peninsula. Spotting the rock that lies in wait just outside the fairway into the harbor. Intricate observations of the land, towers, steeples and cliffs. And the names you’d never been aware of before, the wakes left by captains and heroes passing centuries ago.

It’s the pleasure I get from reading the notes in the corner, warning me of whirlpools and shifting sandbanks. And, on the most often used charts, for familiar home waters, notes have been added over the years, marking good anchorages and fishing holes. Like when I borrowed a friend’s boat and sailed it in the Finnish waters he’s explored for 70 years. With the boat came his charts, marked with tiny X’s where he had anchored over the years. He requested that I mark my own spots, adding to his boat’s long narrative.

I enjoy sitting inside a cozy saloon after a long day of sailing, planning the next day’s voyage with a wee dram of rum for company. I pore over the precious sheets of paper, imagining what each mile will bring. I explore the coastline and poke into little coves and find they are too shallow for my yacht. I land on pebble beaches and slip through turbulent channels—the tip of my finger a prow that leaves a wake in my mind.

All of this is yet to come as I exit the map shop into the sunny, crisp afternoon air, the stiff roll of charts nestled under my arm. I feel jaunty with anticipation of the voyage to come, the romance of a sailor heading off to sea.

I can’t hide my smile, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. To the guy in the suit, on his phone, walking and talking like he owns the place, I want to shout: “Look how thick this roll of charts is! They cost me an arm and a leg, almost as much as your suit, but these charts mean I’m going sailing!”

Cameron Dueck is a sailor and writer, based in Hong Kong.

The post Point of View: Paper Chart Dreams appeared first on Cruising World.

“Should we skip Tahiti?” A question I never thought I’d hear was asked seriously over sundowners last week as we discussed 2020 plans.

The popular cruising destination is sending a strong message that cruisers aren’t wanted anymore. Last week, a local cruiser reported that police began clearing boats from the busy Taina anchorage in Tahiti. This is overwhelmingly where transient boats anchor when they visit the largest island in French Polynesia. There was little notice for the meeting called to discuss plans, and no alternate option offered; the marina in Taina is typically booked in advance and not a ready option.

Tahiti isn’t the only spot in French Polynesia that’s tightening regulations and forcing out boats. Bora Bora has banned anchoring entirely. Moorea is expected to follow suit soon. There is a wider trend in French Polynesia to grow restrictions: local press report that the goal is to regulate anchoring throughout the islands. Meanwhile, in Tahiti, the port authorities clearing the Taina anchorage stated clearly that “there is no Plan B” for relocating the cleared boats; particularly unfortunate timing and tone given that cyclone season begins there this month.

Maybe it’s not a big deal to be required to use moorings or marinas. But it’s more complicated than just planning ahead and budgeting a little more. Ask the Hynes family on the Outremer 51, Archer. His family returned to the mooring field in Bora Bora where they’d left their boat to go ashore for dinner in July. Archer wasn’t there: a search found the boat blown downwind until it hit the unforgiving structure of a resorts’ overwater bungalow after the mooring (about $30/night) they secured their boat to broke, causing massive damage to the vessel.

“It’s really sad what happened to our boat,” Seth reflects, “but even sadder to see what’s happening regionally. I think it’s great the locals want to protect their islands, but I wish they would have worked with the cruising community to do this safely rather than rush in change. By enforcing the “no anchoring” law before the infrastructure was in place it has put all of us in a very dangerous situation. I’m glad no one got hurt on our boat or at the hotel as things could have been much worse.”

Bonaire has done a fantastic job of protecting their fringing reef by requiring boats to pick up affordable moorings. It is magical to swim under your boat on a vibrant, thriving reef at snorkeling/freediving depth that this setup makes possible.

Cruisers all know the mantra not to trust a mooring until you’ve been able to check it. Easy in Bonaire, and we replaced the fraying line. But how could Archer have realistically been expected to check the shackle at 85’ of depth that broke? Of course they can’t, they have to rely on the integrity of the owners/managers, and that chain in Bora Bora clarifies a motivation for profit over vessel security.

Why is this happening?

The move in Tahiti is due in part to a development plan, but read the local press articles about restrictions and local sentiments come out. It hurts to know reader comments indicate they’re happy for cruisers to go away, angered at the lack of respect they feel is shown for the local community and environment.

In Huahine, a youth group staged a protest that included floating a big mainsail painted with “no anchoring” – and gave press pictures of the coral damage caused by careless boats. Here, at least, is a positive move to direct boats to anchor in a boxed area away from the reef and vulnerable coral (fantastic, but sad they had to take this in their own hands). In Raiatea, the next most populous island after Tahiti, there were problems this past season with local boats aggressively threatening cruisers, with tactics ranging from verbal assault to cutting anchor rode.

Are there just too many boats? A couple of factors combined to significantly increase the number of boats in the area. A few years ago, French Polynesia began allowing vessels to remain three years before requiring importation (previously, boats were limited to just a few months). Then long-stay visas became easier to acquire, so not only visiting boats but their crews can readily spend more time in the islands. There are simply more boats, and enough of those boats are not respecting the local mores. This is a response to a perceived invasion of disrespectful cruisers. The complaints range from cultural to environmental, and they are not for you or I to judge as the guests in a place; it’s for the hosts, who seem ready to stop playing that role.

All this played into that conversation over sundowners a few nights ago, as we sat under Totem in the not-so-romantic shipyard with visions of much-more-romantic tropical anchorages in mind. Should we consider a major re-route and skip French Polynesia altogether? Hey, I’d love to visit my family in Hilo. The off-track destinations of Kiribati hold deep appeal. We want to skew towards places we haven’t visited before, anyway.

We were dead serious for about 20 minutes, then snapped back to reality. Of course we’ll go to French Polynesia! There are MANY islands, and we plan the least amount of time in the areas most subject to restrictions.

I’m keen to find the lesson in any situation. What’s the lesson here? That we (cruisers) need to lose entitlement and gain perspective for our negative impact, real or perceived. It’s incumbent on us to proactively be good citizens. Helping in this regard is AVP (Association Voiliers Polynesie); they’re meeting with authorities to represent cruisers and find a bridge to educate cruisers and charterers on visiting responsibly, while boosting local confidence that these boats contribute to rather than detract from their community. Anyone can join the organization and help them advocate for the cruising community. Visit the website for details.

My friend Holly Scott sails her boat out of Raiatea, and rightly pointed out – these islands pushing out cruising boats are both the least interesting and the most touristed. They are exactly the places we prefer not to spend much time in. But they are the popular names that are familiar to outsiders, and have a historical draw based on beaten paths and accessibility. There are many nicer places to explore in French Polynesia. And hopefully, as they are visited by those with a keen eye for respect to local customs and environment. We’ll keep an eye on the situation, spend less (or no) time in the Society islands, and always be mindful that we’re guests in their home.

My facts will not be perfect here, in great part because the situation is changing so quickly. Big thanks to Linda Edeiken of Jacaranda, amazing ambassadors for the cruising community – I first learned about this from Linda; to Ryan Levinson, for his work in FP representing cruisers with AVP; thanks Seth Hynes for contributing, sorry your lovely Archer had to be the canary in this coal mine!

The post Sailing Totem: Time to skip Tahiti? appeared first on Cruising World.

Occasionally we hear complaints like these from ­fellow cruisers about the unsteady weather here in the South Pacific: “The weather here is lousy. We should have stayed in the Caribbean!” Or, “The Pacific is so cold!” Admittedly, there is some truth in these simplified conclusions; the trade winds are frequently interrupted by disturbances and some areas really do cool down. So, some crews do seem truly surprised by the mixed weather after their arrival in Polynesia. However, by analyzing the patterns responsible for tropical weather in the South Pacific, it’s possible to plan favorable itineraries and perhaps avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Wandering Trades

Trade winds, as we’ve learned from the weather textbooks, are caused by the air-­pressure difference between a high-pressure area (or ridge) in the subtropics and the low-pressure area along the equator. This weather model applies nicely for the North Atlantic, where the Azores High (or Bermuda-Azores High) behaves rather predictably—it’s big and fairly permanent.

In the South Pacific, the model is less reliable; the Pacific Ocean is simply way too big. Instead of a single ridge in the subtropics, there are (at least) two highs. To the east lies the South Pacific High with its center typically close to Easter Island. The other one is farther west, closer to New Zealand. French meteorologists call the first one Anticyclone de Pâques after the French name for Easter Island, and the western one Anticyclone de Kermadec after the subtropical Kermadec island chain between Tonga and New Zealand.

Like the Azores High, the South Pacific High is quite permanent. As a consequence, steady trade winds prevail in the eastern South Pacific, which make a passage from Galapagos to French Polynesia relatively easy. The Kermadec High, on the other hand, is neither permanent nor stationary. It arises from the Tasman Sea, or north of New Zealand, and travels eastward via the Kermadec Islands and south of the Austral Islands of French Polynesia, and may fade away to be replaced by the next one. More persistent examples travel farther southeast and join the eastward procession of lows in the Roaring 40s. The transitory and wandering nature of the Kermadec High is the main cause of the frequently interrupted trade winds in the western and central tropical South Pacific. In other words, there is quite a bit of weather going on.

The Influential SPCZ

The two separate highs in the subtropics result in a different air-pressure gradient in the tropics than a single ridge. Between the highs, there is clearly an area with lower pressure, and isobars encircle both centers. Where those circles approach each other, air masses from different wind directions collide and cause a zone of convergence—the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). This zone typically stretches from the Solomon Islands to Fiji and Tonga, or to Samoa, and often continues farther to the southern Cook Islands or the Austral Islands. As the Kermadec High moves eastward, so does the SPCZ (or a part of it), and often there are several disconnected branches of convergence zones.

To the south (or west) of the SPCZ, dry and cool southerly or southeasterly winds can be found, and to the north (or east) the wind is from the northeast, north or ­northwest and brings warm and humid air. The consequence is cloud formation, squalls and ­thunderstorms, as well as developing fronts. Due to a lingering upward movement of air, the air pressure drops and parts of the zone may evolve into a trough or low pressure.

Around every eight to 10 days, a new transitory high starts its journey eastward, bringing the SPCZ and the accompanying troughs along for the ride. An approaching trough is foreshadowed by the trade winds shifting first northeast, then north. When a trough passes, the wind turns farther to the west and then south. The southerly wind typically arrives with a front and strong squalls. Deepened troughs and lows may also develop a front on their northeastern side where the wind turns north.

When we compare weather charts from different government meteorological offices, we see that even experienced forecasters seem to be divided over how to classify the weather phenomena in the SPCZ. For example, French Meteo may see a convergence zone with an associated front or just a stationary front, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association observes a (weak) trough. A pattern we observed over the last six years is that strong and weak events usually ­alternate. Another observation is that GRIB files based on the Global Forecast System (GFS) model do a poor job at ­depicting those fronts.

Squash Zones

When an east-traveling high is very strong and/or moves very close to the tropics, the isobars on top of it are squeezed together and the resulting trade winds are strong. Such squash zones of enhanced trade winds occur frequently during the southern winter and are called mara’amu in Tahitian. The southeasters generally arrive with a nasty cold front after the convergence zone or trough has passed. The strong winds may last for several days and carry numerous squalls as the agitated sea causes increased vaporization and the formation of cumulus clouds.

Seasonal Variations

During the cyclone season (the Southern Hemisphere ­summer), the subtropical highs are farther away from the tropics than during the colder season. As a consequence, the trade winds are weaker, squash zones are rare and calm periods are more likely. The SPCZ moves slower or tends to become stationary. For instance, a branch likes to linger over the southern Cooks and the Australs and brings rainy weather to those areas as well as the Society Islands. This branch also causes plenty of warm and humid northeasterly and northerly winds over French Polynesia, particularly in December and January.

The SPCZ is the birthplace of most cyclones in the South Pacific. With the warm ocean surface in summer and high activity in the SPCZ, the risk of cyclone formation is great, particularly when an additional, extensive area of cloud formation and rainfall coincides with the SPCZ.

In southern winter—the so-called sailing season—the trade-wind belt paradoxically does not cover the entire tropics. As the highs are so close to the Tropic of Capricorn, the southern fringe lies in the belt of variable winds, particularly in the central and eastern Pacific. In Tonga, it is not unusual to get an extended period (five to six days) of westerly winds around August.

RELATED: Pacific Passage Planning

As to the cooler temperatures, most yachts cross the South Pacific outside the cyclone season, in the Southern Hemisphere winter. When an itinerary then includes places at the fringe of the tropics like Pitcairn and the Gambiers, the Austral Islands, the southern Cooks, Niue, and/or the ­southern parts of Tonga, cold weather is unavoidable, particularly when the fresh southeasters blow hard. In July and August, the water temperature in those areas is not far above 68 degrees F (20 degrees C). Bring a thick wetsuit in case you gather enough willpower to go diving or snorkeling.

Summing Up

The eastern South Pacific has relatively undisturbed trade winds, the result of the big and stable high around Easter Island. Also, there’s a wide equatorial area that has steady trade winds and fine (but hot) weather. When moving closer to the equator and farther away from the subtropical highs, the isobars become more or less straight lines and resemble those caused by a single high-pressure ridge, and so the area does not see a convergence zone. In addition, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is typically located well north of the equator (around 5-10° N). Apart from occasional warm fronts and squalls, when the trade winds blow strongly, the Marquesas, the Line Islands and Penrhyn in the Northern Cooks are blessed with stable weather all year round. Farther west or south, the SPCZ already starts to influence the weather. On the other hand, New Caledonia lies far enough west to also experience less convergence-zone typical weather.

In summation, it pays to take some time and conduct proper research, including pilot and climate charts—after all, the Pacific is a huge and diverse area. Simplified textbook principles do not always apply everywhere; for instance, it is not true that all archipelagos have their rainy season during the summer months. Avoid extra-tight itineraries as they leave no time to await favorable passage weather when bold plans include picking up and dropping off a constantly changing crew or visitors, especially from ambitiously distant places. With some clever planning, as well as a lot of flexibility, cruising the South Pacific is undeniably an extraordinary experience.

Finally, it is not advisable to solely rely on GRIB files to find good passage weather. An ­additional look at ­surface-analysis weather charts shows where the convergence zone and nasty fronts exist, particularly when sailing between French Polynesia and Fiji, or farther west. The SPCZ that causes so much variable weather in the Pacific also has a good side: the numerous ­­disturbances with shifting winds provide good-weather windows to sail eastward.

Birgit Hackl and Christian Feldbauer set out from the Med in 2011 aboard their 41-foot S&S-designed Pitufa. Two years later, after an Atlantic crossing, time in the Caribbean and a transit of the Panama Canal, they reached French Polynesia, which has become their home base. For more on the couple, visit Pitufa.at.

The post Pacific Weather Routing appeared first on Cruising World.

Northwest Passage

In the hundred plus years since Roald Amundsen transited the Northwest Passage, 184 successful voyages have been made across the top of the world, east and west bound. In the summer of 2012 alone, 21 vessels, 11 percent of that 184 total, made the transit: 18 private yachts, 2 cruise ships, and a tanker. One of the cruise ships, the 196-meters-long The World, was the largest ship to ever to do the trip, according to the data collected by R.K. Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The rise in traffic from commercial, research, recreational, and offshore operations over routes made more passable with the record loss of polar ice ushers in a range of challenges. In September 2012, officials from the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and private industry gathered in Seattle at a program called Safe Navigation in the Arctic. Presented by the Transportation Research Board, part of the nonprofit National Research Council, its mission was to address navigational, policy, and international concerns in U.S. Arctic waters.

Seen in the context of melting polar ice, the numbers, especially in more recent years, loom larger. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, as of September 16, 2012, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its minimum extent for the year, 1.32 million square miles, the lowest seasonal minimum extent in the satellite record since 1979, further proof of a long-term
downward trend.

The 2012 minimum was also 293,000 square miles below the previous record minimum extent in the satellite record, which occurred on September 18, 2007. That loss is about the size of the state of Texas.

In terms of boats and passages, what does this mean? From 2007 to 2012, with passable routes, 75 transits of the Northwest Passage took place. That’s 40 percent of all recorded transits. Ketches, catamarans, and sloops were part of the mix, along with the icebreakers and tugs. And in those totals are boats and voyages familiar to CW readers: Cloud Nine, owned by the late Roger Swanson and the first American sailing vessel in history to transit the Northwest Passage from east to west; Ocean Watch, whose circumnavigation of the Americas was documented in these pages by crewmate and CW senior editor Herb McCormick; and the 27-foot St. Brendan, whose captain, Matt Rutherford, set a record for singlehanding the smallest boat ever through the Northwest Passage.

One can only wonder who’s next.

The post Northwest Passage Routes Made Passable appeared first on Cruising World.

But how? That’s the question I faced 10 years after Ranger‘s Mediterranean adventure began. (Click here to read “Ranger‘s Refit—and the Real Rewards,” from CW‘s June 2003 issue.)

The options were easy: sail her back, hire a delivery crew, or ship her on a freighter. But the choice, made routinely by hundreds of transatlantic sailors every year, was complicated, and personal.

Driven from Spain by a tax crackdown at the start of Europe’s economic woes, I’d docked Ranger in Tunisia at an upscale marina. She’d been in the water for three years tended by a German expat who regularly started her engine, ran through her gears, and adjusted her lines.

But she was a mess, sirocco sand-blasted, her dodger sun-rotted, her bottom a microbiologists’ encyclopedia. Her flares, EPIRB, and life raft were out of date. Basic systems were in good shape—sails, rigging, even the batteries—but the list of to-dos, no matter which route I took home, would take time and money.

Shipping Her Home

Until the mid-1980s, shipping a yacht on a freighter was a rare, pricey move. But there are now four major companies in the business, rates are competitive though not cheap, and the service, with occasional exceptions, is reliable and safe.

Unique among them, because of its float-on/float-off semi-submersible freighters, is Dockwise Yacht Transport of Florida. The other three—Yacht Path International, Sevenstar Yacht Transport, and Peters and May—rent space on freighters going your way and use cranes and cradles for deck shipment. This year, the four companies will ship some 1,200 to 1,500 sailing yachts all over the world.

Because its schedule seemed as reliable as an Italian train, give or take 14 days, I asked Dockwise for its cheapest option, which turned out to be a ship returning to Florida after delivering luxury motorboats for the Med’s summer season. The price for my 42-year-old boat, valued at $45,000, was a shock: $11,600.

Sailors I interviewed shipped their boats for a number of reasons.

Phillip Yaffa of Miami shipped his Tayana 47, Peregrina, home from Turkey after three years of cruising in the Med. With business demands, he couldn’t afford the time for the long sail back through the Canaries after hurricane season. After pricing a cheaper delivery option, but adding wear and tear, he paid Dockwise $25,000.

Fabian Mueller of Zurich, Switzerland, shipped his 30-foot steel sloop Habichuela back to Europe from Florida in the fall of 2010 because he was out of vacation time and the boat had suffered damage to sails, the autopilot, and sailing instruments on its passage from the Canaries. After gathering bids from Sevenstar and Peters and May, he negotiated the lowest fee, $9,500, from Dockwise, and thought it worth the money. He estimated that he would’ve spent at least $5,000 to repair and ready her to sail home himself. “I didn’t have that many options,” he said. “The day the boat arrived in Genoa, I was very happy.”

Time and tenderness were on the mind of Pascal Oddo when he hired Dockwise to carry Falcon, a 1930 Lawley Boatyard-built Q racing boat from Rhode Island to France just in time for the Les Voiles d’Antibes, a classic-yacht race in the spring of 2012. The 52-foot wood sloop had been restored in 2007 and listed for sale at $495,000.

Sailing the Atlantic was out of the question, and after comparing bids, Oddo chose Dockwise for the convenience.

“The plan was to race her. When we arrived to meet the freighter, we put the sails on, and we were ready to sail off, which was fantastic,” he said by phone from Paris, where he manages a private-equity fund. “We did well. We came in second.”

Eric Korchia, a Miami developer, shipped Maxilana, a Jeanneau 53, on Dockwise after being stranded in Athens, Greece, for more than a month by Yacht Path. At the last minute, he hired a delivery crew to meet the Dockwise freighter in Italy. Dockwise charged him $25,000.

While there was a grin on his face when he saw his $700,000 boat in Florida, Korchia remained livid with Yacht Path, which had promised, but failed, to pick the boat up in Greece. After being threatened by an attorney, Yacht Path returned his $26,000 fee, although not an additional $20,000 that he says he spent on marina and delivery fees.

Yacht Path manager Kevin Cummings blamed unforeseen freighter delays and said that his company kept Korchia informed. The company, started by Cummings and his siblings, whom he describes as “working-class guys” without venture-capital backing, will ship 650 boats this year. It routinely fulfills its promises, and it’s often the cheapest. But it’s the only one of the carriers with complaints—there are four—that are on file at BoatU.S.

Hire a Delivery Crew

Shopping for a delivery captain is a bit like hiring a nanny. Price isn’t as important as experience, reputation, and chemistry. That said, the first thing I wanted to know was how much it would cost to put my baby into the hands of a stranger for a risky couple of months.

My queries produced a gaping array of charges ranging from $4,000 to $14,000. To help me judge, I consulted John LeFevre of The Moorings, who hires delivery captains to ship the company’s charter fleet between the Med and the Caribbean. His average cost for a delivery skipper from Greece to Tortola is $13,250, including airfare and food.

The Moorings’ boats are privately owned catamarans and monohulls that are less than five years old and well equipped for an ocean passage. (See “If You Go It Yourself,” below.) Captains basically get on and go.

As I went over Ranger‘s equipment, I realized how idiosyncratic my 35-foot Allied Seabreeze yawl had been—a one-man boat full of decisions, compromises and, yes, defects, that no one else could be expected to know. There was no manual describing the periodic clunk in the anchor locker, the loose mizzen stays that were OK, or how the autopilot connected through that hole using this pin kept in one of those plastic bags in the middle drawer on the port side by the cabin door that won’t stay latched.

It always took me a week to get to know her when I paid a visit. Her condition made selling her in Europe impossible—especially during the Euro crisis. How could I ask a delivery captain to take her across an ocean?

“I have to know how to fix, identify, and work every single system, even though I’ve never seen it, because my life will depend on it,” said Blaine Parks of Parks Marine Services of Palmetto, Florida. Unlike most delivery crew, he insists that the owner be aboard on a voyage as long as a transatlantic.

Parks charges $250 to $300 a day, plus $150 a day for a mate, an average rate among professional delivery crews. For an ocean crossing, he wants a third mate at $100 a day.

He recommended that I look for captains with multiple transatlantic crossings, experience in the voyage’s ports of call, and a good reputation backed by references and their own insurance.

Gerry and Darby Gragg were rank beginners when they bought So Bella, a Passport 42, in 2000 and began cruising in western Costa Rica. “We took off knowing as little as someone could about cruising and sailing,” Gerry told me in Gaeta, Italy.

After reading a Cruising World spread on the Mediterranean (see “Promise of the Mediterranean,” November 2007), they decided to head there. Yacht Path offered to ship So Bella from Golfito, Costa Rica, to Palma de Mallorca for $34,000. The Graggs chose instead to use Yacht Path to move So Bella to Fort Lauderdale, at a cost of $13,000, in time for Gerry to sail the Atlantic. With their “savings,” they hired a captain and mate from Oceans Captain. Were it not for a transmission failure in Bermuda, the crossing would’ve been cheaper, he said.

“These two men had 15 crossings under their belts. It was essentially an advanced-sailing seminar on my own boat, and it was an experience I’ll always treasure,” he said.

Gragg has decided to ship So Bella back to the United States next year so he can sell her on the East Coast during the summer. Dockwise provided a cheaper quote and a firm shipping window between April 22 and May 6. “To get my boat from Genoa to Fort Lauderdale in 15 days with hopefully little wear and tear for $23,000 is a good value, if one is honest about the indirect expenses of a crossing.”

Sail It Yourself

For the vast majority of transatlantic sailors, sailing home is the only choice. Cruising funds may be running low, but while living aboard, they’ve likely kept the boat in working order. Provisions, dock fees, and a couple of months of their time are the primary costs.

A survey by the World Cruising Club of participants in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers shows that on average, boats spent around $2,500 for provisions and $1,400 for fuel during their three- to four-week crossing from Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, to St. Lucia.

Joining the ARC costs $1,000 or more, but the rally’s care and safety requirements—tougher than ones that independent sailors might choose themselves—are designed to produce successful crossings.

When I took a sober look at Ranger, I estimated that upgrades, crew travel, and food costs would top $7,000. Having done the crossing, I knew that a few thousand dollars more should be in an overdraft account just in case. Clearly, my cheapest alternative was to sail home myself with a couple of volunteer crew.

My Choice

On March 1, 2012, I flew to Genoa, Italy, bought a reconditioned life raft for $500, and carried it on a ferry to Tunisia. After two weeks of work on Ranger, first mate Wally Wallace and I departed for Sicily. I’d rendezvous with Dockwise in Genoa during the first week of May.

Ultimately, my decision came down to time, money, and a large X factor. Crossing the ocean to Europe in my little old boat was an achievement, a costly, exhausting journey of a lifetime. Ranger and I were now 10 years older. With “transatlantic sailor” inscribed on my heart, I had neither the need nor the desire to sail home.

When my father died, my share of the sale of his house yielded enough to buy a ride. I decided to turn the 1,000-mile sail up the Italian coast into a shared vacation with friends and family, likely my last great offshore adventure aboard Ranger. Having made the decision, I ordered charts for the Keys and the Chesapeake.

Ranger arrived in Fort Lauderdale on May 23 looking like a floating peanut in the vast hold of Dockwise’s Yacht Express. I climbed aboard and motored into a Florida sunrise.

The next morning, at Bahia Mar, the bilge pump died.

If You Go It Yourself

Before setting out on a transatlantic crossing—or on any bluewater adventure, for that matter—a prudent skipper makes sure that the boat is well equipped. The equipment list below is based on recommendations from the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers and The Moorings. The gear requirements for the Newport-Bermuda Race and ISAF race recommendations are both other good sources for the gear you’ll need.

Emergency Equipment

• Offshore life raft large enough to carry all crew
• Life jackets with harnesses
• Flares
• Abandon-ship bag with flares, water, food, and survival tools
• Offshore first-aid kit
• Rescue lines
• Signaling equipment

Electronics

• EPIRB
• Satellite phone or SSB radio
• Automatic Identification System receiver, preferably with transponder
• Electronic tracking device similar to SPOT or to DeLorme’s InReach
• VHF radio
• Handheld VHF
• Navigation lights
• Searchlight
• LED flashlights

For the Boat

• Navigation tools and charts
• Compass
• Sextant and tables
• Binoculars
• Depth sounder
• Fog horn
• Radar reflector
• Fire extinguishers (3 of them, all up to date)
• Fire blanket
• Companionway washboards
• Through-hull plugs
• Emergency tiller
• Hacksaw and blades
• Buckets
• Dinghy and oars
• Storm jib and trysail
• Second manual bilge pump
• Sea anchor

Jim Carrier is a CW contributing editor. Ranger now lies on the hard at Glades Boat Storage, west of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. Her to-do list remains a work in progress. This article first appeared in the Hands-On Sailor section of our December 2012 issue.

Ranger Crosses the Atlantic

Ranger Delivery

The post How to Cross an Ocean: Bringing Ranger Home appeared first on Cruising World.

Best Boat Equipment

When we were preparing Osprey, our Adams 45 steel cutter, for full-time cruising and living aboard by a family of four, we did what so many other soon-to-be-cruisers do: We read and researched. And talked and listened. And read and researched some more. Though we’d been sailing all our lives, liveaboard cruising would be an entirely new thing for us. And while we had some pretty firm ideas about what we did and didn’t want, much of the new equipment and even some new systems on Osprey were more or less experiments, based more on how they’d worked for other boats and people than for us.

This is the leap of faith that, to one extent or another, we all must make, whether we’re placing that faith in our own judgment and capabilities or in those of an experienced boatyard staff or other pros. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. When that’s happened, we’ve had to suck it up, financially and emotionally, and find something that does work. (And it’s often far more than just a financial issue when something fails. It’s no fun to have one’s confidence shaken in one’s judgment, and it’s almost invariably a logistical challenge as well.)

Sometimes, though, things work really well, even better than we’d hoped. So we’ve come up with a list of the ideas and gear that have consistently proven themselves—both on passage and hanging out on the anchor—over the four years we’ve cruised aboard Osprey in the hopes that it might provide food for thought for those of you chewing over similar issues.

One caveat: These have worked for us, on our boat, in the places we’ve sailed. They might not work the same way for others. You still have to make the choices that seem best for your own boat and for the type of cruising you want to do.

Wind generators: Our pair of Eclectic Energy D400s, while complicated and expensive to install, have been worth every penny. We’re happiest on those windy days at anchor, since they work best when we have winds of at least 15 knots, even better with a little more. Their production falls off sharply at low wind speeds. What we love most about them—and what constantly draws other cruisers to ask questions—is how quietly they operate. Even in 20 knots of wind, we barely notice them. Interestingly, when we first came out here, we rarely saw D400s, and then mostly on European boats. Now we’re seeing them everywhere, and on more American boats.

Solar panels: Our four panels—two Shell 85s and two Kyocera 135s—and the controller have worked extremely well. The only thing we’d change would be to add more of them, and to build movable brackets so that the panels—ours are presently fixed in place—can be angled to capture more sun throughout the day. When we were prepping for cruising, a good friend who’d been out already for two years recommended a combination of wind and solar power. We listened, and we’re passing on the advice here. Many times we’ve been under way or at anchor on cloudy but windy days or on windless but sunny days and still able to make plenty of juice in either situation, while friends with only solar or only wind power—or, worse still, neither at all—had to resort to a genset or the main engine to keep their batteries up.

A single-sideband radio, Pactor modem, and SailMail: While some may pooh-pooh this gear as sunset technology, we wouldn’t go without it. It takes a bit of attitude adjustment to go from iPads and hot-and-cold running Internet to working with the SSB, but its value is its dependability, no matter where you are. In Panama’s Kuna Yala, for instance, our cruising would’ve been tethered to the sole island that had Internet (three hard lines run off a solar panel, at the equivalent of $3 per hour) had we not been able to remain in contact with friends and family and access our Gmail account via SailMail through the SSB. True, a new SSB will set you back at least $1,500 initially, with another grand or so for a Pactor modem. Once they’re installed, though, a $250 annual SailMail account gets you email, weather GRIBs, and weatherfaxes, and you’re immediately linked to the SSB community, an intangible but real benefit you can never enjoy with a satphone.

Harken sailhandling equipment: Osprey is completely Harken, with the exception of two snatch blocks and her original Australian-built Barlow winches. Even if her deck hardware hadn’t been in dubious shape when we bought her, we would’ve replaced it with race-ready Harken gear. It’s been our experience that no matter the boat, when it comes to sailhandling, speed and efficiency equals safety. And the easier it is to sail the boat, the more you’ll actually do just that: sail. Our adjustable genoa leads, mainsheet system, main-halyard system, and turning-block system have worked flawlessly in this harsh, difficult environment and have proven their worth time and time again by enabling us to quickly and easily adjust the sail plan according to conditions.

A four-stroke outboard: Ours is a four-stroke Yamaha 15. It’s been

extremely dependable, easy to fix when necessary, and easy to find parts for, even in such places as Guatemala and Panama. Fuel-efficiency, though, is where it really shines. Many of our friends run 6-gallon tanks on their two-strokes, with mixed oil and gas. We run a 3-gallon tank with straight gas and fill up half as much as they do. When you’re relying on the dinghy to be your car, and gas costs the equivalent of $6 a gallon or more, this fuel savings adds up in a hurry. And it’s environmentally better in every way.

The biggest rigid-bottom inflatable dinghy we could manage: This was another recommendation from a well-seasoned cruising friend, and rarely a day goes by when we don’t thank him for it. Osprey doesn’t have davits, so we were limited by what would fit overturned on the foredeck while on passage (which we happen to believe is the safest way to carry a dinghy offshore). We have a 10-foot Caribe. Coupled with the Yamaha 15, it’s been a real workhorse for our family of four, letting us plane easily, even loaded with groceries or dive gear, and keeping us mostly dry in sometimes pretty snotty conditions. We can’t tell you how many friends we’ve watched get drenched and pounded trying to get groceries or do laundry because they went with the smallest or cheapest dinghy they could get away with. We also recommend covering the dinghy with a good set of canvas chaps. They reduce wear and tear and the brutal effects of the sun.

A Cape Horn Extreme watermaker from Spectra: This was also an expensive and complicated system to install on Osprey. But like the wind generators, it’s worked extremely well overall and made our lives, especially in remote places, much easier. We’ve had friends without watermakers who’ve had to limit their cruising because they were worried about the unavailability of safe water or the need to beg it constantly from people who could make their own. True, you can always hope for rain. But we’ve been in places where it hasn’t rained for four months. Our experience has been that the watermaker has broadened our cruising capability. The Cape Horn Extreme is mechanically the simplest of Spectra’s products (i.e., no circuit boards), and we recommend it because there’s less to break and go wrong. Spectra has proven to be an excellent company with which to work. When our Clark pump broke unexpectedly in the Bahamas last winter, a replacement pump arrived there within five days at ultimately no charge, except shipping.

An AIS transponder: We began our trip carrying only an automatic

identification system receiver, feeling that we didn’t really need a transponder; they were also a lot more expensive then. But two years ago, we installed a transponder, and it’s proven its worth repeatedly, particularly in areas with a lot of shipping but not always a lot of decipherable English spoken from the bridge deck. Imagine being among five ships offshore in the dark with CPAs of less than a mile and a half converging; one of the ships is the largest cruise liner in the world. That ship ended up calling us because they could see us easily via the transponder. Many times we’ve asked ships if they had us on radar and they said no, but they did see our AIS signature. We’re a small boat on a big ocean. Any device that makes us more visible and helps remove the guesswork in busy situations is a no-brainer.

Aries windvane self-steering: This system hung on Osprey‘s transom for two years before we used it on a 1,200-mile passage across the Caribbean. Now we use it whenever we can. In the right conditions, it becomes our primary offshore steering, quietly and efficiently tracking us along and costing us not a single amp. And it’s a backup for the electric autopilot if that system fails or we have some battery problem that prevents us from using it. We’d discourage people from ditching an installed wind-steering system to make room for, say, dinghy davits. We know one couple who, as a wise precaution, reinstalled their windvane before sailing from the Bahamas to Puerto Rico. Two days out, they lost their electric autopilot. Had they not reinstalled their windvane self-steering system, they’d have been hand steering for days.

A Reverso fuel-polishing system: Most people associate fuel-polishing systems with large motoryachts, but they make eminent sense for cruising sailboats that travel long distances to remote places. Osprey carries approximately 195 gallons of diesel in two tanks. That’s a lot of fuel that more often than not just sits there—we are, after all, a sailboat—having ample time and opportunity to grow stuff. Also, some of the places we’ve purchased fuel have been dubious at best. In one memorable establishment, a fellow poured diesel from a 55-gallon drum into a 5-gallon bucket through a T-shirt filter while it was raining. The fuel polisher is independent of the fuel lines for the engine. It draws from the very bottom of the tank and returns to the very top. Running it about once a month, three to four hours per tank, keeps the fuel clear and free of water and growth. The proof’s been in the pudding: Several times we’ve set out to replace the Racor fuel filters but have simply reinstalled them because they’re so clean. As an added bonus, when one tank is getting low, we can use the system to move fuel to the opposite tank and keep the boat in trim. And more than once we’ve been able to help fellow cruisers polish their contaminated fuel. It wasn’t a particularly easy or cheap system to install, but it draws little power when it’s working, and it’s been worth its weight in diesel.

We also boosted Reverso’s income by purchasing its oil-changing system. This fairly simple device has a hose connected to the bottom of the oil pan. A reversible pump sucks the oil from the pan and through a hose into a container of your choice. After wiping the discharge hose off, you can use it as the suction hose and install the new oil right back into the engine. It takes about 10 minutes to change 6 quarts of oil in Osprey‘s engine, and other than the unavoidable mess of changing the filter, the whole process is clean, quick, and easy. Anything that makes such a vital but potentially sloppy bit of routine maintenance easier is worth it, and this system keeps everything nasty contained and out of the bilge.

A Honda EU20i portable suitcase generator: One of the first items we bought was this tough, compact unit. It’s proven invaluable when we’ve had periods of windless, cloudy days and our solar panels and wind generators aren’t putting out much. The Honda is far more efficient at recharging the batteries than the boat’s main engine and alternator (and this also saves wear and tear on the main engine, since running it “unloaded” is tough on a diesel). On eco-throttle, which is its conservation mode, the unit will run for almost eight hours on a single fill-up of less than a gallon of gas. We also use it for projects that involve a lot of electricity, like drilling, grinding, and sanding, rather than drawing off the boat’s batteries and inverter.

The Clarke family is currently aboard Osprey in Annapolis, Maryland.

The post Simply Indispensable: The Best Boat Equipment appeared first on Cruising World.

Trepidation. I get antsy in the days just before I go offshore. There’s so much mental preparation. See this person, say goodbye to that person, do this, write that, go there one last time. It’s exhausting – but the chance to sail offshore is, to me, a sublime pilgrimage. And if given the opportunity, I will not turn it down for anything else.

I leave October 2nd for a six week research expedition aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans, a 134 ft. schooner brigantine operated by Sea Education Association. We will embark from San Diego and arrive in Honolulu in early November.

The Seamans, pictured above, is gorgeous. Built in 2001, she has over 8,500 square feet of sail. If you cut all nine of her sails up, you could canvas the floors of a seven bedroom house and still have plenty of sail to cover a regulation-size racquetball court.

I’ll be a volunteer deckhand on a team investigating an area of the ocean some have referred to as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” This “garbage patch” has attracted plenty of press (much of it exaggerated) due to the large concentration of plastic debris that have been found floating on the surface. Some say it’s “the size of Texas”, others “twice the size of the continental United States.” One Dutch architect has even drawn up plans to build self-sustaining “recycled islands” out of the plastic debris.

Ideas and size statistics like this are imaginative but fail to convey the problem plastics pose to ocean ecosystems. For starters, you can’t “see” much of the plastic debris, let alone build houses on it. Due to wave action and U.V radiation from the sun, large pieces of plastic break down into millimeter sized pieces called “microplastics.” If you didn’t have a net capable of catching these tiny pieces of plastic, you would never know you were in the world’s largest landfill.

Two years ago, I sailed with S.E.A. to study the lesser known “Great Atlantic Garbage Patch”, located just southeast of Bermuda. It was the first federally-funded research expedition to study plastic debris in the open ocean. A bunch of news outlets covered our progress such as National Geographic, NPR, and the Boston Globe. A filmmaker even created an award-winning documentary using footage taken from the trip.

This will be only my tenth time leaving land completely behind. Looking around the horizon and seeing nothing but the gleam of the ocean is like receiving a hug from a stranger: curiously warm but tense. It takes a few days to get acclimated. Thank god I don’t get seasick.

The post Preparing for a Pacific Voyage appeared first on Cruising World.

Going south in late fall from such New England ports as Newport, Rhode Island, by way of Bermuda is basically playing Russian roulette. In 2011, the bullet ended up in the firing chamber, and as a result, two boats and one life were lost. (See “Hard Lessons Learned in the North Atlantic,” February 2012.) This has happened many times in the past, and it will happen again if sailors keep following that same route. The North Atlantic is no place for a cruising boat with a shorthanded crew when fall gales rile the sea.

My first trip to Bermuda was in the 1954 Newport-Bermuda Race, and I’ve been back to the island several times since. Dozens of times I’ve gone south to the islands from the U.S. East Coast, but only once, in 1960, when I was young, foolish, and overconfident, did I sail south via Bermuda. All other trips jumped off from Morehead City and Beaufort, in North Carolina. I’ve been following news of the fall southern exodus to the Caribbean for 57 years. While some years saw two or three boats lost, and other years, none, I’ll say with confidence that the long-term average over the past 57 years is one boat lost every year. As to lives lost, I gave up counting about 30 years ago when my 29th friend or acquaintance was lost while bound for Bermuda. Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail around the world singlehanded, was lost at sea in November 1909 while en route to the eastern Caribbean. His great nephew, Bret Slocum, died in Tropical Storm Gilda in 1973 while en route to the islands. It should be noted that in the last 20 years, more November and December hurricanes have been recorded than altogether in the previous 120 years.

Now with EPIRBs, good life rafts, long-range helicopters, and ships that can be contacted to aid or take crew off sinking boats, the human casualty rate has gone down—but deaths still happen. When the weather turns, waves get in sync, so if their heights are running 20 feet, you must periodically expect rogue waves of 40 feet. That’s why in heavy-weather conditions, all crew must clip onto safety lines before they come out of the hatch and stay clipped on until they’re back in the companionway. And while a good boat and an experienced, tough crew of four on board can make the handling of 40-knot fall blows possible, the smart skipper should anticipate worse and try to plan voyages to reduce to a minimum any chance of getting caught in areas where gales of over 40 knots can be expected.

Sailors heading south to Bermuda in November should stop asking for weather windows, and weather routers should stop providing them: These windows don’t exist except for 90-foot sailing rocket ships that can reach Bermuda in three days. U.S. East Coast weather becomes so unstable in November that forecasts are good only up to 48 to 60 hours.

In September 1964, Yachting published “Going South,” the first of probably 300 articles that I’ve written. I recommended going to Bermuda in September, when the weather is relatively stable, leaving the boat there, then flying back to Bermuda in December to continue the trip south from there. For November departures, I recommended setting sail from Morehead City. From there, I said to head east-southeast until the butter melts and the trades fill in, typically between 66 degrees and 65 degrees west, then head south. That article is still correct today, and if sailors had followed that advice, it would’ve saved untold lives and saved the underwriters a lot of money.

An alternative for boats unable to pass under the bridges along the Intracoastal Waterway is to jump off from Little Creek, Virginia, just inside the mouth of the Chesapeake. Wait there for a weather window that will enable you to cross the Gulf Stream, then follow the same east-southeast course, forgetting about Bermuda. The 350-mile cruise from Newport to Little Creek can be done direct in two to three days sailing offshore, or you can take about five days and go inshore via Long Island Sound, through New York, down the New Jersey shore, then tuck inside and sail down the Chesapeake to Little Creek. Either way, it’s a good shakedown for boat and crew; any deficiencies in either can be rectified before the final jump off.

From Little Creek to St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the sailing distance is about 1,380 miles and will take eight to 11 days, depending on weather and boat. From Morehead and Beaufort, the trip should take about the same time. The great advantage of setting off from Morehead is the fact that you’re in the Gulf Stream and out the other side in 24 to 30 hours. You’re also below the worst of the North Atlantic’s gale area. My Imray-Iolaire Chart 100 covers this route and includes weather and routing information.

Newport to the islands by these routes is faster in total time and less expensive than via Bermuda. Money in Bermuda disappears as fast as an ice cube on a blacktop road at high noon in the tropics! Plus, by avoiding Bermuda, there’s no chance of your crew jumping ship, an all-too-common occurrence after a rough sail from Newport.

Should you be delayed in Morehead/Beaufort by continual gales, one option is to continue along the I.C.W. to Charleston, South Carolina, a three-day voyage.

This puts you farther away from St. Thomas than from Morehead, and the Gulf Stream is well offshore and too far for a reliable weather window. Instead, head south inside the Stream, where you’ll find either no current or possibly a small countercurrent helping you as you make your way to about Jacksonville, Florida. Near Jacksonville, the Stream is close to shore and quite narrow, and you can cross it and be out the other side in 24 to 36 hours.

Then follow the sailing directions given to me in 1956 by the late Bob Crytzer, who’d been a captain in the U.S. Navy and was the man who sold me Iolaire for $3,000 down and $1,000 a year for four years, with no interest and no repossession clause: “Wait until a norther is predicted, and take off 24 to 36 hours before it arrives. This will get you across the Stream. Shorten sail before the norther hits and ride it eastward. As the norther dies out and the easterly fills in, it’s hard on the wind on port tack. Then see where you make your landfall, at either St. Thomas, the eastern end of Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands, or the western end of Puerto Rico.”

This trip can be done in nine to 11 days. If you end up reaching only the western end of Puerto Rico, all is still well. Go to Puerto Real, to the Marina Pescaderia, where you can arrange to clear Puerto Rican customs. After some R&R, head eastward along the south coast of Puerto Rico, taking advantage of the land and sea breeze as I explain in my book Puerto Rico, the Spanish, U.S., and British Virgin Islands, the only guide that covers the region in a single volume. You may enjoy the south coast of Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands so much that you’ll be in no hurry to reach the British Virgin Islands after all.

Don Street’s cruising guides and Imray-Iolaire charts are indispensable to the Caribbean-bound cruiser.

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The National Parks of the U.S. East Coast

From sighting wild ponies and sea turtles to exploring forts and secluded beaches, some of the best and most unexpected memories made by my family in our four years on board Osprey, our 45-foot steel cutter, haven’t happened in exotic, far-flung locales—they’ve occurred right on the U.S. East Coast at national parks and seashores. We revisit a few of these places every chance we get, and each time, they seem to get better because we always experience something new. Many offer unparalleled scenic harbors and safe havens, and park staffers always seem helpful and welcoming. There’s something truly satisfying about arriving at these locales from the water, because such an entry offers a unique perspective that only sailors can enjoy.

Over time, the four of us on Osprey—Johnny, my husband, and our son, Kaeo, and our daughter, Kailani—have visited half a dozen national parks, seashores, and monuments, sometimes hopping from one to another. This got us to thinking that it would be possible to sail the coast in two- to three-day legs between each park as a way to reel off steady miles without too much effort. If you pick your weather carefully and choose parks close to towns with important stuff like groceries, it’s quite doable to travel from Maine’s Acadia National Park to Florida’s Biscayne National Park, park-hopping all the way. What follows is based on that idea: a loose itinerary describing the parks that we’ve visited over the years. Several excellent state parks also line this route, including one we frequently visit on the Delaware coast. What I’ve listed here is only a smattering of the possibilities: Visit cruisingworld.com/1202parks for a list of all the national parks, seashores, and monuments in between that have a maritime connection.

Acadia National Park, Maine
For my money, this is simply the best national park for cruisers. Unparalleled natural beauty combined with easy, inexpensive access for people on foot makes it simple to stay here. You could spend an entire summer and never get bored or even begin to explore it all. Created in 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson set aside 6,000 acres, Acadia now encompasses 35,000 acres, the vast majority of it on Mount Desert (it’s pronounced like the course that follows dinner, as in ice cream) Island. The most famous anchorages among yachtsmen are Bar, Southwest, and Bass harbors. When we visited here, though, we cruised straight up Somes Sound, whose entrance lies between Southwest and Northeast harbors.

About five miles long, this narrow, fjordlike bay slices into Mount Desert Island, embraced between the steep granite arms of Norumbega Mountain, to the east, and Acadia Mountain, to the west. Seals and dolphins kept us company as we cruised up to a small harbor at Somesville where we dropped the hook among a dozen other boats. It was a quick dinghy ride to the public landing, where cruisers were invited to leave their dinghies on one side; locals took the other. The well-kept grounds included a trash bin and a portable toilet, all surrounded by fragrant balsam firs and saltwater meadows studded with purple and blue lupine in full summer lushness.

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From the dock, it was a short walk up a gravel road to the main road and the village of Somesville. Here, we quickly learned about one of Acadia’s greatest assets, the Island Explorer buses. This system of propane-powered shuttle buses traces eight routes through all of Mount Desert, making it possible to handle the mundane tasks of cruising (grocery shopping, using the Internet, and laundry) as well as reaching towns, trailheads, and beaches all for free. In short, the entire park was at our fingertips from this one anchorage. It cost us $5 per person to enter the park on foot with a pass we bought in Bar Harbor that was good for seven days. (Visitors over the age of 62 can get a Senior Pass, which for $10 gives you lifetime admission to all national parks, historic sites, and monuments.) This pass gave us access to the park’s 120 miles of hiking trails, which include climbs up Cadillac Mountain (at 1,528 feet, it’s the tallest eastern coastal peak), as well as such trails as Wonderland, a flat, wooded path to the rocky seaside where lobstermen worked their pots just offshore.

One day, we rented bikes in Bar Harbor and set off with a backpack picnic on the carriage roads, truly one of Acadia’s most lovely and unique features. Built between 1913 and 1940 as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr., 45 miles of carriage roads bordered by granite coping stones weave through the park over 17 stone bridges.

Acadia also includes about 2,700 acres on Isle au Haut, an offshore island we visited a few weeks later. We were able to pick up a mooring ball ($10 a night, which we left in the plastic water bottle attached to the pendant) in the Isle au Haut Thorofare, which is the safest way to stay in this narrow anchorage. From here, the public landing is obvious, and walking trails abound on this lovely, isolated outpost.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monuments, New York City

It’s fair to say that these need little introduction. We sailed here on our first summer shakedown cruise aboard Osprey, staying at Liberty Landing Marina, part of Liberty State Park, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. From here, it was only a few steps to the ferry to both islands. Cruising sailors have ready access to these sites from the designated anchorage just south of Liberty Island or from any number of the marinas located across the river on the Manhattan side. A good source for such information is Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Waterway from Skipper Bob Publications (15th ed.; www.skipperbob.net/publications), which also gives details on other nearby spots. To be honest, this visit was a little disappointing, largely because cities aren’t our preferred habitat and because we didn’t plan ahead, since we weren’t sure when we’d arrive. It was also about 98 F in the shade, with intense humidity, which made milling about with the thousands of other sweating tourists a little claustrophobic. There’s not a lot of opportunity for spontaneity here; to gain access to any part of the Liberty monument structure, you need reservations well in advance. (Also note that the interior of the statue itself closed in October 2011 for renovations and repairs. The reopening is planned for October 2012.) Even to get to the islands themselves, you’re better off going online and buying tickets ahead of time because on some days, you can expect a two-hour wait just to get ferry tickets. Ellis Island and Liberty Island are free, but the ferry costs $13 for an adult and $5 for a kid. It’s an extra $3 each for access to the statue’s crown and the museum. The park service offers free tours of Ellis Island; the museum there is also free. If you’re willing to navigate all of this, you’re rewarded with a uniquely American experience that leaves many visitors misty eyed.

Cape Henlopen State Park, Lewes, Delaware
This is one of the two state parks on our list because it’s strategically ideal for cruisers headed south, and it rivals some national parks in terms of scenic beauty and cool stuff to do. Located at the southern entrance to Delaware Bay, across from the better-known stop of Cape May, New Jersey, this park is easily accessible from the anchorage in what’s called Breakwater Harbor, tucked behind the jetty just west of the cape itself. Make sure you anchor well away from the traffic lanes for the Cape May-Lewes ferry, which operates out of a terminal at the harbor’s southern end. Alternatively, you can go into Lewes proper via Roosevelt Inlet, just to the north, and grab a slip at the Lewes Canalfront Park & Marina or City Dock. From here, you have access not only to the park but also to restaurants, laundry, Internet, a grocery store, and all of Lewes’s varied charms. Full disclosure requires I admit that we haven’t anchored Osprey here; we visit Lewes every fall for a week by land yacht. But not a visit goes by that we don’t spot a cruiser or two anchored out behind the jetty while taking a break from their travels.

Cape Henlopen is ideal on foot and especially by bike, and it costs nothing to enter the park by either of these means. A three-mile-long paved trail winds throughout the 5,193-acre park, and you can take some interesting side trips on the sandy, unpaved paths. There are also seven other trails of various lengths ranging in focus from beaches and salt marshes to ponds and dunes, including the Great Dune, standing 80 feet tall.

Sailing into Lewes, you won’t be able to miss the tall, cylindrical towers stationed along this part of the coast. These World War II-era structures served as lookout posts for German U-boats, and we always climb the one that’s open to the public and offers spectacular 360-degree views. Because of its location at the mouth of Delaware Bay, the gateway to the port of Philadelphia, Cape Henlopen was key to coastal defenses during the war. You can explore this military history at the Fort Miles Historical Area, a kind of open-air military park with restored barracks, weapons, and bunkers. Finally, you won’t be the only migrant if you visit here on your way south; located as it is smack on the Atlantic Flyway bird-migration route, Cape Henlopen is a bird-watcher’s paradise. Last fall, we stopped by the Cape Henlopen hawk-watching station and saw this posted on the board: “September 19, a record-breaking day: 1,475 raptors.”

Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina
The first time that we visited this amazing place was, in a word, frustrating. We’d motorsailed from Beaufort, North Carolina, a mere six nautical miles away, to Lookout Bight to stage for an offshore run south to Cumberland Island, Georgia. An autumn cold front was barreling through, and it was blowing 25 to 30 knots in the bight, where our anchor held perfectly fine, but launching a dinghy to go beachcombing proved to be a preposterous idea. So much beach, and no way to get there! All that blustery night, the black-and-white, diamond-patterned lighthouse stood sentinel as it has for 152 years, its beam flashing over us. It reassured me, even as my stomach gave way to butterflies at the thought that we’d be leaving at dawn the next day, flying south on all that howling wind. Which is what we did, with the promise that we’d come back and visit that endless beach.

We fulfilled the promise in the spring of 2011 on our way north from Panama, again leaving Beaufort after making a grocery-Internet-laundry stop. This time, the crews of other boats shared the same idea, but this is such a roomy anchorage that we didn’t feel crowded. After we set the hook, launching the dinghy was the first order of business, followed by two days of spectacular kite flying, beachcombing, and bird-watching. Because we arrived on our own boat—the only other way out here is via ferry—it cost us nothing to enjoy the seashore 24/7. We’d hoped for a tour of the lighthouse, but a ranger told us that we were a few weeks too early; lighthouse tours didn’t start until Memorial Day. There’s also a keeper’s house here that dates from 1873, which is home now to exhibits on the islands’ natural and cultural histories. Oh, well, there was always the beach, which seemed to go on forever.

Lookout Bight and the scrap of sand where we made our playground are mere fragments of this enormous national seashore, which encompasses 56 miles of outlying barrier beaches on Shackleford and Core banks. Together, they compose the southernmost end of the famous Outer Banks, and left as they are in their natural state, unsullied by the saltwater-taffy tourism that mars these islands farther north, you can’t help but feel grateful that someone was smart enough to set aside these places for the wild things.

Tucked behind the east end of Shackleford Banks and the fishhook tip of the Core Banks, Lookout Bight is well protected despite being a mile across. From our anchorage we could see the wild ponies that live on Shackleford Banks as they ambled out of the dunes and onto the flat, white sand. In the bight, we had frequent visits from sea turtles, and the rangers told us that so far that spring, they’d located two loggerhead nests on the ocean side.

Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia
Some 325 nautical miles south of Cape Lookout, around Frying Pan Shoals and past Cape Fear, lies another national treasure that it’s fair to say is the Osprey family’s favorite—OK, it’s probably a tie with Acadia. Located just north of the St. Marys River entrance on the Georgia-Florida border, 17.5-mile-long Cumberland Island provides a lovely anchorage right next to one of the most magical places that we know. We’ve visited this park three times now and have yet to tire of it, or even see all of it. The 36,415 acres offer ever-changing views of seascapes, dunes, salt marshes, and maritime forest. In its fairy-land forest, where palmettos brush the ground and the twisted, gnarled oaks with their beards of Spanish moss remind me of wise old wizards, I find a depthless, soulful silence.

Sailors making landfall here in the spring can delight in the scent of pine trees and the trill of birdsong. “I heard a wood thrush and a white-throated sparrow,” I wrote at the time. “A red-winged blackbird, which I heard on the way through the dunes, stood perched on a strand of sea grass, singing in the breeze. We’ve had skates jumping in the mornings and evenings, literally doing backflips out of the water, all around the boat, and plenty of dolphins, as usual. We’ve seen two horse herds so far, each with foals. One is a two-week-old Appaloosa that’s just gorgeous, with a big white face and nothing but legs.”

Hundreds of sea turtles nest on these beaches in spring, wild boar and alligators make this their home, and it’s common to see armadillos trundling through the underbrush. The human footprint here is equally varied and fascinating: Native Americans lived here as many as 4,000 years ago, the Spanish built several missions here in the 1500s, and in the 1880s, Thomas M. Carnegie and his wife, Lucy, came here and built the 59-room Scottish castle they called Dungeness. Its ruins and outbuildings today still stand as wild ponies graze on the once-immaculate lawns. On our first visit here, one of the rangers encouraged us to hike past Raccoon Flats, where there were massive mounds of dirt; it was old dredge spoil from the channel. Here, he said, we’d literally trip over fossilized shark teeth. Since then, fossil hunting has become one of our favorite pastimes here, and on a good day, we might return to Osprey with a whole spice jar full of teeth of all sizes and shapes. It costs $4 per person to stay here for seven days (it’s free for children under 16), paid in an honor-box system located at the head of the dock. Like Cape Lookout, this island is accessible only by ferry, and when from Osprey‘s cockpit I watch the last boat of the day leave, I always feel supremely lucky to be able to stay. Also like Cape Lookout, it has a handy town nearby—Fernandina Beach, Florida, which is only five miles to the south—where you can take care of the cruising necessities before you come here for pure peace and quiet.

Fort Matanzas National Monument, St. Augustine, Florida
We stumbled upon this little gem on our first trip south after visiting a friend in St. Augustine, which lies 15 miles to the north on the Intracoastal Waterway. That’s the only way in here; Matanzas Inlet is closed to navigation, not to mention that a fixed bridge and overhead power lines cross it. Most cruisers steam right on by this river on their way either to or from St. Augustine, but we were looking for a quiet place, so we hung a left off the waterway, following Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Waterway‘s advice for negotiating the somewhat shoaly entrance. We were only a couple of hundred yards in when a voice hailed us on the VHF. “You want to get farther to the right there, captain,” he said. “Way you’re headed, you’re gonna hit the bottom.”

We followed the helpful advice and slid without mishap into this narrow, tide-sluiced river, where we dropped the anchor just off the fort, which is on Rattlesnake Island. A little while later, a pontoon boat came rumbling by, and we waved it over. The driver told us that this ferry was the way to the fort and that we could come anytime tomorrow to the visitors center to hop a ride. All of it was free. And yes, he’d been the one who’d saved us from an embarrassing encounter with the bottom. The next morning, we dinghied to the visitors center where we watched a short film about the fort’s history, and then, after a brief walk on the boardwalk that wends through the woods and marsh here, we hopped our ride and headed for the fort. The Spanish word matanzas means “massacres” or “slaughters” and refers to two bloody Spanish attacks on several hundred French settlers here in 1565. In 1589, the Spanish built a wooden watchtower to keep an eye on the back door into St. Augustine, mainly fending off the likes of Sir Francis Drake and a variety of pirates. The actual fort wasn’t completed until 1742, about 50 years after the much bigger Castillo de San Marcos was completed in St. Augustine. It was only intended to hold a small garrison of seven to 10 soldiers who could warn troops at the Castillo de San Marcos of impending attack. We were allowed to explore the fort for as long as we wished. Afterward, we dinghied toward the inlet, where several broad beaches invited us to stretch our legs. On the way we saw sea turtles, dolphins, and even a loon, far south on its migration.

Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park and Biscayne National Park
For many cruisers heading to the Bahamas or other points east rather than farther south to the Florida Keys, this is the logical end of the line and a good jumping-off point. Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park occupies the southern end of Key Biscayne, and its No Name Harbor, which offers complete shelter, lies only a one-mile walk from cruising necessities and the public-transportation terminal located at the park entrance. It also has trash disposal, showers, restrooms, free pumpout, easy access to the park’s beaches and walking trails, and a decent restaurant. The downside is that it’s pretty small (and can get predictably crowded), and it costs $15 a night to anchor here, paid in honor boxes on the shore. We anchored outside the harbor and dinghied in; the privilege of tying up is $2 per day. The park itself is beautiful; a minor miracle, really, offering a peaceful, lovely, undeveloped sea and landscape within the shadow of Miami. Its lighthouse was built in 1825, and you can get free guided tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

Immediately south of Cape Florida lie the boundaries of Biscayne National Park. Its 173,000 acres, 95 percent of it water, contain cays, islands, underwater sanctuaries, reefs, beaches, and mangroves that stretch all the way to Key Largo. Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Waterway provides a thorough listing of the various spots here, and it makes special mention not to anchor in grass or run aground, since fees can be substantial if you damage the bottom or reefs. If you don’t mind running that risk and you watch your weather carefully, you can be rewarded with a truly remarkable place to gunkhole.

Wendy Mitman Clarke and her family are working their way south aboard Osprey_ with their sights currently set on the Caribbean._

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Find a list of all the national parks, seashores, and monuments in between that have a maritime connection.

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