USA's best cruising areas (esp the East Coast)?

[xort]

Delaware Bay!

[BarryL]

Hello,

You should read this book:

The Coast of Summer: Sailing New England Waters from Shelter Island to Cape Cod.

That should help.

Barry

[sgkuhner]

After two circumnavigations, we think that the coast of Maine is one of the very best cruising grounds in the world. However, relative to the lobster pots, I would recommend putting a cutter on you prop shaft before you go. The best part of Maine is Penobscot Bay and down east from there. (down east derives from the fact that the wind blows mostly from the south west and therefore when you are sailing east it is mostly downwind.) Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy s also a special place. As for sailing in Maine in October, the real problem with that is if you want to be heading south to Florida and the Bahamas for the winter, leaving Maine at the end of October is a little late for going south. I would leave Maine by mid September, at the latest. Also sailing the Chesapeake is best in the fall. The ICW is more powering than sailing; but if you take it as a leisurely adventure and explore all the interesting places rather than think of it as a delivery, it is a really fun trip.

If you want to do the outer banks in NC, when you come out of Broad Sound and into the Albemarle Sound you can head east to Roanoke Island and go to the neat little marina on its east side in the town of Manteo and explore that cute little village. From there you can keep gong south in the channel to Pamlico sound. But the channel is narrow and you will not be sailing. Also if you go down the ICW you should definitely get a copy of Skipper Bob's Guide to Anchorages on the ICW.

I will also second the advice of doing the Bahamas, at least the Abacos if not all the way down the Exumas to Georgetown.

[petmac]

Maine is indeed great cruising ground. Should head east to Grand Manan,St. Andrews and then onto the St.John River system.

[sailingdog]

An excellent suggestion, believe the book is by Anthony Bailey, about his voyages in a Tartan 27.

Originally Posted by BarryL

Hello,

You should read this book:

The Coast of Summer: Sailing New England Waters from Shelter Island to Cape Cod.

That should help.

Barry

[soulesailor]

Please DO NOT put a cutter blade on your boat to protect it from lobster pots!!! All this accomplishes is pissing off the local, hardworking, over-taxed fishermen of the great state you travelled all that way to visit. This also costs them money to replace the buoy you cut off and if someone else comes by, or they have only one float per line, they'll lose a whole string of traps. Sailing in Maine involves coexisting with the lobstermen and offering them the respect they have earned. Please, let them work and retrieve their gear. Plenty of rigging options exist to allow the warp to slip harmlessly by the keel.

[labatt]

Soulesailor - I think this has been discussed ad nauseum in the past, but IMHO when pots are heavily set in marked channels or similar locations (like mooring fields, drawbridge channels, etc.) creating a hazard to navigation, I feel less obligated to be so courteous. At times, they are laid so thick you could walk shore to shore. There's only so many times you can go diving into frigid water before you tire.

[sailingdog]

Soulesailor-

I'd have to agree with Labatt. It is better for you to cut the buoy off than it is for you to snag the buoy and drag the string of pots a mile away from where they laid it. Most of the lobsterman have the positions of the pots marked via GPS, and if you move them, they're far less likely to recover them.

[lbdavis]

labatt - I do understand the apparent absurdity of eight gazillion pots in channels, but it's not the lobsterman's fault. Those men and women are only putting pots where the lobsters are. So blame those tasty succulent lobsters.

Plus, if every water craft in Maine had a cutter on it's prop shaft, there'd be a lot more abandoned gear on the ocean floor, a lot more pissed off lobstermen (and they can kick most our A#@$'s) and the most disastrous of all consequences: those tasty succulent lobsters will get even more expensive.

The freemarket rules us all.

[AlanBrown]

The biggest problem with planning long trips is getting so stuck on a schedule that you don't have enough time to spend getting to experience and savour the places you are traveling through.

For example, I could spend a whole season just exploring the nooks and crannies of Chesapeake Bay. The same holds true for Long Island Sound, the Hudson River, Narraganset Bay, Block Island, etc. A season-long exploration of Cape Cod, Boston, Rockport, etc. would also be a blast. Done properly, Maine and New Hampshire require a season of exploration, not just a couple weeks.

The point I'm trying to make is to take your time and plan your trip in segments that allow you enough time to "smell the roses". Trying to do everything in one trip will only cause you to miss many of the things that convinced you to make the trip in the first place.