Some final thoughts on Pathfinder's southbound cruise

Dec 7, 2007 - Sarasota, FL

We're settled into Pathfinder's winter port in Sarasota and we've had a week to think about the trip south from Newport, RI -- we wanted to share some summary thoughts.

Highlights:

There were so many wonderful sights and experiences it is difficult to choose to top ten but here are some favorites in no particular order:

• Cruising through New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty


• The gentle ride down the New Jersey coast


• Annapolis -- what a great boating city!


• Coinjock -- a unique overnight stop one can only reach when cruising


• The anchorage at Campbell Creek and visit from our friends on SeaDee


• Starting each morning with a Hail Mary prayer and saying the Rosary together as we cruised

Lowlights

Even in a great trip there'll be some low points:

• The biting bugs in the Everglades!


• Very rough day in the Chesapeake


• Waiting for all the drawbridges near Miami

What we wish we'd known...

We'd been boating most of our adult lives but always short trips of less than a week close to home -- never 6 weeks and 2,000 miles! Over the last few years we read everything we could find on cruising the Intracoastal Waterway... and still we found some surprising gaps in our knowledge.

• When we saw our first "No Wake" sign we slowed down... until we realized that almost every dock had a sign posted. We quickly learned to distinguish between these private ones and the real no wake zones posted by a government organization where we would slow to 5 mph. Of course we would slow down to reduce our wake whenever we saw people on docks or anchored boats fishing but we wouldn't slow down to private "no wake" signs


• We keep our boat on a mooring in Newport harbor so we weren't very experienced in coming into slips. It was a steep learning curve but we were amazed by how much more comfortable we felt in close quarters handling after our 6 week cruise-- we encourage everyone to spend the summer before the big cruise practicing all aspects of boat handling before the depart-- especially how to work together as a couple on the boat when you can't always your spouse and are communicating by walkie-talkie. We found the best division of tasks for for Marianne to handle the helm and for Chris to handle the lines-- this is the opposite of many cruising couples but we found it works well for us. We've seen too many boaters coming into a slip in high winds with lots of shouting and panic because the petite wife is struggling with a heavy line and the strong husband is standing at the wheel.