Cruising with Osprey

28 July 2011
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08 July 2011

How we did it - Route planning

28 September 2008
Spurred on by Chris's comments I am going to put down some of my thoughts about our planning processes, our budget planning and our provisioning which does entail a little more than shoehorning as much beer as possible onto the boat, contrary to what Tim might think. I think this will take several posts over the next few weeks. I am inclined to do this knowing how helpful it was for me to read other people's blogs as we made our plans.

So, first of all, how do we go about planning our route and itinerary? The first thing I have to say is that we learnt a long time ago to not have an itinerary cast in stone as it will only lead to disappointment. Our cruises in Maine taught us this as we learned the hard way not to try to sail to weather any more than is absolutely necessary. Having said that, obviously we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go over the last year. The timing of everything evolved according to the weather, work commitments and visits with family but flexibility was key. When planning our route we would only look ahead 2 or, at the most, 3 days. Beyond that time frame we found that the weather forecasting was not accurate enough to predict winds etc.

We are huge fans of cruising guides and used various guides along the way. We use the guides to help us plan anchorages, where we could stop to provision, get laundry done etc. etc.

Here is a list of the guides we found most useful:

Cruising Guide to the New England Coast: Duncan, Duncan, Fell & Fell
Cruising the Chesapeake, A Gunkholers Guide: William H. Shellenberger
Cruising Guide to North Carolina: Clairborne S. Young (and we will get his guide to South Carolina as well next time)
2007 Yachtsman's Guide to the Bahamas
2007 Cruising Guide to the Abacos: Steve Dodge

For the ICW we started out with "The Intracoastal Waterway - A Cockpit Cruising Guide: Jan and Bill Moeller". Although the format is great, we found this guide to be very out of date and not very useful. We ended up using the "2007 Waterway Guides" for the Mid-Atlantic and Southern Coast by Dozier. These guides are published annually and were very helpful for the ICW which changes so much from season to season. Sipper Bob's guides: Anchorages on the ICW and Marinas on the ICW were also great. Another trick I learnt was to check the Salty Southeast Cruisers Net on the web for information on the latest condition of the ICW. Cruisers write in with the latest information as they pass through so it is very up to date. (The URL is http://www.cruisersnet.net ). I would check every evening for information about shoaling, bridge work or schedule changes over the next stretches we were approaching - it saved us many times!

We also bought "landlubber" guides to the various places we were going to visit on the way. We had guides for Maryland and Delaware and for the Carolinas and Georgia. These gave us a bit more information about the various cities and sights we visited and were very helpful in planning our land-based explorations.

I think the key to enjoyable cruising is to take your time. We enjoyed our trip down the ICW so much because we took our time to do it. I think folks that are just rushing up and down "the ditch" to just get it out of the way are doing themselves a disservice and the waterway deserves more attention than that. Obviously we are fortunate in that we have not been traveling on a time table and know that others are not so lucky. I also believe it is important not to set too ambitious a schedule. Trying to get too far in too short of a time can only lead to disappointment because something will thwart the plan - if not the weather then the boat gremlins! This particularly holds true for shorthanded cruisers (single handers and couples) - it gets tiring to have to keep pushing everyday to make progress towards some distant goal. Same thing in the Bahamas - we could have tried to "do" all the islands of the Bahamas in the time we had. Instead, we made a conscious decision to thoroughly explore one area, the Abacos, first time around. This suited us very well and allowed us to have a nice relaxed cruise without time pressures. Next time we go we will visit the Exumas, a whole new group of islands - we can't wait!

Comments
Vessel Name: Osprey
Vessel Make/Model: Shannon38 #33
Hailing Port: East Greenwich, RI
Crew: Tom & Vicky Worosz
About: We have cruised to the Bahamas and back twice ad are now back on land for a while. This Summer (2012) we have outfitted ourseleves with motorcycles and are heading off for a month long "land cruise'

Who: Tom & Vicky Worosz
Port: East Greenwich, RI