The winds are shifting and The Great Book of Anchorages will live on! Beach House Publications has been purchased by Maptech, publisher of Embassy Cruising Guides and the largest private navigational chart publisher in the US.
This means The Grea…
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One Door Closes…
It is with a certain amount of sadness mixed with excitement that we announce the end of one era for us and the beginning of another. Health issues have required
us to move off the water, and our beloved trawler Beach House has been sold and is n…
Discounted Anchorage Guides
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For a limited time only, we’re offering a 20% discount on our Chesapeake Bay and Gulf Coast guides when purchased from our online store. Order now, it won’t last long. Get your copy here…https:/…
Free Fall Shipping Plus Multi-Book Discounts On Our Anchorage Guides
Free Fall Shipping Plus Multi-Book Discounts On Our Anchorage Guides Most website will offer either free shipping or a discount. As fellow boaters, we know how important it is to save money. That’s why we offer you BOTH free shipping in the …
How To Avoid The Scammers
And not get separated from your hard earned dollars. If you have ever bought or sold anything over the Internet, whether it was equipment, parts, electronics or even a boat, chances are you have been contacted by scammers. If you haven’t, I can promise you that you will be. Our recent experience in selling some boat equipment online is a typical ploy used quite often to try and con someone out of their money or personal information, and we want to share that experience and offer some tips on how to avoid being scammed yourself by these lowlifes. We always ask that our followers share our blogs if they find them useful, and in this case, we encourage you to share this post with everyone and anyone you care about so that they can avoid the heartache and financial loss if they are taken in by these criminals. The following information and tips may just help others avoid making mistakes, so please read on.
Our Top 10 Anchorages
When we were asked to pick our 10 favorite anchorages, it felt like trying to decide which child you like best. So our criterion was holding, protection, things to do ashore, beauty and location. Some don’t meet all of these, but they cover the range of things we look for in an anchorage. The following are a good sampling of some of our favorites and we hope they will be yours too.
Bahamas Cruising Itinerary
No matter how many times we go to the Bahamas, we cannot wait to return. Its pristine beauty never ceases to amaze us. Like many cruisers, we have our favorite routes and favorite islands. Also like many cruisers, our favorite way to truly sample the flavors of the Bahamas is finding those perfect spots to anchor. Anchoring in the Bahamas offers some unique challenges that aren’t often encountered cruising inland coastal waters. Bottom conditions can range from excellent in sand to very difficult in scoured-out rocky channels. Some of the most problematic bottom conditions will be heavy grass and thin layers of sand over a rock base. Heavy grass tends to foul the anchor, and thin sand over rock doesn’t give the anchor a chance to dig in. We have found generally good holding in most of the anchorages we have visited on our trips that have covered from the Abacos, to the out islands, to the extreme southern islands. We have also encountered some of the more problematic conditions firsthand. Anchoring close to a cut or a break in a Cay can result in a very rolly anchorage.
Ice Cream Shops on the Chesapeake Bay
Ice Cream Shops by Boat on the Chesapeake Bay
By Susan Landry
We have been traveling up and the down the ICW for over 20 years now and have our routine ice cream shop stops pretty well set. (See Cruising World Sept. 2012 issue.) But although we are originally from the Chesapeake Bay, we had never spent months just leisurely circling the Bay and sampling all of the creamy, sweet delights it had to offer. The summer of 2013, while researching our Chesapeake Bay anchorage guide for our Great Book of Anchorage series, we decided to do research of a slightly different and more fattening kind.
Boating Safety Tips For Everyone
Always review basic safety rules with your passengers before departure.
BE WEATHER-WISE
❐ Check local weather conditions before departure
• Play it safe and get off the water if you notice darkening clouds, rough, changing winds or sudden temperature drops
FOLLOW A PRE-DEPARTURE CHECKLIST
❐ Boating safety rules
❐ Proper equipment
• Ensure you’ll be ready for any on-water emergency
USE COMMON SENSE
❐ Operate at a safe speed, especially on crowded waters
❐ Be alert
❐ Steer clear of large vessels
❐ Pay attention to buoys and other navigational aids
DESIGNATE AN ASSISTANT SKIPPER
❐ Ensure another person on board can take the helm and return to shore should you become incapacitated
DEVELOP A FLOAT PLAN
❐ Always let someone on shore know your boating plans.
Include:
• Name, address, and phone number of trip leader and passengers
• Boat type and registration
• Trip itinerary
• Type of communication and signal equipment on board
LEARN TO SWIM
❐ Check with local pools, or organizations such as the YMCA and American Red Cross for lessons
WEAR LIFEJACKETS
❐ Fit and assign a lifejacket to each passenger prior to launch
TAKE A BOATING COURSE
• Boating education requirements vary by state; regardless of your state’s regulations, it’s smart to be educated
SCHEDULE A FREE VESSEL SAFETY CHECK
• The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Power Squadrons offer free vessel safety checks to verify presence and condition of safety equipment, check out your boat and make safety recommendations. Find an examiner: http://www.safetyseal.net/GetVSC/
SAFETY RESOURCES
• Boat-ed.com: Official boating safety courses and online tests for your boat license
• US Power Squadrons (usps.org) and Coast Guard Auxiliaries (cgaux.org): Free vessel safety checks, boater education and safe boating tips
• Boater101.com: Water and boating safety instruction
Content courtesy of BoatSafe.com
Special Notice
The Coast Guard has recently released its first boating safety App. Features of the app include: state boating information; a safety equipment checklist; free boating safety check requests; navigation rules; float plans; and calling features to report pollution or suspicious activity. When location services are enabled, users can receive the latest weather reports from the closest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather buoys as well as report the location of a hazard on the water. The app also features an Emergency Assistance button which, with locations services enabled, will call the closest Coast Guard command center. http://www.uscg.mil/mobile/
Simple and Inexpensive Air Conditioning
The heat is already upon us in northern Florida and summer has not yet arrived. Already, the air conditioner is running daily, and day and night most of the time. On our previous boat, we did not have the luxury of a built-in air-conditioning system, a…
