Best cruise of the season?

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Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:45 pm

Looking back over the last 12 months (from the date of your post): What was the best cruise you did? Where "best" is by some metric that you choose. Longest, most fun, most challenging, best company, best remembered. Whatever.

Where did you sail to? Any picture that sums it up? Anything interesting happened? Any challenge? Any special prep? What made it "best" for you?

Try to keep it short and focused. If it inspires you to draft a longer trip report, put a teaser here and start a separate thread.

Hoping to get a variety of responses, perhaps to give the rest of us some ideas. Please limit to one cruise per 12 month, but if you have one from 2 years ago that you feel you'd like to share as well, why not. Let's keep the past open-ended that way.

OK, who's game?
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Jan 01, 2020 1:36 am

Nearly 850 people have viewed this thread by the end of the year. That's more than the number of views on some of the other threads in this section, even though they have been around much longer.

Not one of these viewers has had a "best cruise"? Perhaps this is a topic that attracts only bots and people directed here by search engines?

I was hoping to find out more about how and where people sail their DS. I had thought it might also be fun to get a link to some trip reports for people on similar boats (size and style) to a DS; suggestions that could be applied by those sailing a DS are always good. So, if you see this and have something to share, please feel welcome.

However, no takers so far, so I'll report on my "best" cruise for the year.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Jan 01, 2020 1:44 am

I've not had a lot of "cruises" myself in either 2019, or the 12 months since I first started the thread. A number of planned outings fell through when schedules and weather didn't want to cooperate, leaving me with almost exclusively "race nights" in 2019. In quotes, because not all of them were evening event, and most of them are more fun than "racing".

So, looking back at 2019, I had exactly one "cruise" I remember: a somewhat regular annual outing where I sail across one of the lakes here in the afternoon to a friend's house, join a party with great food and even better friends, and sail back at night - often accompanied by one or the other adventurous soul from the party who likes to join me for some night sailing. About six miles in either direction in early August. Lake winds tend to be weak and fluctuating then, so it's always a challenge to get there before the wind dies around sunset, and back with enough wind to cover most of the open water so that we need to use the batteries for the electric motor only in the channel and some spots along the way that don't ever seem to get wind at night. This year, we had to motor quite a bit into the open lake to get any breeze at all for the return, but then we managed the remainder within the action radius of the battery.

(I'm using an EP Carry, which has a battery that nominally lasts 1hr at a speed ~3kn, so I get more or less 3nm range: the battery is so light, that I take it out of the boat to recharge if I dock for a bit as I did that night).

There are enough lights on shore to make it possible to see the water, and to see wind ripples and gusts. This year, we had a 3/4 moon in addition. In contrast to the daytime, where motorboats tend to churn the waters, we "own" the lake when we sail at night, and rarely see another boat or vessel. I love night sailing like that and it's always one of the highlights of the year.

Reflection.jpg
Reflection.jpg (40.25 KiB) Viewed 13117 times
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby tomodda » Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:17 pm

GL and DS Folk:

Happy Gregorian Calendar New Years! Thank you for the tale of your night cruise, sounds like it was wonderful and I need to try night sailing. Usually I avoid, come running back to the ramp/dock by sunset, I should stop being such a chicken (and get some nav lights). Also, I thought that by "cruise," you meant staying on-boat or in tent overnight. If long daysails are permitted, I'll tell you about my cruise around Gwynn Island, Virginia.

Gwynn Island is right at the mouth of one of my old favorite sailing grounds - the Piankatank River on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake, roughly halfway between the Potomac and Norfolk. Beautiful Tidewater scenery, friendly locals, great food, good winds, and a variety of local waters to play around in. There's everything from a protected harbor behind the island to the open Bay, with just the right amount of other boats to see and soft sandbanks to dodge around. I.e. I ran aground a lot, but it was all just a matter of "Oh, look, the centerboard handle moved, I guess we'd better come about!". I spent a wonderful 4-day weekend there with my adult son right at the end of October, leaves were still turning colors adding to the beauty. Each day was special, but the best was the day we decided to circumnavigate the Island, "just becuz."

If you take a look at a map, you'll see it's about 9 miles around the island, but adding up all the tacks and doglegs, it was nearly 20 miles and a full day's sailing. We started the day by gliding out of Milford Haven and thru the swing bridge - under sail. I was happy that the bridge-tender let us sail through (usually frowned upon), but the truth is that we were probably going faster than my little EP Carry motor would have taken us anyway! Once thru into the mouth of the river, we began a steady beat out to the open Bay - a 3 foot steep chop made things interesting. But the DS behaved beautifully under full sail in 15 knot East winds, steady in strength but backing north. Once my son learned to trust her (and me!) he was hiking out nicely and helping to keep her on her lines. Nevertheless, it was too wet for me to use my smartphone GPS and I didn't have a chart, so I was navigating by sight alone. No problem getting out to the Bay, but I probably took more tacks than I needed to. Basically we hauled across the river until either of us thought that the water looked suspiciously lighter and then tacked, I didn't want to hit the shoals in that chop! The annoying thing is that I used to know those waters by heart, but that was 40 years ago... There's something wonderful in sailing on water that you can navigate like your own front door, I'm slowly getting that way with my local lake.

The reward for all our efforts was a nice broad reach across the Bay side of the island, admiring the million-dollar houses. To my surprise, no chop, that was all caused by the "funnel" effect at the mouth of the river, the Bay was smooth sailing. Relax, break out the beer, try and get our bearings for the tricky turn around the bottom of the island. The south end of Gwyn Island has several miles of sand islets and shoals, the way back thru to Milford Haven is ominously named "The Hole in the Wall." The inlet is an S-curve with no government markers and unknown currents, so was sure to be "fun." For the little it was worth, the chart showed that the beginning and end of the passage WERE marked with a "WC"' and a "WJ"' respectively, whatever those were - WC in particular didn't sound reassuring. But once we got down there, easy sailing and slack water. "WC" was an unlit iron post with a big white "C" on it, we managed to avoid the fish traps, fish "haven," and the finger of 2 foot shoals sticking into the Bay. WC even had a brother, WD, also unlit, but between the two they sort of pointed in the general direction of the first turn in the passage. Tricky, but nowhere near as bad as sailing the Florida Keys (and no bottomless mud). As we threaded along, we noticed a stick....with an upside down bait bucket bucket on it! Now that's mighty convenient.... Gawd bless the local watermen, is there a next one? a few hundred yards off to the south, there it was, we jibed over to it. And now? Nothing... we just pointed ourselves west towards the houses on the mainland-side and hoped not to hit anything. Where's WJ, are we out of this thing yet? Nothing but a big black post with something written on it, so we bore down on it. D-A-N-G-E-R... of what? Where were we? There were no warning markers on the chart when I looked at it earlier.... Then my son spotted it, a 12-inch high letter painted under the Danger sign - "J". This was it?!? The WJ marker that we'd been looking for all afternoon? Seriously? Kind of burying the lede here, no? Anyway, after a good laugh about having to almost hit the danger sign to see that it's really a navigation marker, we headed north. The wind had died down so we had a pleasant evening glide, zig-zagging home thru the well-marked shoals as the sun set.

Crabcakes and beer were waiting for us at the island's only restaurant, co-incidentally named "Hole in the Wall Grill." I asked one of the locals, "What's with the Danger marker at the south end of the Haven?" "Oh, the inlet is dangerous." "Huh, it wasn't too bad, I've just sailed it." "Yuh, you should see when you Summer Folk try to go thru there in a powerboat up on a plane!" OK, point taken, even if it was October. Anyway, nothing that day was really hairy, just enough to keep it interesting. Sailing Gwynn Island was plain good fun and the DS was perfect for it. Looking forward to next season!
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Thu Jan 02, 2020 7:51 pm

Tom, very nice trip and trip report.

Here's a map for your readers to follow along.
Your "Hole-in-the-wall" appears to be just N of where this map says "Cricket Hill".
Gwynn3.jpg
Gwynn3.jpg (20.53 KiB) Viewed 13117 times


And here's a chart I found:
Gwynn4.jpg
Gwynn4.jpg (57.26 KiB) Viewed 13117 times
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby tomodda » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:49 am

Hi GL:

Glad you've enjoyed my little tale. The "Hole in the Wall" is actually at the other end of the Island, by "Sandy Point" on the chart. What you see on the Street Map is the wonderful pub and grill where we ate, by the swing bridge. They also let us tie up at their docks all weekend, as it was the low season, and invited us for their after-work deck party the night we came in very late (after dark, which you so like!). Very nice people, from the owner to the youngest barback. Overall, was a great temporary homebase, right by the ramp. For what it's worth, here's a link to the google earth view of the inlet, it's the curving dark channel thru the shoals:

https://goo.gl/maps/ZjcCDpBZMppNvngT7

Zooming in on the north side of the channel, you can actually see the bait bucket marker, amazing (I'm easily amused):

https://goo.gl/maps/LqN9ETeibtLcXyGH9

In other news, here's the video which drew me back to the Piantank area after 40 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptWOjMNiKJ0

It's really a lovely area, very simple but good wind and (usually) sheltered sailing. The sandbars and spits keep the rollers from the Bay out - yes, you can get surfable waves on the Bayside in enough wind. I remember blasting around on a Hobie on the tail end of a hurricane in '79 or so, great fun! Anyway, if you live anywhere in the MidAtlantic, it's worth checking out one day.
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:57 am

Tom, having an island to round always makes it a good cruise and tying up for food in the middle makes it perfect!
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby BlackPirate » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:00 am

Just a newbie. Nice write up and thank you for sharing. It really inspires me and might try night sailing. I'm pleased to watch the video, too :idea:
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Sat Jul 04, 2020 3:06 pm

@blackpirate why not share something about your "first cruise" - either here or in a new topic? There are quite a number of people who are new to the DS or new to sailing this year, so this may be a good time for this topic. It's not about winning a prize but perhaps inspiration?
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby TJDSII6630 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:48 pm

St Helena Sound, SC Coast, June 2019
Wrote this up soon after I got back but forgot to post it!

After a few day trips in Lake Marion, I decided to head to the coast learn the waters of
St Helena Sound, where I would have better wind and more room; and a friend has a lot where I could park the car within walking distance of the landing.
This has been a good location, putting in at Eddie’s Point Landing and anchoring off Pine Island for the night. Plenty of room in the Morgan River and except at low tide, in the sound as well.
Also, if conditions are right, I can head a few miles off shore.
So this trip, my fourth, around June of 2019, was the most memorable of the season as the tides and wind were favorable to covering a lot of distance, and everything went “right”.
After getting into the river I beat my way to the sound as the wind was right up the river at 10 knots or so.
I had the tide to my favor so made fair time and got well out into the sound on the first day.
Great time to lash the helm, sit on the cabin, lean back on the mast, and enjoy the ride!
Near evening I headed back with the tide and the wind to my anchor point off Pine Island.
Within about 2 hours I was setting up the anchor and getting ready for the night.

I enjoyed a beautiful sunset with the water lapping the hull, a hot can of stew and dolphins blowing all around. It’s a treat to hear them exhale in inhale!
I passed the night with a star studded sky and a bug-less breeze from the shore snoozing on the seats.
Up at grey light making coffee and a double instant breakfast spiked with powdered milk and protein powder – good till night fall!

I was soon weighing anchor at the last 2 hours of an incoming tide. Forecast was the same as the day before so I was intent to get to open water. I followed the navigation channel on the south side, and soon got “out there”.
It is a different view to be out farther than the shrimp boats! I played with the waves 3 to 4 hours or so, on different points of sail testing the combination of swells and chop. Water was a bit choppy with 4 to 5 foot comfortably spaced swells, and I’ve been comfortable in 6 to 7 footers, but there was another wave system of about 2 to 3 foot waves with short periods that made for a rougher ride. Just had to take them at an angle and all was well.

Around 2 PM I decided I better head back, as back was pushing around 18 nm, not counting any tacking.
However, the tide was in my favor, if I made it back in time, which was a concern as my Grandfather’s 1958 3 HP Johnson Seahorse could not beat the peak tide flow. The wind and waves were on the stern, not the best, but at least all three were going my way!
I dropped sails near the mouth of Eddies Creek and motored the last mile or two to the landing.
Packed up and pulling away from the landing I was tired, joyful, and looking forward to a stop at Taco Bell.

Teddy
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:16 pm

Teddy, that sounds like a great cruising ground. I tried to read along and pulled up a chart of the area (at least I think I found the right one). I see a Pine Island off to the right and an Edding Creek to the left. Is that where you went?
StHelenaSound.gif
Chart
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby BlackPirate » Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:24 pm

@Greenlake Thanks for the warm welcome! I have been on Lake Austin boat tour and Rio Boat Cruise along the San Antonio River Walk before. But never been trying to cruise and day sail without any companion. I find cruising an exciting way to spend the weekend. :D
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby TJDSII6630 » Wed Jul 15, 2020 9:51 pm

Greenlake, that's the spot.

It has been a good place to sail.
Fishing and crabbing are good too.
You can even get to Port Royal Sound via the inter coastal waterway.
Or, make a trip up the coast if the weather is right.

Teddy
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby GreenLake » Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:27 pm

Looks like a nice spot.
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Re: Best cruise of the season?

Postby Anstigmat » Sun Sep 20, 2020 5:07 pm

While I can hardly call this a cruise, I can recount a wonderful day I spent out on the water with my DS1.

She’s new to us, as I picked her up on impulse from a fellow Islander. I live on Westport Island, a midcoast Maine rock that isn’t so well known, and thus has affordable homes on beautiful lots. Ours is not one that has water access, but it’s close. Our wonderful neighbors are generous with their docks. One lets me use his deep water mooring.

We got one sail in this Summer. We didn’t go far, but we did get a small taste of the adventures that await us next year.

The wind was light to start, and honestly we had a hard time even making way. So we drifted a bit. I even had to paddle away from some rocks on a point. However, once we cleared the point the wind started gently and the sails filled. You can feel the DS suddenly making way, and it was wonderful.

We slowly sailed around Nubble Bay. Within 10 minutes a group of dolphins surfaced nearby, passing with 25 feet or so. Occasionally harbor seals would pop up and take a look at us.

Pointing the DS on course for Beals Island, we made slow progress. A neighbor came by in his Boston Whaler, somewhat impressed, and said hello. Eventually we were close enough to the small beach on Beals Island. I dropped the anchor and we waded ashore. I’m not ashamed to say I did a little skinny dipping, until I decided that it was too freaking cold! Some of these Mainers don’t seem to mind the cold, that’s not me.

At that time the wind had completely disappeared, so we motored back to the mooring. It was a wonderful day, and next Summer I hope to have many more. I am determined to do some overnights and long cruises. Maine is a wonderful place to sail.
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