Exploring the social side of sailing
Issue 86: Sept/Oct 2012
Magazine time being what it is (and our short seasons in the Northland being what they are), I write this as our sailing season is just beginning, knowing it won’t be published until our season is nearly over. Our C&C 30 is cleaned up, launched, and ready. The sails are on, rigged properly (reefs and all!), and the tanks are full (or empty, depending upon the purpose of the tank).
Best of all, we’ve already been out sailing! At this time of year, when the boatyard jobs are behind us, I am overcome with the joyous feeling that all’s right with the world. I am therefore able to be expansive and grandly optimistic about how the summer season will unfold. In fact, this season is going to be vastly different from our summers during the past 10 or so years.
We started our cruising lives in Lake Superior’s wonderful Apostle Islands near Bayfield, Wisconsin. There, more than 20 islands offer protection from virtually any wind direction, although they’re far enough apart that you do have to keep an eye on the sky, tune in to the weather radio, and have the ability to plan your evening anchorage well in advance. You must also be flexible in case it doesn’t work out. All Apostles sailors have stories about weather surprises.
This 69,000-acre archipelago was a marvelous place for us to earn our cruising credentials, to learn about our sailing preferences, and to become very familiar with our boat. There were always fellow sailors, good friends all, in the anchorages where we settled in for the evening. We had a great time and we acquired a vast storehouse of local knowledge.
Eventually, Jerry and I wanted to explore wider horizons, and we began to think in terms of “wilderness cruising,” in which we traveled farther distances from towns and marinas and often went for days or weeks without seeing another boat. We enjoyed the solitude, the new scenery, and the increased challenges.
In 2010, we took the entire summer off and circum-navigated Lake Superior during a three-month cruise. Last summer we condensed our cruise to a month spent primarily on the north shore of the lake. This summer we’ll cruise for a whole month again, but it will be back in our original cruising waters of the Apostles.
Although it’s been nearly 10 years since we spent much time in the Apostles, it’s home to us. Over the years, I have missed the area more than I can say.
So we have given up wilderness cruising for the summer. The new twist for us is that, since we’ll be reliably close once more to civilization (bed & breakfast inns, grocery stores, and restaurants), we have invited some friends and family members to come sailing. We weren’t able to do that easily in the past when sailing in areas requiring a long drive and a passport and lacking any towns or nearby marinas where we could meet or drop off guests.
People get busy and plans change. The weather will play a role. But I imagine a few of those who have wanted to give “this sailing thing” a try for many years will manage to clear their calendars and spend a day or two aboard.
In our wilderness cruising we often hustled to get to the next anchorage before the next weather pattern socked us in, sometimes leaving behind wonderful social opportunities with the few sailors we met along the way in our rush to the next safe anchorage or marina. So this year we’ll, instead, have shorter distances to go, only a few scheduling issues to resolve, and much more time to slow down and enjoy the company of a few special guests and fellow cruisers in the anchorages.
Rather than wilderness cruising, this is our summer for social sailing. I look forward to the slower pace and a chance to view the Apostles and our cruising life through the eyes of those for whom all is new, beautiful, and very special indeed.
To read about our 2010 summer-long cruise of Lake Superior, go to www.goodoldboat.com/blogs/2010_adventure_blog.php.
Our blogs from our 2011 and 2012 summer cruises are at http://goodoldboat.wordpress.com.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
