Understanding Your Boat’s Safety Gear
The subject of safety gear has always been at the top of my list. This seems like a good place for me to return to 48° North. Safe boating affects us all, and safety at sea is inherently situational. My time in the U.S.…
Transiting the Passes to Get You Beyond Desolation Sound
For boaters looking for adventure beyond Desolation Sound, some of the best cruising on the British Columbia coast lies farther north through the passes that lead to Johnstone Strait and to the Broughton Archipelago. There…
Puget Sound Cruising Club Presentation: Behind the ‘NVS Boaters’ App
University of Washington's Rachel Wold will illuminate how the NANOOS Visualization System (NVS) consolidates real time data, and how boaters might leverage the app's functionality at the upcoming Puget Sound Cruising Club…
Close to the Water: Riding the Tide
When I worked in marine science, we’d sometimes talk about plankton and nekton. Most people are familiar with plankton: tiny organisms that drift to and fro in saltwater, pushed by currents and wind. Nekton are larger…
Destinations: All Quiet in Quait Bay?
In our latest Destinations column courtesy of SalishSeaPilot.com, we learn about a quaint and quite anchorage in Clayoquot Sound. Sitting on the bow sipping scotch on a crystal clear August evening in 2020, Jim and I…
Lessons Learned on Our Big Left Turn
Sitting in the cockpit at anchor in the peaceful laguna at Barra de Navidad, Mexico, I’m listening to the ker-splash of pelicans dive-bombing for fish around our boat. The afternoon breeze has just sprung up, the fleet of…
Necessary or Nice: Infinity Water
It had been days since my routine AIS checks turned up a new target on the multifunction display, now caked with minute nodules of salt spray from the rambunctious sail south out of Sea Otter Cove on the northwest tip of…
Go, Stop… Go!
The San Juan and Gulf islands. Alaska. Mexico. Colombia. Curaçao. The British Virgin Islands. Sint Maarten. There’s a single-line that connects all of these places throughout our family’s cruising odyssey. They’re all…
