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Cruising Life
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People “Ride” Stranded Dolphin

Here’s a discouraging story from NPR about how people tried to ride on a dolphin stranded on Texas beach – killing it: A dolphin stranded on a Texas beach died after being harassed by a crowd of people who also tried to ride the animal, according to rescuers. The Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network posted on Facebook that a female dolphin was found stranded, but alive, on Quintana Beach in Texas last Sunday. Beachgoers pushed the animal back into the sea, but it was further harassed by people who attempted to ride the sick animal. She got stranded on the…

Charter
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Top 10 Charter Destinations This Year

Here’s a list of this year’s top ten charter destinations, from the people at Denison Yachting (Sardinia and Corsica are pictured above). Start making your plans now: Is it just us, or does 2022 already feel different? After two years of a global pandemic, countries are adapting to international tourism and implementing ways to safely welcome visitors. Yet one of the safest ways to travel is by luxury yacht charter. Denison’s charter division experienced higher demand for larger and more expensive yachts than ever before — a 65% increase in the total number of weeks booked throughout 2021. Ready to…

Cruising Life
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21 Tips For Saving Fuel from BoatUS

SPRINGFIELD, Va., March 17, 2022 – Gas prices are up. What can boaters do to prepare for a summer of boating? The 800,000-plus member Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) has 21 fuel-saving tips boaters can do to help save on fuel and still enjoy a fulfilling season on the water. While some of these techniques may sound obvious, there may be some you never considered. Before Heading Out: Tune your engine now. A once a year for a tune-up and service will help it run more efficiently. Match the boat’s prop to the boat and activity. Propellers…

Cruising Life
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User-Friendly Spring Commissioning Checklist: BoatUS

Here’s an easy-to-follow, quite thorough spring-commissioning checklist from BoatUS: SPRINGFIELD, Va., March 10, 2022 – Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) offers its Spring Commissioning Checklist to help boaters start the season right. The nation’s largest advocacy, service and savings group also offers BoatUS.com/Spring, a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about the yearly ritual of recreational boat commissioning. A PDF copy of the checklist is available to download, print, and take to the boat with you. Be sure to follow all manufacturer recommendations for your specific boat, engine and accessories. Before You Launch Inspect all around…

Cruising Life
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Top Ten Videos of Year from BoatUS

What are boat owners really worried about? Repairing their gelcoat and making sure their bilge  pumps work. At least that’s the conclusion from a list of the 10 Most-Watched Videos of 2021 from BoatUS. Take a look: SPRINGFIELD, VA., Dec. 15, 2021 – Repairing gelcoat is a common boat owner task, but it requires more than just filling in small spider cracks. “How to Spray Gelcoat on a Boat Using a Preval Sprayer,” which shows how to make professional gelcoat repairs over a larger area, was the most-watched new BoatUS video of 2021, from BoatUS Magazine. The second most-watched video…

Cruising Life
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How To Use Ranges To Cruise Safely

Here’s some great advice from Skipper Tips about how to use ranges to cruise safely: You enter an unfamiliar channel late in the afternoon. You scan your chart plotter or nautical chart to check for dangers to the left, or to the right. Rocky shoals lie close to the channel edges on each side. Be on the lookout for one of the sailor’s best friends – channel ranges (also called transits). These markers will lead you down the center of a narrow channel in safety, keep your sailboat in deep water, and help you navigate with confidence, day or night.…

Cruising Life
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New Holiday Gifts for Safe Boating from BoatUS

It’s that time of the year again. What to give your favorite boat owner, or crew? Here are some great ideas about holiday gifts that will keep everyone on board safe for years to come.  ANNAPOLIS, Md., Nov. 12, 2021 – Bulky, square orange life vests have given way to more comfortable belt- or harness-style inflatable floatation devices, yet many recreational boaters still carry only the former aboard. Are boaters up-to-date on today’s newest technology-inspired boating safety gear? With the holidays around the corner, the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water offers a buying guide for technology…

Cruising Life
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End of the Season in “Stormy Sitka”

For the past few years, we’ve been following John and Kathy Youngblood as they’ve cruised around Alaska on their 2004 Selene 54 Mystic Moon. They previously cruised more than 35,000 nm on Mystic Moon in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Now they’ve posted their latest blog, about their fall cruise out of Sitka, or “Stormy Sitka” as John calls it (see Mystic Moon at the dock there in the picture above).   Of the 16 days they were in Sitka, John writes, they had two days of partial sun, while it rained the rest of the time and every few…

Cruising Life
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NOAA: La Nina Coming Again. More Hurricanes

NOAA is predicting a second winter influenced by La Niña in the Pacific, leading to drought in the southern  U.S. and heavy rains and flooding in the Pacific Northwest. It also means a more severe Atlantic hurricane season. Read the NOAA story here: A La Nina has developed and will extend through the second winter in a row, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center — a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service. La Nina is a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator and is translated from Spanish…

Cruising Life
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Anatomy of a Disaster in Pictures

Here’s a great recap by gCaptain of the wreck of the container ship Rena that hit a reef off New Zealand and eventually broke apart in that country’s worst maritime disaster: The MV Rena was traveling at a speed of 17 knots when it grounded on Astrolabe Reef off the coast of New Zealand on October 5, 2011, during a voyage from Napier to port of Tauranga. At the time, the ship was carrying over 1,300 containers and 1,733 tonnes of heavy fuel. What resulted became the country’s worst maritime disaster which took years to clean-up. Investigators eventually found that it was…

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