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Cruising Life
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Harbor Pilots: High Pay, Higher Risks

Here’s a great story about harbor pilots, their risks and their jobs, from Business Insider: The average harbor pilot at the Port of Los Angeles makes $434,000 a year, but also faces a one in 20 chance of dying on the job, according to a new book out Tuesday from The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Mims. The book, “Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door — Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy,” breaks down the complicated dance that brings a shipment from Asia to US buyers in a matter of days. Harbor pilots are some of…

Cruising Life
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Winterizing Facts & Myths from BoatUS

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Sept. 27, 2021 – Recreational boat owners are preparing their boats for a long winter’s nap, but sugarplums aren’t dancing in their heads. What may keep them up at night is hoping cold temperatures won’t damage their boats. Freshwater expands in volume by about 9% when it freezes and can push outward with a force of tens of thousands of pounds per square inch, cracking engine blocks, damaging fiberglass, splitting hoses and waterlines, and destroying refrigeration systems. Boat Owners Association of The United States’ (BoatUS) marine insurance provider, GEICO, shares that boaters often don’t become aware of the…

Charter
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The Moorings Reopens Charters in the Abacos

The Moorings just announced that its is starting power catamaran charters in the Abacos, one of the best cruising destinations in the world, on December 1. Two years ago, Hurricane Dorian devastated the low-lying islands, the marinas and the charter fleets there. But now The Moorings will start power charters from their marina in Marsh Harbour, while sail charters are scheduled to start in April. Here’s more from The Moorings: Resting in the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast of Florida, the Bahamas have become a sought-after destination for travelers seeking an intimate paradise. The chain of more than 700 islands,…

Cruising Life
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Top Ten Boating Towns from BoatUS

Here’s a list of the top ten boating towns from BoatUS Magazine. You may not agree with them, or you may have favorites of your own, but it’s fun to see which towns made the list. Spoiler alert; the picture above is of the Cape Ann Marina in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Read on: SPRINGFIELD, Va., August 30, 2021 – With many wage earners now freed from the daily commute, which towns might score high in the eyes of recreational boat owners looking to relocate? In the just-released September/October 2021 issue of BoatUS Magazine, Contributing Editors Fiona McGlynn and Tim Murphy offer plenty…

Cruising Life
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For Some New York Liveaboards, the Party’s Over

The party may be over for a  group of liveaboards on Newtown Creek, a now toxic piece of waterway between Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. The federal government declared it a Superfund site in 2010, and about 13 million gallons of oil have been removed since then. Now the cleanup may go at a faster pace. But the 130-foot Schamonchi, a former ferryboat operating between Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford, Massachusetts, is still there, as are a handful, or more, of other boats, with liveaboard owners. There’s no marina. The city owns the land, and they don’t pay…

Cruising Life
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Candela Unveils New Electric Drive With Long Life

Candela, the Swedish boat builder, just unveiled its revolutionary new electric C-Pod drive unit with two motors, each one driving a counterrotating propeller. The company says this electric drive will have “an almost unlimited life.” In this story, Electrek says the drive is “an engineering work of art.” Read about it here: Swedish electric boat manufacturer Candela has just unveiled a revolutionary new electric drive unit known as the C-Pod for its premium electric boats, and it’s an engineering work of art. Candela claims that these are the highest-efficiency and longest-lasting boat motors ever. The company’s patented C-Pod consists of…

Cruising Life
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How To Use Contour Lines To Navigate Safely

Here’s some great advice from Skipper Tips about how to use contour lines on land to help you navigate, either when coastal cruising or when making a landfall: Think of land elevation contours like those found in water–depth contours. Cartographers will sometimes indicate the height of a contour prominent enough to be sighted by a mariner. Heights will be shown as a number, so always check the chart datum to understand the height value. It could be in feet or meters. Make this your first step so that you know at-a-glance what the height values indicate. 1. Why Stagger Contour…

Destinations
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A Fast Guide to the Ionian Islands off Greece

Here’s a great story about the Ionian islands off the west coast of Greece, with some of the world’s most beautiful cruising destinations, from nationalgeographic.co.uk and the Greek National Tourism Organization: Imagine sailing across a shimmering emerald sea, bottlenose dolphins cresting the waves alongside your boat. Ahead lies a mountainous island thick with oak, hornbeam, cypress pine and olive groves. Closer in, a pastel-shaded fishing village tumbles down the hillside, its harbour quay lined with traditional tavernas. A nearby sheltered cove, fringed with a pale gold beach, offers safe anchorage and a refreshing dip in limpid lapis lazuli waters. It’s…

Cruising Life
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“Best & Brightest” New Autopilots

Autopilots are becoming almost essential equipment on new cruising boats, but how to choose the right one? To help you out, the Marine Electronics Journal asked manufacturers to single out their Best & Brightest autopilots for review. These are not necessarily the latest models, or those with the most features, but ones that are the most popular or technologically advanced. Here are the replies from Garmin, Simrad, Raymarine, ComNav, Furuno, Octopus, SI-TEX, and B&G: Garmin’s Reactor 40 hydraulic autopilot (pictured at top) keeps you on course at cruising speeds, minimizes heading error, reduces power consumption and more, so you can…

Destinations
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Exploring Glacier Bay on a Kadey-Krogen 48

Veteran cruisers Jeff and Susie Parker just spent a week exploring Glacier Bay, Alaska, on their 2006 Kadey-Krogen 48 North Sea trawler, Idyll Time. Glacier Bay is dear to my heart, since my daughter and her husband lived there for several years while working for the National Park Service, and loved it. You can read about the Parkers’ adventures, and see Jeff’s terrific pictures, on their blog here: With the fog beginning to lift, we weigh anchor at 10 am and ease out of Geike Inlet.  We keep a sharp lookout for the Orcas that were in the anchorage earlier today…

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