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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…

Cruising Life
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A Fast Guide to Some Nautical Chart Symbols

Here’s an easy refresher for nautical chart symbols that could help make your next cruise, or landing in an anchorage, a lot safer and easier, all from Skipper Tips. Read on: You look at your nautical chart and see sharks teeth just inside the beach line? What do these mean and how can your best use them to advantage in your chart navigation? Unlock the mystery of land profile chart symbol secrets to boost your skipper-skills sky-high! Choose an anchorage, land a dinghy onto a beach, or make a passage through a coral reef or chain of islands. All of…

Cruising Life
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Sunreef Unveils New Luxury Cat Designs

Ever since it started in 2003, Sunreef Yachts, in Gdansk, Poland, has become a world leader in luxury catamaran design, concentrating on layouts that make living on board as comfortable and safe as possible, both underway and while at anchor. Recently, Francis Lapp, the company’s founder and president, unveiled some new layouts for luxury cats in the 60- to 90-foot range. Sunreef has been working on these for three years, and they do provide a lot of extra living space. Here’s what Sunreef says about the new designs: The concept unlocks a new potential for onboard comfort thanks to a…

Cruising Life
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Whale Breaches Next to Small Boat. Pictures, Video

Here are amazing pictures and a video of a whale breaching next to a small center console, with an explanation of how the photographers captured the images. Read about it in this story from PetaPixel: A photographer was on a whale-watching trip when he unexpectedly captured incredible photos of a large humpback whale exploding out of the water right next to an unsuspecting fisherman on his boat. Photographer Douglas Croft was in California’s Monterey Bay on April 27th back in 2019 when the memorable moment occurred. “It was quite exciting! Salmon season coincides with the time when humpbacks are returning…

Cruising Life
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Outer Reef Owner Rescues 5: His Story

Nick and Robin, experienced cruisers, took delivery of their new Outer Reef 610 motoryacht Silver Skye last year. Earlier this summer, when Nick was cruising from Brielle, New Jersey, to Quincy, Massachusetts, with his friend Kurt, he ended up on a rescue mission. Here’s his first-hand account: “Last Friday, as we were traveling from Hadley Harbor (a New England anchorage and cruising ground south of Cape Cod) in the Elizabeth Islands to Quincy, Massachusetts, I spotted what I initially thought was an individual on a jet ski. “As I looked closer, I saw that he was waving frantically. I changed…

Cruising Life
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More People Boating, More Boating Accidents

Many more people were boating last year, during the pandemic, including many who were boating for the first time. The result, according to the Coast Guard: about 25 percent more deaths, and 26 percent more accidents, than the year before. Now, BoatUS has looked into the reasons behind the statistics. The top five: Operator inattention, operator inexperience, improper lookout, excessive speed, and machinery failure. Read the BoatUS report here: ANNAPOLIS, Md., July 16, 2021 – The U.S. Coast Guard recently released the 2020 Recreational Boating Statistics, and reports of accidents, fatalities and injuries were significantly up over the prior year.…

Cruising Life
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Boat Sinks Offshore, but All 6 on Board Rescued

Here’s a great story from FlaglerLive about how six people were rescued after their 23-foot center console capsized 10 miles off Flagler Beach in Florida. A passing boat rescued them in 15 minutes or so, but they also had some high-tech help from Siri and Pandora. Read it here: The four men and two boys were rescued and made it safely back to shore after their boat sank 10 miles offshore of Flagler Beach the morning of July 10, so this much they can laugh about now: after the 23-foot center-console fishing boat had rapidly taken on water and capsized, leaving…

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