Cruising Life

New Carbon Delta 60 Open: Smart, Sophisticated and Sunny Swedish Import

By Peter Janssen on March 18, 2018 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

You probably aren’t going to take a new carbon fiber Delta 60 up the Inside Passage (although I once drove a 35-foot Donzi from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, and back), but it certainly would be nice to cruise down to the Florida Keys over to the Bahamas on one. You – and a lot of your friends – will be comfortable enough on board. The Delta 60 has three staterooms and two heads below, and there’s room for a crowd up on the main deck with sunning and lounge areas that seem to go on forever. And you can carry…

Martha’s Vineyard Ferry Dead in the Water for Five Hours After Engines Fail

By Peter Janssen on March 18, 2018 Cruising Life

It’s been a bad week for the Martha’s Vineyard ferries. First, the MV Woods Hole ran aground and was taken out of service for repairs. Then the MV Martha’s Vineyard lost its engines and was dead in the water for five hours, with 78 people on board, before it returned to Vineyard Haven at 1:30 in the morning. No one was injured in the Martha’s Vineyard affair, although one passenger told The MV Times that “some kids got scared when life jackets were handed out.” The Steamship Authority, which runs the ferries, said the Martha’s Vineyard left Vineyard Haven at…

Garmin Introduces Powerful New Sonar Going Down to 200 Feet

By Peter Janssen on March 17, 2018 Cruising Life, Electronics

Garmin just introduced a new Ultra High-Definition scanning sonar that uses a higher frequency range to deliver clear, detailed pictures of fish and anything else that are as far as 200 feet under your boat. The new sonar, called Ultra High-Definition ClearVü and Ultra High-Definition SideVü, operate on sonar frequencies from 0.8 to 1.2 MHz. Garmin said the range of 200 feet was more than any other system to date. The new Ultra-High Definition sonar puts more power on targets with a higher frequency range than ever before, scanning with a downward-facing element that provides clear images at greater depths. It…

Warning To Mariners: Stay Clear of Kick-’em-Jenny

By Peter Janssen on March 15, 2018 Cruising Life

If you’re thinking about cruising in the Caribbean, you’ll want to keep an eye on Kick-‘em-Jenny, an underwater volcano five miles off Grenada that’s threatening an eruption. Indeed, the government of Grenada just imposed a three-mile exclusion zone around the area because scientists believe an eruption could take place in the next day or so. One of the most active volcanoes in the eastern Caribbean. Kick-‘em-Jenny rises about 8/10 of a mile above the seafloor. It has erupted at least a dozen times since it was discovered in 1939, when it shot a 900-foot-high cloud of steam and debris up…

Police and TowBoatUS Rescue Disabled Boat with Nine People in Jupiter Inlet. See the Video

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2018 Cruising Life

Jupiter Inlet in Florida has a well-earned reputation for getting a little rough at times. That was particularly true last Sunday afternoon, when the ocean swells were up to ten feet and the inlet was not a happy place to be. It definitely was not the time or place to run out of gas, but that’s exactly what happened to a boat with nine people on board. Someone on the boat called the Coast Guard, and a local Tequesta Police Department boat and another boat from TowBoatUS responded, as the crippled boat was drifting toward the rocks on the jetty.…

Now You Can Take a Tropic Ocean Airways Seaplane to Your Moorings Charter in the Bahamas

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2018 Charter, Cruising Life

Now it’s going to be a lot easier to get to your charter in the Bahamas. The Moorings has joined with Tropic Ocean Airways for a new ‘Fly & Sail’ program where charter guests can fly directly to their Bahamas destinations from the Tropic Ocean Airways lounge at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport private FBO, or from the Miami Seaplane Base on Watkins Island. When guests arrive, their Moorings’ power or sail charter yacht will be prepped and ready in the Abacos or the Exumas. The Moorings is the world’s premiere charter yacht company, and Tropic Ocean Airways is the…

Two U.S. Navy Subs Surface in the Arctic, Join Temporary Camp on a Moving Ice Floe

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2018 Cruising Life

Here’s something we haven’t seen before: Pictures of two U.S. Navy submarines that broke through the ice and surfaced below the Arctic Circle. The fast-attack subs, the USS Hartford (SSN 768) and the USS Connecticut (SSN 22), were taking part in a multi-national training exercise in the Beaufort Sea. They were joined by the Royal Navy sub HMS Trenchant. After the surfacing, the crews joined a temporary ice camp on a moving ice floe about 150 miles off the northern slope of Alaska in international waters. The exercise is designed to train submarine crews how to operate in extreme cold…

Good News for Crabs, Fish and the Rest of Us: More Seagrass Growing in the Chesapeake

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2018 Cruising Life

Seagrass is growing again on the floor of the Chesapeake, and that’s good news, since the grass shelters crabs and fish and other aquatic species (see the picture above of some healthy new grass with a crab pot near Crisfield, Maryland). Scientists say there had been no grass until recently on the floor of the Chesapeake off Solomon’s Island since 1972. Now they’re seeing new seagrass beds that are growing and healthy, the result of reduced pollution, particularly from farm runoff. The water is clearer and more sunlight can reach seagrass. A new study, recording years of monitoring, says that…

Google To Map 143 nm in South Florida for New Waterway View App, Showing Marinas, Restaurants and Businesses

By Peter Janssen on March 13, 2018 Cruising Life

Once Google started mapping streets across the United States, we should have seen this coming. In a logical extension of its Google Maps, showing street views of homes and businesses across the United States, Google is now partnering with the Marine Industries Association of South Florida to create a new Google Waterway View of 143 nm along the Intracoastal Waterway and Biscayne Bay. Google will use boats provided by MarineMax and Boat Owners Warehouse for their cameras, and they will cover the Waterway from the Palm Beach County line in Jupiter through Ocean Reef in Key Largo, plus some adjoining…

A Fast Refresher on What All Those Lights Mean When You’re Cruising After Dark

By Peter Janssen on March 13, 2018 Cruising Life

The problem with coming in to a strange harbor at night is determining which lights are which. Which are the ATONs, marking a jetty, a shoal, a side of the channel? And which are merely background lights – a house, a car, a bridge? I once cruised down the Florida Keys in a fast boat after dark and thought I was looking at lights marking one of the resort marinas I was aiming for, until I realized the lights were from a night game at a Little League baseball diamond. Time to throttle back. For navigating at night, you can…

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