Holiday’s 2018 Summer Plan and Musings on Different Cruising Plans

Last year for our first summer living aboard Holiday, the original plan had been to cruise up the ICW and tour the eastern coast of the US. Our thinking was to ease into our new life before tackling big passages, see a bunch of cities we had never been to before, and hide in the Chesapeake or further north from hurricane season. After watching many friends leave Boot Key Harbor last winter and spring for the Bahamas and beyond, we changed our plans and decided to head for the islands. We had even made all the preparations to continue into the Caribbean instead of the eventual turn around we made at Georgetown. A bold plan for rookies like us.

There were many reasons we decided to head to the Bahamas instead of the ICW including some not necessarily positive feelings we had as we sorted out the not unexpected difference in the reality of cruising from the dream of cruising. I imagine many new cruisers experience this. Living on a boat isn’t always easy. We were chasing the “Fun”. Heading to the islands while searching for the endless summer.

Fast forward to our second year cruising into 2018. Once hurricane season ended, and we finished up with some unexpectedly long boat work, we were once again in Boot Key Harbor for the winter. Before we even headed to the Keys, we had already made the plan again to do the ICW in the summer. In the back of my mind, I wondered if we would change plans again like before. We had made new friends, and like before, they were all heading to the islands.

This second year has been different though. We’re a little more experienced, and we aren’t guessing as much about what we actually might enjoy doing. This year we are heading up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

Why are we doing this when we gained the experience last year to cruise away from the US and even go further to explore the islands of the Caribbean? Well, one thing we learned in the Bahamas last year is that tiny islands bordering on the giant Atlantic and unpredictable Caribbean have vast mood swings in weather and sea conditions. Life even at anchor can be challenging with constant motion. The remoteness that is their beauty and allure is also their curse when it comes to products and services needed to keep a cruising boat in safe working order.

Many people do it on a wing and a prayer. That’s not us. As prepared as we thought we were last year, we learned that we needed more spares, more know how, maybe even get rid of some old systems and replace them with new equipment. We have even talked about the possibility of a larger, heavier, more comfortable boat in the future depending on what our eventual cruising plans become (The grass is always greener. Tartan 37s have endless advantages over most boats).

At any rate, we are looking for ease and comfort currently. We are still deep in the learning phases of figuring out our dream. There is awesome coastal city after awesome coastal city right here in the US with tons of totally flat protected anchorages around them, not to mention mooring fields. We want to take a lazy 4 month north bound cruise seeing all these places. Stopping when we want for as long as we want. Then we will still have 3 more months of hurricane season to tour the Chesapeake and possibly go further north before we run from cold weather back south. The boat could start to fall apart and help, services, and spares are a stone throw away during the whole escapade.

I am really glad we happened to do things in this order though. Had we went up the ICW last year, we would have done so without the knowledge of the demands of the islands. I think we will have a better appreciation for ICW cruising knowing what we know of island cruising. Many people describe ICW transits as boring and monotonous. I describe them as carefree.

Heading to the islands this year we would have been maybe more shocked by some of the difficulties. Who knows what we would have done from there? We were able to “rip the band aid off” quickly of any preconceived notions of perpetual lazy island hopping last year. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of lazy island hopping last year and will be plenty in our future. We just know there is a healthy dose of hard cruising and stuff breaking mixed in. When we return to the islands, probably next year, we’ll at least be ready for the rhythm of good times mixed with trying times.

We are looking forward to our ICW trip! Stay tuned here for updates to see if we enjoy it as much as we think we will. If you haven’t already, check out our Cruising Videos section or visit our Youtube channel.

Our planned style of ICW cruising:

We often get questions from other sailors as we talk about cruising the east coast that go “So, are you planning to go on the outside or stay in the ICW?” At first I didn’t understand the question or why it was being asked so commonly. How would anyone know that ahead of time depending on the weather, and why would you have to choose? Then I realized that most cruisers that do the ICW are heading BACK to some home base away from hurricanes. They have a destination, and they want to get there.

And, since they are going BACK there, that means they left from there. Meaning they have been by all these cities along the way at least once before, maybe many times. This is where you get people that say “I don’t like the ICW. I go on the outside whenever possible.” Or, “You’re going up the ICW? Why?”, with a disgusted look on their face. They want you to know that they are open ocean sailors who never ever turn on their motor. 🙂 Lindy and I are more about traveling to destinations than pure sailing.

Well, we started cruising from Florida and have never been up the east coast by boat. About 90% of the cities we have researched, we never went to during our land lives. The purpose of this trip is to see them all. The only time we will go on the outside is if the weather is perfect for it, and there are absolutely no cities between the two inlets that we want to visit. We aren’t trying to go anywhere except out of the hurricane areas.

Who knows…after we do this once, we may feel like “been there, done that” and do more outside passages if we go that way again. I doubt you’ll hear me asking those aforementioned questions of others in the same ways though.

Some insight on our cruising decisions, the cruising decisions of others, and some advice on cruising plans we have received:

I have found it interesting as we have observed different people in different situations and the cruising plans they make and do in comparison to our own.

We have, hopefully, an extended time frame of cruising. If we don’t sail to the far reaches of the Caribbean, if we don’t even go to the Bahamas this year, we can try to do it next year. Or the next year. Or 5 years from now. This also aids us in not making bold plans like sailing across the Atlantic to Europe or going through the Panama Canal, and who knows where from there. We may never feel experienced enough or bold enough to attempt anything like that. But we might. And it might be many years from now. Dare I say that our careful planning, fortune, and luck during our land lives makes us more “chicken”? Let’s just call it careful and prudent…

We are also relatively young, relatively fit, and (knock on wood) without any major health problems. Serious cruising is physically demanding and takes you away from your HMO approved doctor.

The flip side-
Any shorter time frame, you’d probably see us boldly sailing off into the sunset as far as the wind would take us as soon as possible.

Less fit and with health problems, you’d probably hear me giving youngsters the advice to take off and cruise the Caribbean or cross oceans as soon as possible before it becomes too difficult and you need to be nearer your physician.

There is nothing wrong with any of these situations or advisements. People that think their brand of cruising is better than others irk me strongly.  When I saw or experienced these things at the time, I didn’t understand. Maybe I still don’t and am missing the mark with my observations. It’s just something I’ve thought of lately that I find interesting. It’s most likely just me making excuses for why I’m not sitting in a lagoon at some island in the middle of the south Pacific.