ABOVE—Sailing the protected waters of Pine Island Sound. OPPOSITE—Launching from Pine Island.
a fraction of an inch. We used to beach all our boats on purpose, well, not all of them. Te first boat we beached was not on purpose but did cause us to consider beaching our boat on purpose. Which we did. And learned that to un-beach a heavy boat takes tide even if we only need an inch. We could haul this canoe off if we had to but the bottom here has some pretty sharp oysters. Better to skirt the really shallow edges, which is easily done visually. Our eyes can keep up with the shiſting shoals better than a chart can. Over the years our passages have
shrunk in size from crossing the Atlan- tic, to crossing the Gulf Stream, to this five mile passage. Nonetheless, it’s still a thrill, this shoving off into novel terri- tory, unforeseen challenges ahead. As the wind increases, Michael eases
the sheet. Our home-made aluminum gooseneck fitting begins to twist and bend. I fall off for the lee of a mangrove islet while Michael liſts the leeward lee- board. Gliding closer to arched roots, we enter the magical land of super shallow sailing. Pelicans in the mangroves gaze
14 Our dreams were built
on the dreams of mag- azine stories written mostly by ocean going
cruisers. Tat’s what we thought cruising was all about. So we got a big boat and went to sea.
down on us placidly as we brush the limbs below. Te leeboard snags a root then liſts higher and we glide on. In the lee of the island, we lower the gunter rig to put a reef in the sail. When we started boating we didn’t
have a clue about what we wanted from cruising. Our dreams were built on the dreams of magazine stories written mostly by ocean-going cruisers. That’s what we thought cruising was all about. So we got a big boat and went to sea. “If you don’t know where you are going,
you will end up somewhere else” the say- ing goes. Tough we liked the wandering sea-life, we were disenchanted with a cruising style that limited us to deep wa- ter far offshore, conventional deep water anchorages, and rare access to hiking and exploring ashore. For those activities we were forever heading for untenable, iso- lated, wild places and getting blown out to sea or nearly shipwrecked or attacked by pirates. Before we had a chance to face, “if
not this, then what?”, Sheldrake ran up on a reef in the Bahamas. “Ten what” suddenly became “now what?” Pondering that question, shipwrecked
and lying in the shade of a palm on an idyllic sandy beach, on one of the most remote Bahama islands, it struck both of us that this was exactly what we’d been looking for. A year later we were back in the Ba-
hamas in boats that we could liſt out of the water every night. So started our love affair with beachable boats: from the Bahamas, to Martinique, to Prince Ed- ward Island, and Moosehead Lake and Lake Champlain in more recent years;
SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR
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