The Great Loop Gallop

Review of the new Beneteau Swift Trawler 34 on the first leg (Annapolis-NYC) of its Great Loop voyage. Published in the August 2012 issue of Soundings.

Great Loop Gallop (reprinted with permisson from Soundings LLC)

Video of Leg 1 (8 mins):

Poplar Island: Success on the Chesapeake Bay

The New Poplar Island

Poplar Island, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, is one of the rare environmental success stories in the Chesapeake Bay–and perhaps the most spectacular. Big enough to support farms and a town in the 1800s, it had eroded to less than three acres and was functionally gone by the 1980s. An extremely effective cooperative effort by federal, state and local governments has rebuilt the island to its 1800s footprint using clean dredge spoil from the bay’s approach channels to Baltimore–keeping the city’s docks (and jobs) open to shipping, while recreating a critical nature reserve for rare and threatened Chesapeake Bay wildlife.

The story of Poplar Island is in the July 2012 issue of Soundings.

Click here for a NASA/Landsat satellite timelapse of the island being built.

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Sailing New York City

Soundings, October 2011

New York by water opens a whole new world to the Big Apple. This six-page destination story in the October 2011 issue of Soundings magazine tells how to navigate those hectic urban waters, what you’ll see on the way through, and provides some valuable survival advice from one of New York’s professional tugmasters. Online here. 

This article won first place for Travel/Destination story in the Boating Writers International 2012 writing contest (Sec. 4).

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Soundings video with Capt. Bill Brucato, drawn from the article and using Brucato’s videos: “Let the big boat go first.”

Video of my East River passage

East Coat Sailor Goes (Mid-)West: The Chicago-Mackinac Race

The voyage of Blue Chip, a 36-ft. Mariner and its crew of eight, in the 2010 Chicago-Mackinac Race. “The Mac,” as it’s known, is the longest (333 miles) and oldest (102 years) annual freshwater sailboat race in the world. It is an experience it itself, but a whole new boating experience for a saltwater sailor on a freshwater sea.

Details appear in the January 2011 issue of Soundings magazine (pg. 1, left), online here.

This article won an honorable mention in the Boating Writers International 2012 writing contest for Adventure story (Sec. 5).

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Boating in Baltimore

Soundings, Nov-10

Baltimore is one of the most historic and boater-friendly destinations on the Chesapeake Bay. The city’s legendary Inner Harbor, guarded by Fort McHenry, has great marinas, more boat museums than you can visit in a day, and some great neighborhoods — as described in the November 2010 issue of Soundings magazine.

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Destination: Tangier Island, VA

Soundings, Sept-2010

Tangier Island, VA, is one of only two remaining watermen-inhabited islands left in the Chesapeake Bay, and both are doomed by global warming: With its highest point only 4 ft. above sea level (lower then the Maldives), and in an area with the fast relative sea level increase on the U.S. East Coast, inundation models show Tangier permanently submerged within 30 years.

This destination story on Tangier Island and its people appeared in the September 2010 issue of Soundings magazine, online here.

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Muddy Creek

Muddy Creek (SB)

One of my favorite anchorages on the entire Chesapeake Bay is just off the mouth of Muddy Creek, MD, as it enters the Rhode River. This entire creek — to its great good fortune — is surrounded by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), one of only three SI field labs.

SERC, located just south of Annapolis, is dedicated to marine biology, marsh, and woodland reseach, among many other topics. Several adjoining farms, including the historically significant Java Farm, have been donated to or acquired by SERC, with the result that it has become a fairly large bio-reserve in an otherwise well-developed area. Its shoreline and waters are unspoiled and bucolic, making it a magical and quiet anchorage.

The video below takes a look at  an increasingly rare unspoiled place on the Chesapeake Bay.

“A Day in the Life of Muddy Creek”