Off Season

Those with daily jobs have to go to work everyday. Weekends will give them a bit of a rest, as they gear back up for Monday! 

When these people take an extended break, they want to do it at the "best time." Collectively, everyone wants to do it at a similar time frame and this creates the "tourist season" in destination towns. People don't want to visit a place if the conditions are not optimal, so no one goes when it is not perfect. 

As a result, the stores and restaurants will hire more staff during the "season" and slow down or close entirely during the "off-season" since there isn't really a market to stay open for. When you arrive somewhere by boat, you might get there during the "season" and be surrounded by tons of other tourists who have descended on this area in a swarm. You will get to experience the pre-planned and orchestrated spectacle that the town has put on for its guests. 

Unlike all these other guests that need to return to work after a fun-packed vacation, you get to stay, as you are on your boat and in no hurry to be anywhere. Life is an adventure and you are going to cruise through it at a very relaxed pace. 

When the "season" comes to a close and the "off-season" begins, these towns will roll up their sidewalks and shut down.  Maddie and I find that this is actually the best time to visit a place, as you will get to know the locals and experience what life there is really like.

We arrived in Hatteras, NC just as the season was coming to an end. It was fun going to different restaurants and walking around the town looking at the items the shops had on display. A few days later, all the stores started to shut down because the "season" was over. Restaurants would open on their last day in a blaze of glory! All items on the menu were 50% off, as they wanted to clear out their freezer before closing for the "off-season."  Luckily, each of our favorite restaurants was closing on a different day, so we had the opportunity to attend the closing of each of them!

Once the party was over, the town was much quieter and only a few places stayed open. At the moment, there is a place that is open for lunch, another place open for dinner, a coffee shop, and a general market (which stocks fresh vegetables and other foods). You will soon come to know the locals, as everyone is going to be in one of these places and you can really get a feel for the true town. 

The facade has come down, the makeup has been washed away, and you can see what the town is really like. Hatteras is a town of fisherman who are all welcoming and friendly! While here, we have watched and learned how to clean a fish like a machine (6 quick cuts to extract a fillet) and felt welcomed by the locals.  

We are the only sailboat that has come here in a long time, so everyone knows about it. When we are talking with them and tell them that we are cruisers and we were sailing by, they will interject "Oh, you guys are the sailboat." Then they will usually offer us a ride to a neighboring town if we need supplies or parts. They have all been very helpful, but thankfully we haven't needed to go anywhere as our parts arrived by mail shortly after we got here. 

I don't mean that they have offered to drive us, I mean they have offered us the keys to their car! This is someone who met us 5 minutes ago. The people in this town, truly are kind and generous people who all look out for each other and everyone in their town. 

When planning your cruise, don't discount a destination because you would arrive there after the "season" has ended, or because you will arrive near the "end of the season". Value these opportunities to see and experience these places the way the locals do. You will get to see a side of these destinations that few ever even dream of! 

Sandpipers

Sandpipers are small birds that feast on creatures that lie just below the sand in the wet/dry portion of a beach. These little birds will run up and down the beach like children who are afraid of incoming waves yet want to be at the waters edge. 

As the waves pull back, they make their way down the beach and onto the wet sand. When the wave comes back in, they all scamper up the beach to the dry part. As they run back and forth, they will stick their slender beaks into the sand in search of prey, quietly eating each morsel with each wave. 

It really makes you sit back and think when you see such a sight. You may have sailed many a mile to reach this beach, braving storms and being becalmed, but these little birds have been here the whole time, feasting on the bounty of this beach. 

It may seem like a small thing to focus on, but this large world of ours is full! Every place you go, you will encounter something or someone who has been there as long as they have lived, and will remain there long after you have moved on. It's like if the whole world is a net, and everyone is a fish. They are snared and stuck in that specific place, always been there and always will be there. Cruisers are those who have managed to escape, and swim through the holes to travel to new parts of the net. We have slipped through the cracks and managed to free ourselves as we move about unnoticed. We are here today, but who knows where we will be tomorrow?

Sunsets

While sunsets over the water are gorgeous, there is something special about seeing a new sunset on a distant shore, far from your home. 

You get off your boat and walk around the new landscape all day, lost in your mind as you aimlessly wander about, taking in the scenery as it unfolds before you. 

Then the sun gets low on the horizon and the sky turns into a blaze of fire, and the wet sand on the beach matches it in shimmer and beauty! You quickly get out your camera to snap a few pictures as the moment displays its beauty before you and you think to yourself "I'm here!" 

Sailing will take you far and away, and each day, you will watch the sun set as you relax in the cockpit as you await your next landfall. Sunsets over water are gorgeous, as the sea and sky begin to glow the same color and the horizon transforms into a singular radiance of beauty; but a sunset over a new land brings new meaning to the entire voyage. 

Standing on a beach as you watch the shadows stretch out on the sand lets you know that you made it here and all those days at sea were worth it! 

Bridges

Cruising will take you to new and amazing places!

The problem with these new and amazing places is sailboats are not the most common route of arrival to them. Most people will drive in or out of this place in their automobile. To allow this massive volume of traffic to flow, bridges will be created!

Bridges are awesome because they connect people in a way that makes transiting large bodies of water easy and effortless. Most people only notice the presence of a bridge if they have to stop and pay a toll to drive over it. This is because bridges blend into our roadway so well that you can't even see them. It's true, from the drivers perspective, a bridge just looks like more roadway. To truely admire them, you need to not use them and observe them from any other perspective. 

This is where sailing shines! You will get to admire the bridge for a long time as you approach it. Bridges are easy to spot in the distance since they are taller than the horizon, meaning you will see them for hours, and sometimes days (if the winds are light) before you arrive to them. 

Once you get close, you are then faced with another challenge: going under them. 

Bridges are expensive to build, and the taller they are, the more they cost. For this reason, only small stretches of the bridge are tall enough for ship traffic. Finding this passage can be tricky from a distance, but there is a trick. The ideal passage will have guards around the bridge abutments. If the lights are on, the intended pass will have a green light at the top, all the other sections will have red lights at the bottom. 

Be sure to check your charts twice to make sure you are at the bridge you think you are and check the horizontal and vertical clearances. Once you are certain you will fit, you will need to line up your path and head on through. 

This is one more point for passing bridges by sail, you will get to see the bridge from below! Bridges are usually viewed from the side in photographs, as this seems to be the most aesthetically pleasing way to observe them, but from below, you get an entire new appreciation of the bridge. 

This massive structure stands tall and holds up tons of weight in all conditions, and from the bottom you get to see the structure that makes it all possible! You get to see the orientation of the beams and the supporting cross members, and how they all tie together to erect this titanic creation in the sky! 

Bridges are awesome, but the moment when your mast goes under the bridge is always a bit nerve wracking as you hope that everything will fit. No matter how tall the bridge, it's always a nail bitter until the masthead clears. 

Smooth Sailing

Ocean sailing should not be feared, nor thought of with concern. 

The average wind speed on the ocean is 10-15 knots, and the average sea state is 4-5 feet high. This produces a very smooth and comfortable ride as you gently rise up and fall down the gentle swell. While this might sound like a large wave, it really isn't. Waves you encounter at a beach, in the breaking surf are tall and steep, this is why they break as they are too tall for their width. 

Waves on the ocean are called swell, as they are very, very wide. A 4 foot tall wave, even a 30 foot tall wave, will have a gentle slope up, and down. You will simply float along the top of the water, as you rise and fall with the waves. 

I am not saying that a 30 foot wave is a walk in the park, not at all, but they are not as scary as you might be imagining. Waves on the ocean are better thought of as rolling hills that you would encounter on an old country road. You move up and down, but at a gradual and relaxing pace. 

When you combine this with the nice and steady breeze in your sails, you will find ocean sailing to be very enjoyable. There is nothing like slicing through the water under full sail as a pod of dolphins escorts you over this vast blue wonderland!