The Gentlemans Guide to Passages South, By Bruce Van Sant

Now available.

We received an email from Bruce a week ago to let us know that he has the 10th Edition of his book out and that it would be available soon. Older copies have been offered on Ebay for as much as $800.00, which we find totally ridiculous. If anyone is looking to purchase the new 10th Edition, you can get it here for $29.95. This will be his absolutely last update. Bruce's website can be found here.

 The 10th and last Edition of the popular directions for sailing south
to the Bahamas and the Caribbean

For more than twenty years Van Sant repeatedly surveyed nearly 200 anchorages between Florida and South America. He racked up well over 80,000 sea miles doing it, mostly single-handed. Why? You’ll find some interesting answers in his book of stories, Margarita Cat, but essentially, he did it because he liked doing it.

Sailing up and down the chain of islands so much and so often, he got to looking for shorter and easier ways to navigate between each link in the chain, and he kept refining detailed nav plans for every leg.

He has systematically taken the thorns out of the route they used to call the Thorny Path. For example, he exploits the calming effects on wind and sea which result from land cooling on each side of an inter-island passage. Applying his many methods, both sail and power can make safe, comfortable and pleasant progress even against normally impenetrable trade winds and seas.

Passages South offers an illustrated manual of instruction for specific passages and harbors down islands as well as a cruising guide for the Greater Antilles islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. It has sailed aboard tens of thousands of boats passaging between the Americas. It should sail with you too.
About the Author During his 40 years of cruising the world, Van Sant worked as a consultant systems engineer as well as weriting and speaking in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, picking up six languages along the way. He settled into cruising the myriad islands between Florida and South America. Read more about his adventures in his book MARGARITA CAT.

Available at www.ThornlessPath.com and nautical outlets

What Do You Do When You Get To The Bahamas?

Is It Really Better In The Bahamas??

This is a follow to our post, What Cruisers Want To Know About The Bahamas.

You've done all of your homework. You've picked the perfect weather window. You were in awe as the dark blue of the Gulf Stream gave way to the crystal clear, but shallow waters of the Bahamas Banks. The feel of accomplishment just can't be describe. You have arrived, so now what? The answer is almost as endless as the Island chain itself.

Merry Christmas And A Very Happy New Year

 

Susan and I would like to wish all of our readers and friends a very merry Christmas as well as a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year for 2012. We're looking forward to continuing the preparations for our next cruise aboard our Trawler Beach House and sharing those preparations with you all. We look forward with even more excitement to sharing our cruising experiences and reporting on our travels. Drop by the site from time to time and please leave us a few comments. Let us know how we are doing, what you think of the site and what you would like to see posted. Sincerely, Chuck and Susan.

Mustang Survival IPFD Recall

We have been users of the Mustang Inflatable Vests for many years and have been very satisfied with them. But we have recently been made aware of a recall due to a problem that might keep them from fully inflating. Here is the official recall notice...

Moeller Marine Product Review

Over the years we have often used Moeller Marine products, also sold under Tempo, and found them to be of fairly decent quality. But our most recent purchases have changed our opinion considerably. Here on the Beach House site we often post the specific product we are working with and links to where it can be found. When we use a product we like, it gets a good mention and we will often recommend it to others. But when we find a product we consider of poor quality we feel just as obligated to let others know of our experience. Three recent products made by Moeller have made our "Never Again" list. 

Our Navigational Notices and Other Work Related Stuff

We haven't been totally neglecting Beach House, but W-O-R-K has been interfering with our boat work a little. Our new projects for Marinalife are coming along nicely. We have quite a few Navigational Notices and Alerts posted that cover the eastern U.S. coast from Maine to Florida and the Gulf Coast, Great Lakes and inland Waterways that include the Great Loop Route. We have even posted a few from the west coast, but not as extensive as the rest. We are also putting together cruising itineraries based on some of our previous cruises that include marina stops and anchorages for a leisure cruise south on the ICW, with stops at about every 50 miles. We will have another cruise template for the ICW from the Georgia border to the Florida Keys, but that will probably not be up for another week. If anyone wants to receive my Navigational Notices, you can go to the Marinalife website and register, and then sign up for whatever areas you want on your dashboard page. It is all free and I send out the Notices as soon as I receive and verify them. They can be read on the website or sent right to your email box. The notices are also linked to our Nautical Chartviewer so you can see the exact area where the notice is posted.

Plotting Your Course

In September of 1987, I sailed my 30-foot Hughes Columbia sailboat south to Little River, South Carolina. After a few days of waiting weather, I exited the Little River Inlet and pointed the bow towards Bermuda, some 1,000 miles away. To find that small speck in the middle of the Atlantic, I had the most up-to-date navigational instruments of the time. They consisted of a compass, VHF radio, a sextant with complete tables, paper charts and a radio direction finder. Seven and a half days later, I tuned the RDF to the radio signal for St. Georges Harbor and my feelings of accomplishment were beyond explanation.

Our New Outboard Lift And Back Saver.

During our cruise along the south coast of Cuba several years ago, I did a really dumb thing. We were Med-moored to the dock at Santiago, next to our friend's Vagabond 47 and there was a bit of swell running in the harbor. We both decided to set out an anchor from our bow to keep us from banging together and used our dinghy to do just that. I sat in the dinghy with our CQR 45 and about 50 feet of 3/8 BBB chain in my lap ready to deploy the anchor, and that is when it happened.

Is It Really Hard To Install A Single Side Band Radio?

First, a complete disclosure. I have installed a dozen or more SSB radios as a service technician over the years. But my first two installations were on our own boat and I started with no previous knowledge and only the manufacturers manual. To make matters worse, we had no internet to do any research on and most installers would have us believe that there was some kind of magic and mystery to installing an HF radio. We quickly found out that was not the case, and installing one of these radios was no more difficult than installing any other piece of equipment. Eighteen years later, we are installing the most current Icom offering, the 802, on Beach House in preparation for future cruising. And once again, it was not all that difficult.

Possible GPS Outages

There has been a lot of discussion recently on how the U.S. government could possibly allow LightSquared, an independent 4G LTE provider,  to put up 4,600 transcievers sending broadband data services in the L band with such power that could significantly interfere with nearby GPS frequencies. Possibly causing complete failure for a high quality civilian GPS like your automobile GPS, even under an open sky, and for critical units such as those used in aviation. The GPS units on our boats that we have become so dependent on can also be affected according to major GPS manufacturers that have been doing extensive testing. There has been quite a discussion over at the Panbo Website for a few months now and there is a lot of details on the current status. This morning I received an email from the Coalition To Save Our GPS with an urgent Call To Action. I think everyone might want to read this and consider responding.

NOAA Encourages Boaters to Get Up-to-Date Nautical Charts

NOAA charts available free online and through “print-on-demand” service

Nearly 13 million registered boaters in the U.S. are priming to hit the water. As part of their preparations, boaters need to make sure that they have the latest NOAA nautical charts on hand to avoid groundings or accidents while navigating along the coast. With modern technological advancements, obtaining the latest chart is easier — and more important — than ever.

“Sailing the oceans and Great Lakes doesn’t have to be a voyage into the vast unknown of ages past,” explained Capt. John Lowell, director of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. “Obtaining the latest charts that provide increasingly precise depths and up-to-date navigational features can be as easy as clicking a link on a website.”

Coast Guard Urges EPIRB Owners To Upgrade

May 20, 2011 Advisory 02-11
Take the Search out of Search and Rescue

Upgrade to GPS enhanced EPIRBs

When Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) are activated in emergency situations the system transmits vessel identification information to rescuers. Traditional EPIRBs rely on satellite Doppler Shift to identify the distress location. There are a wide variety of Coast Guard approved EPIRBs on the market but many do not have the most up-to-date feature: the ability to transmit the EPIRB’s GPS location.

What Cruisers Want To Know About The Bahamas

This is not usually the time of year most cruisers think about going to the Bahamas. But this is the time of year that a few adventurous cruisers know the anchorages will be a whole lot less crowded and the marinas will be offering deals. What got me thinking about the Bahamas was a presentation that Susan and I recently gave to the MTOA (Marine Trawler Owners Association) in Stuart Florida for their Southern Rendezvous. This year the Rendezvous was held at the Hutchinson Island Marriott Beach Resort & Marina. MTOA functions are well-attended and this one was no exception. The presentation covered some of the important questions that cruisers heading over for the first time ask.

Extended Use Fuel Tank For A Honda Generator In 4 Easy Steps

One of the pieces of equipment on our to do list is a generator. We much prefer to anchor out when cruising and at times we can get weathered in for days. During those extended stays we still like coffee in the morning, still have the need to recharge the batteries and like to watch TV. All of this uses power and we have been using our handy Honda 2000 portable generator until we can have a more permanent installation. The Honda will handle most of our power needs, with the exception of the air conditioning system. But that suits us just fine for now. One of the things I don't like to do is to fill the built in tank every day when the generator is in constant use and for long term when charging that batteries it might mean shutting the generator down, filling the fuel tank, and starting it again. It is also hard to fill the tank without spilling gas on the deck, especially if the boats gets waked. So, the need for a remote extended fuel tank. To build one of these only takes a few inexpensive fittings, a fuel tank and about an hour of your time, at the most.

Adding and Re-installing Switches

With the main electrical panel now replaced, there were a few small things that were unfinished and now is as good a time as any to get those done. The bilge pump switch for the secondary mid-ship bilge pump has been out for some time now. It was temporarily mounted in the forward hanging locker after the smaller secondary electrical panel was installed, but it was not convenient to get to. We did the installation for the anchor windlass some time back, but the helm switches to raise and lower the anchor from the steering location has not been done.