Where should we go?

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Mdog

sv pelagia, What classic cruising books? This is what I'm asking for.

Don C L, I like the information on the West Coast. Thanks

Well, there are many many books. Others will suggest; not all would agree.
Some classic travel tales, such as Hal Roth. "How to" books such as Beth Leonard, Lin & Larry Pardey

Some ideas below (especially good if you can find them used, otherwise gets pricey):

Beth A. Leonard: The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising (a big, comprehensive book)

Lin & Larry Pardey: Self Sufficient Sailor (Revised and Expanded)

John Vigor: Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere (and his other books)

Capn Fatty Goodlander: Buy, Outfit, Sail: How To Inexpensively and Safely Buy, Outfit, and Sail a Small Vessel Around the World

Hal Roth: How to Sail Around the World: Advice and Ideas for Voyaging Under Sail

The Hal Roth Seafaring Trilogy: (i) Two on a Big Ocean (ii) Two Against Cape Horn (iii) The Longest Race

John Kretschmer: Sailing a Serious Ocean: Sailboats, Storms, Stories and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at Sea

[Don C L]

It sounds to me like you might give a thought to a good trailer sailer. If you have a good truck to pull one, you could go to Puget Sound and explore the Sound and beautiful islands and coves only available to boats. Then you could come down to Santa Barbara and launch there to explore the Channel Islands when your skills are ramped up and then trailer down Baja to explore the Sea of Cortez. But first, see if sailing is really for you. You may end up preferring to buy a good sized powerboat to do the same kind of trailer explorations. I think Ann's advice is right on, go see if sailing is your thing first and something the whole family will be excited about.

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...es-175115.html

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...at-237277.html

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ce-242096.html

[guyrj33]

Could you move to the coast for the next 5 years?
Hanging around the ocean and day, weekend sailing would help a lot.

[tradrockrat]

So...I'll skip being the thousandth person telling you to get experience sailing if you want to sail since your first post clearly demonstrated you're not an idiot and want to smartly plan out your adventure.

Sailing is complex and isn't like any other way of traveling - full disclosure, the last time I was a live aboard cruiser, I did most of it "wrong" as I was a 25 year old kid with no idea what "right" was.

To answer your question, think of it (and this is over simplified) as three parts:

• Sailing to the spot: Start with Jimmy Cornells world cruising guide
  
• Sailing and enjoying the spot from the boat: Local guide - EXAMPLE: Mexico Cruising guide by Pat Rains
  
• Travelling on land and exploring: Lonely planet Baja and Los Cabos.

The experience part that everyone is pounding into your post is because you need to know HOW to sail there, WHEN to sail there, and WHAT your boat needs to do it safely - and all of that MUST be part of your planning.

A silly obvious example would be getting all excited and planning to sail to the Caribbean in August....oops...you can do it but it's peak hurricane season and stupid dangerous to do so.

[Mdog]

I get the feeling many of you have misunderstood my request. I do appreciate all the tips and tricks offered to get experience, and when the time comes I will use them. Right now I'm trying to define the scope of a year or 2 long journey five years from now. One of many possibilities is sailing.

My request isn't for information on how to sail or get experience, I simply want to know what books and websites are available to help me define exactly what our trip would look like and if it should include sailing.

Thank you Sv Pelagia for the list!

I have also found that CornellSailing.com has many cruising guides and a few free PDF to get me started.

[Mdog]

Thank you tradrockrat! I appreciate your insights. I take it you climb rocks as well as sail?

[tradrockrat]

Originally Posted by Mdog

Thank you tradrockrat! I appreciate your insights. I take it you climb rocks as well as sail?

Yes sir. I'm kind of winding that down these days as I'm 48 years old and enjoying the backpacking more than the climbs it seems, but yeah - I love climbing, hiking, travelling, sailing...

Never learned to fly though...hmmm....

I'd also like to second noonsite.com as a fantastic resource and it's fun looking at openseamap.org

[PineyWoodsPete]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

MDog,

Given your lack of sailing experience...
- consider avenues to get experience w/o too great of a commitment ($, time, etc) BEFORE committing. A trailer sailor as suggested, is a great start (you can sail it in the interior as well as out on BC's coast).
- Jimmy Cornell is fun to go through, but doesn't tell you about what's involved in doing so (good and bad)... I suggest you find some classic cruising books to learn more (soooo many of them)... most however tend to gloss over the negatives
- seriously, there is no comparison between land travel and travel by sail

It can be exciting to begin to dream. (But reality not always what you dream.)

We retired in '94 and bought a trailerable Sea Pearl 28' cat-ketch, with free-standing carbon masts in "tabernacles" for simple mast raising/lowering, without any mast rigging. Trailed it from Georgia to the PNW, where we cruised for 3 lovely months till ice on the docks, then down to San Fran Bay for awhile, and on down to the Baha where we spent fall and winter cruising. A magical place!

A year later and after wife's hip replacement recovery and wanting more creature comforts, we bought a 3 y.o. 37' cruising catamaran in Seattle, and headed south after another several months in the PNW as far N a Alert Bay well up the E coast of Vancouver Is. After a couple of years cruising W coast of Mexico, Sea of Cortez, Central America, and through the Canal, Beliz, Yucatan, FL keys, Bahamas, we lazed up the E coast as far as the Bras d'Or Lakes of Nova Scotia, before re-settling in FL. Our adult "kids" and spouses joined us for a week or two a couple of times each.

Way back in '79, we had taken a year's cruise on our Endeavour 32 sloop with our 11 and 14 year old daughters, from FL to the Bahamas, then up the E coast as far as Newport, RI. (Cruising World mag. article by Kim, the older, April, '81, and cover photo of friends Wayne and Kristina Carpenter on their red Nor' Sea 27, doing the same with their daughters.

There is so much to see on our continent without crossing an ocean!

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by grantmc

To answer the specific question, then probably Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Routes is the sailing reference. It doesn't say anything about the destination, it simple and clearly states how to get from A to B. And there are 600 pages of A's.

Book includes the routes, charts/pilots required, waypoints, useful guides, suggests best times of year to sail, typical weather conditions. Plus a narrative about the passage. The book describes typical cruising destinations, it does not include high or low latitude destinations.

Also OP welcome to CF. It's always great to have new people join up. Do please be a poster not a lurker. I politely suggest too to complete your profile, as it helps if we know where your from.

One of the issues you will face in your choice is where you start from. Buying a boat far from where you are based, especially for blue water trips, presents it's own challenges. So most people's first serious trip is just leaving their home.

As an addendum, he also has a book called World Cruising Destinations which would not preclude World Cruising Routes (which is considered the bible for blue water cruising) but might be more specific to what you're asking.