It can still be crowded. We're doing a BVI catamaran sailing in April, and I know it'll be crowded with boats.
In regard to Key West, are there days of the week that can help you avoid large cruise dockings?
🧑🤝🧑 / 🏡 ⛈ The weather thread. The south braces for the weekend cold
- Thread starter bamaledge
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In regard to Key West, are there days of the week that can help you avoid large cruise dockings?
Yeah for sure it can be but I'm talking about the smaller islands of the Bahamas and French Polynesia, the not so tourist travel friendly places. St Thomas was pretty crowded, st John not as bad. You have to go to st John by ferry or private boat, no airport.
Key west isn't that bad except for Christmas/ new years for 10 days or so then March you get a younger crowd with spring break. It can handle a cruise ship fairly easily. There is a schedule somewhere that shows when they are coming in but we usually just go whenever. The ships don't overnight so that's a good thing and we can see when one is docked. Seems like there's been one everyday for the last week anyway.
Are you going on a captained cruise or taking one out yourself? They do a 7 day live aboard course that qualifies you to captain one that I want to do.
It's going to be crewed with the captain and first mate/chef, going with three other couples. I have a former coworker who goes down every year and they captain and cook themselves - much, much cheaper. He's an accomplished sailboat guy, mostly on Lake Lanier in Georgia, and he's developed his skills.
I've been driving a boat - bass boats, runabouts, tritoons - for decades, but I have no saltwater experience, even intracoastal. If we fall in love with this, then I could see developing some experience and doing it ourselves, but I've got a good number of other things to pursue, too.
I may have mentioned this, but in your boating ideas and goals, have you considered the Great Loop? I have another former coworker who did that some years back in a restored 54-foot Hatteras - America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association .
Yeah, The great loop is kinda where it started. Thought about doing that first but to do it in a sailboat you have to remove the mast before chicago and reinstall in mobile. I've seen most of the area and it's not really what I want from the boat experience. Dirty water, lot of populated coastal areas, lot of traffic, just not what I want to do. If, and it's a big if, we do it i would like to summer up around nova Scotia and winter in the Caribbean for probably a couple years but until I'm very comfortable with the boat then do a 2 to 3 year around the world trip bouncing between hemispheres to avoid hurricanes/typhoons. Also thought about just doing an extended rental and just doing the east coast/Caribbean. The big draw for me is accessing places that most people don't travel to. That and I love the ocean, wanna be buried at sea.
If you have ever seen the movie The Mist you will be able to imagine what it's like outside right now. I can see the outline of my neighbors mailbox but can't see her house: visibility is less than 150' right now.
An hour ago I woke up and grabbed a cuppa and went out to the deck to, well ya know, wake up and enjoy the peace and quiet to start the day. Looking across the street I could see a mist, the fog, starting to settle in. Light at the time, like little whisps of clouds around the street lamps.
Just like watching a curtain drop on stage by the time I finished that cup I saw the fog move in just like the movie. Literally, watched it drop foot by foot over a few minutes time.
I've seen some serious fog move in to this area over the last quarter of a century. But never this thick, and that quickly. It makes me think twice about my normal bike ride around this time of day...
An hour ago I woke up and grabbed a cuppa and went out to the deck to, well ya know, wake up and enjoy the peace and quiet to start the day. Looking across the street I could see a mist, the fog, starting to settle in. Light at the time, like little whisps of clouds around the street lamps.
Just like watching a curtain drop on stage by the time I finished that cup I saw the fog move in just like the movie. Literally, watched it drop foot by foot over a few minutes time.
I've seen some serious fog move in to this area over the last quarter of a century. But never this thick, and that quickly. It makes me think twice about my normal bike ride around this time of day...
Seen that a couple times, both on water. We were pulling the boat in in Norfolk and the fog rolled in so thick we had to anchor out a couple hundred yards off the pier.
Other time we were jugging on the alabama river and it was so foggy you couldn't see either bank, couldn't tell what direction you were heading, had to anchor and wait till the sun came up.
Seeing it happen in real time, all within the space of one cup of coffee, is faster than anything I've seen. It was surreal. Literally thinking to myself "this is too early for the fog to be rolling in" and in five minutes?
It's right at 9:30 and visibility, 200 yards or more, is limited at best.
Watched that the night we were trying to get to the pier. Aircraft carriers went from being visible to invisible in just a few minutes. They had vehicles lining the pier to help us see where we were going but the whole pier just went out of sight. Was strange to watch plus we'd been out for a month or so and having to spend another night sleeping that close to being in really sucked. Boat was about 600 feet long, standing midship you could barely see the bow.
Why are we waiting for! Let's get this thing started! Sunday - Tuesday I will be freezing my backside off! It is going to get in the upper maybe lower teens here. I live at the highest elevation in the county. You get into this fire tower and you will be able to look all over the county. Problem is that the lower part has been removed.
...use the tree.
I am the one sitting on my patio in this weather.
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