A Season Spent Sailing the U.S. East Coast

We just completed our third season as Offshore Adventure Sailing. It has been an unusually long and exceptionally rich season. We normally sail from November to May, almost always in the tropics. But this past year, Covid made most foreign destinations problematic. So we decided to sail up the U.S. East Coast instead. That meant sailing through the summer and into the fall.

We launched La Peregrina on October 30, 2020 near Port Charlotte, Florida, and hauled her out on November 10, 2021 near Charleston, South Carolina. It was just over one year. One really good year.

La Peregrina’s track, October 2020 - November 2021

We traveled approximately 5,700 nautical miles aboard La Peregina during the 176 days that we were underway. We transited 20.4 degrees of latitude and 16.3 degrees of longitude (from 24.6N, 83.0W to 45.0N, 66.7W). We sailed the waters of 14 states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

I spent 305 nights on the boat. 163 nights were at anchor, 50 were on a mooring, and 18 were spent underway at sea. I took five trips home during the year to celebrate holidays, visit family, do my taxes, get vaccinated, etc. These trips accounted for the 71 days spent off the boat over the past year.

I had the wonderful company of 23 sailors this season. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them all: Fred, Becky, Sally, Brian, Misty, Mark, David, Joe Jazz, Tim, Jim, Greg, Steven, Kristina, Michael, Bonny, Bob, Terrie, Mike, Sydney, Tori, Will, Courtney, and Brent. Plus Maribeth, my beautiful co-captain. I love sharing the experience!

The lighthouse on Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas

We spent the first four months of the season sailing the waters of southwest Florida. We explored Charlotte Harbor and Pine Island Sound, made 3 sails out to the Dry Tortugas, 2 visits to the Everglades, and spent about 3 weeks in the Florida Keys.

In my mind, our trip up the U.S. East Coast began at daybreak on March 1, 2021, when we raised anchor near Channel Five in the Florida Keys and sailed north, passing the lights of Miami at midnight. We sailed mostly offshore all the way to Beaufort, North Carolina, though weather forced us into the ICW from Lake Worth to Ponce Inlet in Florida, and from Charleston Harbor to Winyah Bay. Strong Northerly winds prevented us from sailing northbound off Cape Hatteras, so we took the ICW again up through Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds before reaching Norfolk. Then a quick overnight sail up Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis, which we reached on April 17th.

From the lower Chesapeake we sailed the direct offshore route to Newport, Rhode Island with stops at Block Island and Narragansett Bay. Then Buzzard’s Bay, the Cape Cod Canal, Provincetown and Gloucester before reaching the Maine border on June 1st.

We took a month-long break, but rejoined the boat at the end of June and sailed the spectacular coast of Maine until mid-September. I could talk about sailing Maine for hours. It’s a wondrous place. Big tides, strong currents, granite rocks and ledges, lobster pots, seals, pristine forests . . . It’s gorgeous.

Head Harbor Light, Campobello Island, New Brunswick

Our farthest point “down east” was New Brunswick’s Campobello Island. We didn’t set foot in Canada, and didn’t check into the country, but we sailed around this idyllic island (for the second time) on August 25, 2021 as we began our long trip back south and west. Our return trip included stops in Bar Harbor, Gloucester, and Port Jefferson. We rocketed down the East River past Manhattan, sailed offshore down the New Jersey coast, made a transit of the C&D Canal, sailed down the Chesapeake one more time, and sailed offshore around Cape Hatteras before reaching Charleston Harbor on November 4th.

As always, I learned things this season. The water in more northern waters is much less salty than in the tropics. The wind is more variable and on average, it seems to me, lighter. We got less power from the wind generator. But the refrigerator required less power, so it balanced out. Though I knew to expect it, I was nonetheless surprised by the lower temperatures. I wore a wool sweater every single day during our summer time in New England. There’s a lot more fog up north than there is in the tropics. I learned a lot about how to more effectively use La Peregrina’s radar. But the diversity of sailing challenges, scenery, wildlife, geology, ecosystems and - not insignificantly - fabulous food on the U.S. East Coast is just amazing. It’s a world-class cruising ground, and it’s right here, close by for 100 million Americans. You should go.