Florida

South Florida Has Been Busy With the Bacardi Invitational and West Marine US Open Series It was a busy winter and early spring down in South Florida as the Bacardi Invitational and West Marine US Open series saw scores of boats doing battle off Clearwater and Fort Lauderdale and ...read more

“This is U.S. Coast Guard, sector Mobile, Alabama. We just received notification that your EPIRB went off. Is everything okay?”“I…I don’t know.”“Sir, where is your boat?”“At Palafox Marina.” That was 0900 Wednesday, September 16th, by which time Hurricane Sally had already ...read more

Last summer, I was delighted to be invited to join two of my girlfriends on a sailing trip—my third, no less! This trip would surely herald my promotion from nautical novice to savvy seafaring expert. I was to join them on a charter in Southwest Florida and sail along the ...read more

The chart showed 45ft of vertical clearance, and I knew the boat should be able to pass under the bridge. Still, there was that nagging voice in my head that wouldn’t let me be. “What if your air draft calculations were wrong?” it said. “And if you’re just a little too high the ...read more

The memories are vivid. Dolphins and diesel fumes. A blood-orange moon rising to starboard as engine trouble loomed to port. A spinnaker like a taut, glowing veil before a sun that shone down later on its wet, shredded remains. We were 30 days at sea, a virgin ocean-crossing crew ...read more