Books and Information for Cruising Sailors
and Other Adventure Travelers

Coming soon in paperback and eBook versions! Plans for a sailing trip by two old U.S. Navy friends, one retired and one soon to be, had been hatched more than a year before the scheduled departure. The planned route included most of the main island groups of the Bahamas; and although the two old friends had made many trips together, this would be their most ambitious one by far. The untimely death of the author’s good friend changed the situation, and the retired Navy Captain was left with a “go no-go” decision. Closer to seventy than sixty, some reflection determined that “if he were ever going to go, it had better be now.” He was just too old not to! What ensued was a three month, two thousand mile, single-handed trek through the Bahamas, illustrating clearly that this is a voyage that almost any sailor can make. Still "Too Old," he made the same trip later with a friend. The book has both stories. #Bahamas cruising, #sailboat cruising

NEW RELEASE!!!! A lifelong sailor tried a different way to cruise The Bahamas - MailBoats! Spared from navigational duties and weather planning requirements of cruising sailors, mailboats brought their own set of travel challenges. It all turned into a grand adventure for this sailor and old septuagenarian friends! Travel along with us and visit the real and remote Bahamas and meet real Bahamians! Only by MailBoat! Learn something about a beautiful, interesting, and friendly country and about mailboats and how to travel on them. Partake in our adventures, and then maybe go yourself!! #cruising by mailboat, #adventure travel, #Bahamas cruising

The Bahamas is a country of hundreds of islands that occupies thousands of square miles of ocean. In the 1950s, the United States spent a pile of money connecting forty-eight contiguous states that were already connected by a highway system. There is no question that the improved connectivity of the Interstate Highway System has been a major contributor to the US economy ever since. Economic imperatives drove that huge US national  investment, and the improved quality of life for generations of residents is incalculable. But, to achieve the same goals, how do you connect the inhabited Bahamian Islands distributed over 100,000 square miles of ocean? Lots of bridges? I don’t think so. Mailboats!  History, geography and eventually the need to improve commerce influenced the coming of mailboats. It didn’t happen quickly. By 1821, the schooners Dash and Paragon were connecting islands within the Bahamas with mail coming from outside the colony. Any hope for economic development demanded more regular inter-island service, not just for mail, but also for passengers and cargo. Eventually, a system of mailboats was established with a small cay in Nassau as the “mailboat hub” and the routs to the many Out-islands the “spokes.” The weekly routes, first with sailing ships of the day and later with modern vessels, finally connected the country’s many islands for cargo, passengers, and mail!

                                                                                   The Islands of The Bahamas cover a big piece of the Atlantic Ocean.

History, geography and eventually the need to improve commerce influenced the coming of mailboats. It didn’t happen quickly.<strong> </strong>By 1821, the schooners Dash and Paragon were connecting islands within the Bahamas with mail coming from outside the colony. Any hope for economic development demanded more regular inter-island service, not just for mail, but also for passengers and cargo. Eventually, a system of mailboats was established with a small cay in Nassau as the “mailboat hub” and the routs to the many Out-islands the “spokes.” The weekly routes, first with sailing ships of the day and later with modern vessels, finally connected the country’s many islands for cargo, passengers, and even mail!

Why MailBoats

Anything More?? 

Twelve historical, geological, and cultural sketches of the real Bahamas and real Bahamians are sprinkled throughout the book where we encountered them in our travels. Stories like the college art professor who left a Northeastern university and emigrated to a remote area of the Bahama Islands to pursue his art in peace and tranquility and raise his young family away from the turmoil of the modern world; The Out-Island Doctor who took his practice to remote corners of the country unserved by medical care using his 31 foot ketch the Green Cross as office and transportation; an inshore Blue Hole where you can step of a sandy beach into seven hundred feet of deep blue water; and even a story of a cultural icon that also happens to be a critter! Also included are stories of historic MailBoats, beautifully recreated with colorful paintings by a talented Bahamian artist.

OK, I’m Sold. How Do I Do It?

It all starts in MailBoat Heaven, Potters Cay, in Nassau, Bahamas. So it all begins with a flight to Nassau. A chapter, MailBoat Travel 101, will describe most of the rest with additional details scattered throughout the chapters with a summary and a detailed sample travel plan in the Appendix. Beautifully illustrated, color photographs appear on 107 of the book’s 187 pages, and tell much of the story. If you need any help with your own plan, contact the author.

MailBoat Routes

Note: The cruising articles on the following pages have previously been published in various magazines. They are grouped by geographic area, but all locations are in the Southeastern Atlantic Coast and Intra-Coastal Waterway, Northwestern Caribbean including Cuba, and the Bahamas. Emailed PDF copies of any article are available free of charge, merely by asking. Just contact me on this site and tell me what you want. Five articles at a time please, but if you keep asking, I'll keep sending. Hard copies in color are available by mail for $5.00 each to cover only the cost of printing and postage. All cruises were accomplished in my Catalina 30, Rhombus. All trips originated in my homeport in Jacksonville, Florida, and include informative charts of routs and anchorages, as well as many photographs of places visited. The dialogue always includes a good bit of area history.

   Cruising the Great Northeast(NE Florida that is plus a little bit of Georgia!)

1. Cruise to Georgia’s Little Places: Part 1. Cruise one of the great ICW areas:  Sisters Creek, Cumberland Island, Brunswick and St. Marys, Georgia.
2. Cruise to Georgia’s Little Places: Part 2. Jekyll Island to Darien.
3. Destination Darien:A Journey to Colonial America, An AICW trip north of Jacksonville crossing St. Andrews and St. Simons Sounds.
4. Destination Kingsley Plantation: More than just a Stopover, Drop the hook in one of the ICW’s delightful spots - the Ft. George River. Tour an historic early 19th Century plantation, unique for a happy ending.
5. Fernandina: Pirates,Thieves, Revolutionaries, Shrimpers, and Now Lots of Cruising Sailors, A great stop in a great town!
6. Saint Marys, Georgia:What Aaron Burr, Mikhail Baryshnikov, the Toonerville Trolley, and Cruising Sailors all have in Common, A delightful stop and some surprising history.
7. Cumberland Island: Twenty-five Years of Cruising to Paradise Parts 1-3, Arguably the premier cruising stop on the US East Coast, Cumberland Island is presented in some detail, with charts to multiple anchorages along the island’s length to explore this wonderful National Seashore Island from top to bottom.
8. A Jacksonville Sojourn: Up the St. John’s River is Worth the Trip, Visit the big city and the little towns up an interesting river.

Cruising Florida

1. Eau Gallie: A Picturesque Port and Maybe Even a Dragon, The snow birds and those headed to the islands often speed through mid-Florida. This is one of the many great stops if you take the time.
2. Marineland; An undiscovered Gem on the ICW, Former home of “Sea Hunt” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Marineland now boasts swimming with dolphins, the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Research Reserve, Eco kayak tours of the Princess Place and Pellicer Creek Aquatic Preserves, and the area’s most active sea turtle hospital.
3. Marathon: A Great Destination No Matter How You Get There, Plenty of great stops along this route with tons of activity at destination.
4. Abaco in America: Traditional Bahamian Boats Built in Florida, Story of a small Florida boat works building famous Albury boats, one at a time.
5. Satori’s First Voyage: The Okeechobee Waterway and a Cruise Across Florida to a New Home, A “new” Compac 27 makes a really pretty trip with locks - lots of them!

                                                                                                                                  Cruising Cuba

Note: These trips took place during President Obama’s detente with Cuba, opening the way for US Citizen cruisers to cruise Cuba legally under some restrictions. If US policy returns to the Obama model, it is probably that the travel requirements, approvals, and restrictions will also return.

1. Rhombus’ Cuban Adventure: Trip Planning and a Voyage to Cuba, Part I of this series covers the legalities and procedures for approval to go to Cuba and ends shortly after arrival at Marina Gaviota in Varadero, a modern, full-service marina closest to our departure point in Marathon. 
2. Rhombus’ Cuban Adventure: The North Coast and the Island of Cayo Levisa, Part II describes out 140 NM sail west to an off-shore island and our idyllic week there.
3. Rhombus’ Cuban Adventure: Marina Hemingway, Havana, and Return, Part III describes our 60 NM trip east to Marina Hemingway, our touring of the area around, including Hemingway’s Cuban home, and our few days in Havana. The trip closes with the 120 NM return to Marathon and the clearing back into the USA.
4. Revival - A Cuban Sojourn: Even Little Boats Can Get There, The story of Bart Blankenship, our Marina Hemingway dock mate, who cruised to Cuba in his engine-less 26 foot coastal cruiser with his 82 year old mother as crew.

  Cruising The Bahamas

1. Hell’s Night: The Next Day Wasn’t so Hot Either, A busted engine, a turbulent night at anchor on The Great Bahama Bank, and a marina entrance in the Berry Islands under sail alone, made for an interesting trip!
2. Bahamas Cruising: A sailor’s lament at a failed attempt!, With Grandson and Son-in-Law as crew, this anticipated Bahamas cruise turned into a swashbuckling trip to home.
3. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: Miami, Bimini and Great Harbour Cay, Part I of a multi-part series of a 2000 mile long cruise through the islands.
4. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: Great Harbour Cay to Highbourn Cay, Part 2
5. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: Cape Eleuthera, Part 3
6. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: North to Spanish Wells, Part 4
7. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: Spanish Wells to the Abaco Islands, Part 5
8. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: The Southern Sea of Abaco, Part 6
9. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: Hope Town and Treasure Cay, Part 7
10. Voyage of Rhombus, 2018: The Whale, Green Turtle and Home, Part 8
11. Marv’s Weather Service, The go to weather in The Bahamas and elsewhere
12. An Afternoon with Steve Dodge: Historian and Abaco’s Guide, An interesting story about historian turned cruising guide, but, always a historian.

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