On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:11:59 -0400, DSK wrote:

Your area of North Carolina is nice but Maine is absolutely the best
cruising on the east coast for my money. The only possible exception
is the Bahamian out islands but it's a bit of a stretch to call that
the east coast.


Hey, if you call the Great Lakes part of the east coast, why
be picky?

Ahem, we were talking about the Hudson River, not the Great Lakes.
You can get there however if you keep on going. Been there, done
that, interesting trip.

Big rocks & big tides make me nervous, but it has always
been very appealing up there. The bugs are worse than down here.

We had no issues with bugs, none at all. The tides are managable with
most marinas having floating docks. The rocks have all been there a
loooong time and are charted with a high degree of precision, unlike
the shifty channel entrances further south.

We were in Maine for 5 weeks last summer and might have stayed longer
except that it was starting to get cold at night in early September.


Wuss.

In all honesty, I might not stick around even that late. It
would be nice to get to the other side of the overcrowded
part of New England for the season, then teleport back when
the weather began to turn.

Once you get south of Cape Cod, September weather can be quite
enjoyable, often the best of the season. Last October was a bit
drafty however until we cleared the Jersey coast and Chesapeake Bay.
We came down through NY Harbor on the first Saturday in October when
it was blowing 35 to 40 out of the south. The next day was 25 to 30
out of the north all the way down the Jersey coast, and the following
week was gale force all throughout the northeast. We were in
Baltimore inner harbor that week and heard a few "interesting" storys
from people who had limped in. There was a howling nor'wester in the
Chesapeake the following Sunday and everyone who had gone out for a
weekend cruise was scurrying for cover as we went south to Solomons
Island from St Michaels.