Geoff Schultz wrote:

"Skip Gundlach" wrote in message

news:4ef13d3f-d5d1-4e60-ad28-6a00e27b8e08

om...

Unfortunately, Hawk Channel is very narrow, so tacking was out of
the question, and, worse, has day marks only to show where we
should be staying, even if we were to "drive" (motor vs. sail)
it. That meant that we'd not be able to navigate it in the dark.

Hawk Channel is anything but narrow. You obviously weren't even IN
Hawk Channel if you make such a stupid claim. For everybody's
information, Hawk
Channel is anything from three to five miles wide the entire way
from Miami
to Key West with the exception of a small choke point of a couple
of miles
in and around Fowey Rocks light. It consists of the area between
the outlying barrier reef and the Keys. Plenty of water there to
tack to one's snip
in most places, the reef itself is no barrier to a sailboat that
draws five
feet or so. One can tack his way across the reef back and forth in
most places. In many places the reef is ten to twelve feet beneath
the surface at
MLW. It's a hazard to shipping but to small sailing yachts it's not
much of
a problem.
snip
In my opinion, Wibur makes some valid points.. he certainly seems to
know the channel he posted about.
snip

I know Hawk Channel quite well having transited it several times in
our boat which only draws 5 feet. Theoretically, we could travel up
or down the ICW (which is on the Bay side of the Keys) at least as far
as Marathon, but there are some shallow spots at least on the charts.
One of our sister boats, driven to get away from a hurricane that was
approaching Key West managed to get through without a problem, but
absent some kind of emergency like that, we take Hawk Channel.

Even though the reef may not be that shallow in most places, I would
certainly not deliberately tack across it. And in a boat drawing 6+
feet it would be more hazardous. There are some coral islands in Hawk
Channel, and it is important to pay attention to the charts even
though most of it is pretty clear sailing. We've never had a problem
other than having the wind from the wrong direction to where we wanted
to go.

So basically, they were both right in part and wrong in part. Wilbur
overstated the ease of tacking up the Hawk Channel because Skips boat
has a deep draft. Not only did he exaggerate the depth hazard, but he
failed to note that Skip was near the choke point in the channel at
Fowley Rocks. And most of Hawk Channel IS pretty wide so saying that
he couldn't tack in Hawk Channel wasn't correct except for the area
where he was - possibly having in view compressing the reporting of
the decision making process.

The key thing to remember is that the vast majority of the people who
respond in this group have never cruised. Most of the people have
sailed at some time in their lives and have owned, or own, sailboats.
You also have the people who race, but that has virtually nothing do to
with cruising.

But as far as doing anything more than long vacations on their boats,
they've never sailed more than a few hundred miles from their home port.
Oh, excuse me, they've also chartered in the BVIs or somewhere similiar.

The fact of the matter is that most cruisers move from port to port, or
anchorage to anchorage, in much the same manner that people move their
RVs between RV parks. There's nothing the matter with this, other than
it doesn't fit the image that some of you have of a "real" cruiser.

It's also interesting that many of you think that you can only cruise on
a sailboat. I know lots of people who cruise on their trawlers and we
are often jealous of their space and comfort. Simply because they're
not cruising using wind power, doesn't mean that they're not cruising.
Look at the title of this group: reg.boats.cruising. Do you notice
that it's not rec.sailing.cruising? Maybe you should take a hint from
that.

It seems like some of you think that if you're cruising, that you need
to be constantly moving the boat. I've done that, and found that I've
missed a lot along the way. You need to stop and get to know an area to
truly experience a culture. I much prefer to find an area that I like
and hang around for an extended period of time.

I'm not sure what the definition of cruising is, but it should include
living on the boat and moving it occasionally. (IMHO) We went up
and down the ICW for several years, but when it got too stressful, we
stopped and now just take short trips in the Chesapeake. I consider
that we have been cruisers, but I don't think that because we've
stopped and are now living in a house that it makes our opinions
invalid.

I'm not sure what will happen when we get too old to even do that (we
are in our 70s). I'm not looking forward to that, but I guess it is
better than the alternate. I know it won't be a trawler because Bob
gets his pleasure in boating from sailing. And I'm pretty sure it
won't be an RV either.