Links to Pacific Seacraft sites

I have put out a call for PSC sites. Here they are so far:
Cruising Yachts Inc

Sarana at Sea
Voyage of a circumnavigating PSC Orion
The blog of Toodle-oo
The Kon Jeni-Al

Almost nothing is as important on a cruising boat as self steering. Recently Alison and I have been sailing on Sydney Harbour, and have had to hand steer. This is a shock to the system, because we have probably steered more this year than we did on the whole trip from the States.

When we lived in Fort Lauderdale we were spoilt for choice. There was always Boat US, West Marine, or the Defender catalogue, and frequently the manufacturer was in Florida too. A population of 270 million supports a lot of stores, even in the more marginal fields like sailing. Couple that with a strong currency, and it was not too hard to find the part you needed.

The logistics of providing interesting food on a cruising boat compared to eating while living on shore are very different. Quite often you are living out of cans and don’t have the usual fresh produce or ingredients available that you are used to, but with a little imagination you can quite often produce that culinary masterpiece from a couple of cans.

Currently we are getting our boat ready for a short cruise over Christmas and New Year and part of that is getting the food on board for the days we will be gone. This made me reflect back to the time we were cruising full time, and what it involved having to provision for up to six months. I have to admit that after two years back on land I’m a little rusty in that department. A few things do come to mind though, things we found that made cruising just that little bit nicer.

When you write about boats you face a choice. You can explain each term when you use it, or you can assume the reader knows what you think. I personally don't like reading sentences like "We sailed 10nm (19km or 11.5 miles)", so I haven't written any. However, for the benefit of my Mum, here is an overview of the most common nautical terms and units that salt any good tale.

Nautical Mile(nm). If I say mile I mean a nautical one. These are incredibly logical units, which are about 1.15 statute miles or about 1.85km. Why are they logical? Because a nautical mile is the distance described by a minute of arc of latitude. So if you go North from a latitude of 12 deg 00 min N to 12 deg 37 min N you have gone 37nm. Cool huh. This unit makes celestial navigation much easier.

Sites
General Cruising
forcefiveadventures.com We met Curt and Allie in the Caribbean, and buddy boated with them for a few great months. They are a couple from CA who flew out to St Maarten, bought a Lavranos H 34 called Force Five, sailed around the Caribbean, and finally trucked it back home. Allie writes for SailJazz.com. Curt, apart from being the compiler of the little known Red Wine Songbook, works on internet start-ups.


sailjazz.com Also in the Caribbean we met another couple- Mark and Laurie, off Althea, a 36ft S&S design. We travelled with them from the Windwards, through the Panama Canal and onto the South coast of Panama, where we parted company. Apart from playing a mean guitar, Mark wrote and edited SailNet.com, and is now doing the same thing for SailJazz.com. Both are great sites, with a lot of general cruising content as well as resources for the American market.
These guys all now live in Santa Barbara, CA.