We started cruising when I was 44 and Cindy was 34. We were both still working demanding jobs, and living far from the ocean in Utah. Here's our small boat cruising story, from my little book:
Cindy and I have been lucky enough to spend more than 1,400 days cruising some 44,000 miles in our own small boats, mainly on the pristine waters of the Pacific Northwest. We aren’t wealthy, and we sure didn’t come into cruising as expert boaters – far from it. We were tent campers, who enjoyed fishing and liked being around the water.
We’ve wandered the Inside Passage as far as Glacier Bay, and floated in front of the great tidewater glaciers, while they calved huge chunks of ice. We’ve been surrounded by whales, porpoises, sea otters, seals and sea lions, dozens of eagles, and bears prowling the shoreline. We’ve feasted on succulent Dungeness crab, huge spot prawns, salmon, and halibut – all caught by us. In so many wonderful anchorages, we’ve been absolutely enchanted by the beauty all around us.
So how did tent campers become cruisers? While camping on Vancouver Island one summer, we decided to go out for a day with a salmon fishing guide. It was dynamite - beautiful, exciting, and great fishing too, all in a 16-foot boat.
Months later, we wandered into a boat show, thinking we could probably afford such a boat. We looked at quite a few, but none really knocked us out. Then we set eyes on a little cabin boat that really stood out from the crowd. It was a C-Dory 22 Cruiser, not too much bigger than the fishing boats we were considering, but with a huge difference - it was designed for “camping on the water”. We spent several hours checking out every aspect of the C-Dory. After two more days at the boat show and lots of discussion, we were sold.
That little boat turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made - a perfect choice for beginning cruisers. She was seaworthy as can be, built with quality, and very cleverly laid out to make the most of her 22 feet. Her cabin sheltered us from the weather, and had windows with all-round visibility. She had good cooking, eating, and sleeping facilities. With her 90hp outboard, she could cruise at 18-20 knots (21-23 mph), and travel 170 nautical miles (195 statute miles) on a tank of gas.
With this boat, we were able to spend peaceful weeks sightseeing on Lake Powell in southern Utah, then weeks and months exploring the Inside Passage of the Pacific Northwest.
The Inside Passage, a stretch of coast roughly 1000 miles long, runs northwest from Washington’s Puget Sound up to Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska. It’s called the Inside Passage because its waters are protected by countless islands, in a mostly unpopulated area often 100 miles wide from east to west. Roads reach only a very small part of this wild, out-there place. It’s some of the finest cruising anywhere.
If you really want to, you could do this…
