chicken for dinner, followed by a cold chicken
sandwich for lunch the next day, and perhaps chicken
salad for the following lunch. In the morning before
you get under way, prepare your food for the day:
meals, snacks, and drinks. If you don’t wish to stop, get
a small cooler to keep in the pilothouse (or wherever
you operate from). Leaving the boat on autopilot and
stepping down to the galley for a few minutes is not
something you want to be doing on the ICW.
Many marinas (mostly north of St. Augustine) provide
courtesy vehicles for transient boaters. I found this
convenience to be extraordinarily helpful in keeping the
boat provisioned. Having a bicycle on board can be a
great help and also provides the opportunity for some
needed exercise. My trawler is not designed for fishing,
but my cruising speed of 8 knots gave me lots of
opportunity to drag a few lines when the weather
allowed me the luxury of going outside into the Atlantic.
Fishing singlehanded is a little complicated in a big boat
and is not for the faint of heart, but fresh fish usually is
worth the effort.
Putting together a spare parts inventory and tool kit
was much easier than I had anticipated. Not being a
mechanic, I chose to rely on the kindness and wisdom of
others concerning tools and spares. I have the good
fortune of knowing a great diesel mechanic in my
hometown of Sarasota. Dickey Stem of Coastal Marine
Power is the kind of mechanic most boaters dream about:
pleasant, courteous, intelligent. We sat down together and
made a list of tools and parts to keep on board. I bought
them all, no questions asked. We spent two days in the
engine room together, and I learned how to change
filters, oil, and impellers. (I bought an impeller puller,
among other things.) I’m not going to delude myself into
thinking that I’m a mechanic, but my comfort level grows
with each visit to that sacred space below decks.
Having a good first aid kit is an obvious necessity. I
found that most of the standard kits on the market
needed to be supplemented. Somehow I managed to cut
myself on a regular basis while cruising, and the extra
Band-Aids, Neosporin, and peroxide I had stashed were
helpful. If you take prescription medication, carry extra
copies of the prescription with you. If you need refills,
make sure you allow time for local pharmacies to order
medications that might not be in stock.
When traveling alone, you need to carefully consider
your own personal fatigue levels. On the ICW you
should be paying attention all the time. Many sections
are quite narrow, and the opportunities to run on
autopilot are few. This is noticeably different from open-water cruising, and it can be exhausting. Learn your
threshold for fatigue, and make sure you get appropriate
rest. I found I could comfortably run my boat for about
six hours a day. This allowed me time in the morning
and afternoon to complete routine maintenance,
housekeeping, and planning. Occasionally I would take a
day off from cruising and either explore with the dinghy
or walk through the community near the marina.
Keeping in touch with “the real world” while traveling
the ICW is relatively simple. Cell phone service is
excellent almost everywhere along the coast. With a
laptop and wi-fi, you can stay in touch with friends,
family, and the business world. I kept a daily blog of my
travels, which you can read at travelswithhenrysjourney.
blogspot.com. This allowed family and friends to share
my experience, and the process of making daily entries
and reflecting on the day’s events left me feeling
connected with those closest to me.
SHARING THE CRUISE
In the end, after 2,700 miles and four months in “the
ditch,” you might wonder if this is a journey I would
undertake again. The answer is an unequivocal maybe. If I
am honest with myself, I recognize that I prefer the
company of friends and family to going it alone; yet there
are times when the memory of sitting by myself at anchor
under a full moon on the Chesapeake brings a rather
large smile to my face.
While writing this article, I was in the process of
planning a seven-month cruise that would take me from
Sarasota to New York City and then around Nova
Scotia via the St. Lawrence Seaway. This time, I invited
company. I decided to send an email to friends and
relatives, inviting them to jump on and off along the route
and thereby provide me with crew (and company) during
the 5,000 or so miles of the trip. The email described the
trip and divided the journey into segments at least one
week in duration, with one as long as 18 days. The legs
were calculated based on the reasonable proximity of
marinas to airports, car rental agencies, major cities, and
so forth. Quite simply, it was an attempt to make it easy
for friends to get on or off without having to jump
overboard somewhere and swim for shore.
I expected a few “maybes.” In fact, the response was so
overwhelming, I had to create a waiting list for some
parts of the trip. But inviting crew to hop on and off
creates its own set of issues. The logistics of where and
when to schedule crew changes requires considerable
planning and has to factor in downtime for bad weather,
mechanical breakdowns, and the like. Planning a calendar
of this nature is somewhat akin to playing dominos—a
disruption potentially affects everyone down the line.
Without sufficient “wiggle room,” logistical problems will
be endless. I’ve attempted to reduce the potential for a
