Armchair sailing

I mentioned before that I enjoy the Furled Sails podcasts. I was intrigued by the one I listened to today about the Atlantic InterCoastal Waterway caught my attention. The idea of taking a sailing boat on inland waterways from Boston to Florida is an intriguing one. Having spent several family holidays in the Outer Banks soaking up the history of shipwrecks along the Carolina coasts, I can see the attractions of missing that part of the ocean trek south although I'm not sure how much sailing you'd get in. Even if you join the AIW in Norfolk, Virginia , it would still be 1,200 miles which could be a lot of motoring in a small boat! The podcast was an interview with the authors of the Managing the Waterways books which sound like just the thing if you wanted to do this trip. Other interesting resources were here , here and here .

Back down to cruising speeds and planning the trips we're going to take. I have begun to browse the passage planning software that's out there - not PC-based chart plotter stuff of which there is plenty, but packages devoted to voyage planning. I have enjoyed in the past playing around with Virtual Passages which describes itself as "The Ultimate Passage Planning Tool". The company adds "Take Armchair Voyages Across the World's Oceans using Actual Daily Weather and Nautical Charts". Sounds just like this blog, eh?