Base camps for beach cruising

[slidercat]

A while back I was thinking about how to make my web site more generally useful to the boating community and hit on the idea of reviewing places that are suitable for small boat base camps-- places to begin a cruise in a small boat.

I have a few examples now, though they are all from the upper Gulf Coast, where I live. A friend reviewed several places near his home port of Carrabelle, FL, and I reviewed a couple places I knew about. You can find these examples here:

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/?page_id=75

If you know a suitable small boat base camp in your area that you don't mind telling the world about, consider writing a piece for this potentially useful database. Remember that this is for small boats-- there are lots of cruising guides aimed at larger cruising boats already. But judging by the number of hits these descriptions get, there is a growing demand for information tailored to the needs of small boat cruisers.

[Lance F. Gunderson]

I've found the "Maine Coast Guide for small boats by Curtis Rindlaub useful. It covers Casco Bay in Maine, and is aimed at the small boater. Sadly more and more launch ramps are charging hefty launch fees. Here in Kittery Point we now have to pay $15 every time we launch at the town dock. Until last year it was free. This blight is rapidly spreading up the Maine Coast. Some of the sites Rindlaub recommends may be effected.

[Bill Huson]

Shackleford Banks. A short cruise from Beaufort (Bofert), NC. Launch fees on the mainland are reasonable, and NC provides many ramps for free! Actually there's quite a few uninhabited islands in that area. Camping allowed but "primitive" as in bring a shovel to dig a latrine. Some islands are considered clothing optional :D

[James McMullen]

Have you heard of the Washington Water Trails Association (http://www.wwta.org/trails/)? They have a huge network of waterside campsites throughout Washington State dedicated for use by human powered beachable watercraft--kayaks, canoes, rowboats and sail & oar boats only--no motors allowed! You can paddle or row from Olympia all the way north to the Canadian border with something like 50 campsites to choose from, and there are other networks of trails for the lower Columbia River down to the sea and the Snake river in Idaho to the upper Columbia.

It is frickin' awesome to be able to travel for over a hundred miles self-contained in a little boat throughout Puget Sound with campsites available every 5-10 miles apart reserved for us low and no-impact boaters. The WWT is one of the reasons I moved up here.

[slidercat]

Bill, I'd love to see a piece on the Shackleford Banks-- a story on your favorite entryway to that area. Take a look at the format I'm using for the concise info on the base camp-- I'm trying to have all the entries start with the same kind of data in at-a-glance form. But then go crazy for a thousand words or so and half a dozen photos. If they're not your pics, I'll need permission from the owner to use them.

James, thanks for that terrific link-- I'm going to add it to my link collection. You do live in a wonderful part of the world. My wife and I got a chance to visit out there many years ago and had a great time. We came up from Oregon, spent a night at Port Angeles (best small town library I ever saw) went up the coast to Port Townsend, spent a couple days in Seattle, took the ferry out to Lummi Island and spent a lot of time wishing we could move there. Anyway, I'm deeply envious.

So how about writing a piece on your favorite small boat base camp? You have a wealth of places to choose from and you write well. In general, I've been trying to cover places that are not as well known-- like the piece on the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Mississippi-- and places that big-boat cruising guides don't cover, due to draft limitations and so on.

[rbgarr]

Sadly more and more launch ramps are charging hefty launch fees. Here in Kittery Point we now have to pay $15 every time we launch at the town dock. Until last year it was free. This blight is rapidly spreading up the Maine Coast. Some of the sites Rindlaub recommends may be effected.

Does anyone know if the Wallops-Breaux legislation is still in effect? http://www.boatus.com/news/buoy03_05.htm

It used Fed fuel taxes to subsidize state water access resources and other similar projects.

[slidercat]

Lance, that looks like a great book.

I'm actually trying to collect base camp articles from folks who have visited these places and can speak from a first-person perspective, and develop the article in a little more detail than is usually found in even excellent cruising guides. The economies of web publishing mean that I can put lots of this stuff up, well-illustrated by color photos... and until I get a lot more traffic than I do now, it doesn't cost much, so I can afford to provide web space for it.

Anyway, I'd be delighted to see an article from you on your favorite Casco Bay base camp. I took my family up to Maine a couple of years back, in June. It was still a bit chilly, but we saw an awful lot of wonderful stuff, even just driving around. Visited the old Nearing place, for example, and Acadia NP. It was spectacular.

[Lance F. Gunderson]

I also visited the old Nearing place; I was a big fan of Helen & Scott and still emulate their philosophy to some extent. You saw some of the best places Maine has to offer. Acadia would be one of the best base camps. Stonington is another, but it is heavily used in summer by kayak tours. Castine is also good; see Karen Francour's Castine Kayak web site. I much prefer Penobscot Bay to Casco, but Rindlaub has not yet written a book on it for small boaters. Maybe he will someday. His Cruising Guide To The Maine Coast might do, though it is geared toward larger cruising boats. Note that kayakers are unwelcome in some Maine harbors, notably Friendship and parts of Muscongus Bay. Dorcas Miller's book on kayaking the Maine Coast is useful but may not be up to date regarding base camp sites. The Maine Island Trail Assoc. may also be of interest to you.

[StevenBauer]

I helped a guy get his boat ready for launch one year in the parking lot by the boat launch here in Portland. Turns out he was a New Yorker. Every year he takes his folding kayak and flies from NYC to Maine and takes a cab from the airport to the boat launch and heads off to paddle the Maine Island Trail for a week or so. It was amazing what we stuffed in that boat. :D if I still lived in The City I'd need to get away by myself, too.


Steven

[slidercat]

I just posted a new base camp article on Slider's blog. This one was suggested by Dave Bolduc, of microcruising.com and Little Cruiser fame. It's a private campground on the Outer Banks from which he and Mindy have explored the area around Ocracoke Inlet.

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/?p=152

Once again, I must beg all you experienced small boat sailors for suitable base camp articles. I have only a half-dozen destinations in the databank so far, but already they get the most hits from visitors. To recap, these are articles on places from which notable small boat cruises can be made. Often they involve campgrounds, though not necessarily. The main thing to remember is that while there are many cruising guides to the areas we'd like to cruise, these are usually written for bigger boats. With light, trailerable, shallow-draft boats, the possibilities for suitable base camps multiply enormously over what is available to larger boats. But there is little organized info available. I don't have the time to research and write all of them by myself, so I need your help. There's a page on the site that suggests the format I need-- mostly I need a header with the base camp vital info organized in a standard way-- but then you can write up the rest of the information in any way you choose.

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/?page_id=75

Alas, I can't pay for these articles, but on the other hand, I'm not getting paid for posting them. In fact, the bandwidth to make them available to everyone costs me money, and the editing and posting costs me a fair amount of time. But I think this could be a wonderful asset for small boat sailors, if we can just get a critical mass of information up. Think about how great it would be if, when choosing an area for a boating vacation, you could instantly see all the information you needed on where to stay and what to see?

So, please take a little time, write up your favorite base camp (or camps), and help out your fellow small boat sailors. My email address is available at the bottom of the above page.

Ray