[Rhodes22-list] Ed, Bob, Art, Julia, Bud - Sailing Locales

[Bud]

Dave,
  the ICW is at least a mile wide here, and is typically deep (8'-12') 
and is a great place to sail anything in
our class.  I occasionally crew on a Lindbergh '28 (at times we've had 7 
people on the rail!) and we have no
trouble maneuvering around the course.  Take a quick look on mapquest 
and you will see wide water
from Scottsmoor down to Stuart which is over a 100 miles, with Melbourne 
in the middle.  You will be
suprised how wide and un-crowded this area is.  If you want to see a 
narrow ICW, take a look at Daytona
on mapquest.  If I lived in Daytona I would have taken up motorcycles 
instead of sailing. Oh, if you use
GoogleEarth, you can see just how sparsely populated the water really is.

-Bud



DCLewis1 at aol.com wrote:

>Ed,  We intend to look @ Hartwell and Keowee.  I’m sure Rummy  would welcome 
>another Rhodes on his lake.  At a minimum, it’s someone else  he could beat - 
>easily.   Maybe he'd feel better about it if we  arrived with a bottle of Mt 
>Gay, or is it jar of Ben Gay?
> 
>Regarding Sen Russell, you’re right, I’d forgotten.  Regarding Strom,  I’m 
>sure he did work hard for, and represent, his constituents, he was  re-elected 
>many times.
> 
>Art,  Regarding Lanier, the Corps advertises 7.5M visitors/yr.   Wow!  
> 
>Julia,   I think you’re right, Hudson and Dunedin have survived  on our list. 
> To out knowledge, available marinas in that part of the world  are at Tarpon 
>Springs, we checked at Dunedin and Tarpon Springs, I don’t think  Hudson is 
>directly on the water.  We were told that marinas in the area  have been 
>converted to waterfront condos or are wildly oversubscribed because of  the 
>conversion of so many other marinas to waterfront condos.  As I recall,  the guy 
>running the Dunedin marina said it would take at least 2 years for a 22'  sailboat 
>to get a slip in their marina - if the boat were 30'  or over he  projected a 
>4+ year wait - and we’d have to be residents of Dunedin to even be  put on the 
>list.  There are slips available at Tarpon Springs.  One  issue with that 
>entire  area is the water is shallow water.  We were  told by a marina operator @ 
>Tarpon Springs that if you sailed a mile off shore,  the depth would increase 
>by about a foot - you could walk home if something  happened to the boat.  
>The charts show a very extended shelf in that part  of the world.  The mean 
>depth around Dunedin is about 2 feet, as I recall  (could be wrong about the 2', 
>but it’s shallow).   So thin water is an  issue in that part of Fla - but it is 
>warm, so it’s still on the list.
> 
>BobF,  Thanks for your post, I checked back and saw Tom’s subsequent  post.  
>It explains everything we saw.  But his 2 posts also identify a  substantial 
>problem: marina’s are out, at least for the near term,  because  the Florida 
>EPA won’t let them dredge, ramps are not great, so Tom recommends a  waterfront 
>or canal back home.  Tom reports they start at about $1.2M - and  we all know 
>they can be blown or washed away by the next big storm.   Actually, when we 
>were there we saw several canal backed homes that were in the  $700Ks, but they 
>were older (I’d guess ‘50s) and pretty small - PG/PC has been  around for a 
>while and the part near the water likely developed first.  So  its getting 
>problematic given PG/PCs storm history, boating infrastructure  (or lack of 
>infrastructure), and very near term development.
> 
>I’d thought PG/PC might be a good place for the snowbird trick, just get a  
>condo/townhouse and rent a slip - limit hurricane risk by limiting  investment. 
> The problem is no slips, few ramps, and a tremendous amount of  development 
>that’s going to exacerbate the need for slips and ramps (as I recall  there 
>are at least 3 high rise condos going in on PG Isles in a relatively small  area 
>just outside the park entrance no direct water access with any of  them - and 
>that’s only one place in PG).  I’m starting to think that  making PG/PC work 
>could be a challenge. 
> 
>Bud, Thanks for suggesting Melbourne.  Can you really sail that part  of the 
>ICW?  Except as the ICW transects various sounds, the parts of the  ICW I’ve 
>seen on the east coast have been relatively narrow.  I concluded  sailing the 
>ICW entails some sailing and a lot of motoring unless the wind  cooperates.  I 
>have no experience sailing the ICW, am I wrong?
> 
>Also, I can report that in the Palm Coast area, and possibly other areas (  
>i.e. Southport NC), developers have negotiated cut-outs from the ICW where  they
>’ve built marinas for a hundred or so boats at a site.  I can see real  
>traffic jams developing in those areas when the multitude of local recreational  
>boaters take to the relatively confined ICW ditch.  Does Melbourne have  that 
>problem?   I’m ambivalent about recreational sailing in the ICW,  as opposed to 
>using it as a passage from point A to point B, do people sail  22' boats 
>recreationally in the ICW (this comment applies only to  “the big  ditch” part of 
>the ICW not the sounds, river mouths, behind keys,  etc)?
>
>Our next trek is pseudo-local,  Kilmarnock VA, Washington NC via Edenton (try 
>to check on our boat), and New  Bern NC (again).  This is our 3rd trip to New 
>Bern, it  has a lot  going for it (Neuse River & Pamlico Sound),  but it can 
>get cold.   Not as cold as Northern Va, but a lot colder than Fla.  Later this 
> year it’ll be the lakes trek. 
> 
>Thanks again to everyone for your input.  Your local knowledge is  really 
>helpful.  
> 
>Dave
>
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