Cruising, camping, or coastal raid: the pleasure of skimming the rocks.
Coastal Cruising: Adventure Awaits
Day trips, camping, or coastal raids? A day out, fishing or picnicking in a small cove a few miles from your home port is a perfect and sufficient pleasure for the vast majority of boaters. However, on closer inspection, your boat – whatever its type, size and design category – can offer you much more. Imagine: a piece of beach just for you. The other boats have returned to port at the end of the day or simply could not access this corner of paradise reserved for very small drafts. Around the campfire, you enjoy life with your friends while the children play Robinson Crusoe… A dream accessible with almost all boats. This is the magic of the wonderful world of coastal cruising!
Expanding Your Playground with a Transportable Boat
You can go very far, following the coasts. Tours of Brittany, Corsica or even the Mediterranean can be considered, even with small boats offering minimal or no comfort. Anne and Paul have been sailing for several decades aboard their 7-meter steel monohull in Greece: “on board, we only have the minimum comfort. But we go to port two or three times a week which allows us, for nearly 30 years, to scour the Greek islands far and wide from May to October… The hardest part is leaving the boat at the beginning of autumn and returning to France!” A boat that the couple had bought… in Brittany and that they conveyed, over several years, to the Aegean Sea, following the coasts and their desires. A journey that took them 5 years, at a rate of two months of sailing each summer and which confirmed their choice of purchase but also of cruise.
More radical, Paola and Dominique sent their sports catamaran to Greenland. From there, last summer, they embarked on a two-month self-sufficient expedition in the middle of the ice. A committed raid on a simple 18-foot Hobie Cat – certainly well prepared – but still frankly spartan. This unique adventure offered them exceptional encounters and unforgettable memories.
Discover New Navigation Zones
Without going to these extremes reserved for seasoned adventurers, the coastal raid allows you to discover new navigation zones. And this, all the more easily if you have a boat with a road gauge (2.55m) or if you use a qualified carrier. The only limit will then be the one you dare to cross.
Essential Preparation for a Unique Navigation
Preparing your navigation, identifying the good spots to stop over, planning strategic stops according to the evolution of the weather, and especially playing with the tide calendars: coastal cruising is not improvised. But this is precisely one of the great pleasures it offers: it is earned! The provisioning must be particularly well thought out so as not to run out of fresh water or food. Anticipating possible stops to refuel is one of the keys to the success of the coastal raid/camping cruise.
Choosing the Right Boat for Coastal Cruising
Setting sail for a coastal cruise can be considered on absolutely all boats: sailing or motor, with one, two or three hulls. Some – the more adventurous or sporty – do not hesitate to embark their family in sea kayaks! Everything is therefore possible.
To take advantage of the small coves, a boat with a shallow draft is a plus. It will allow you to access as close as possible to the nicest beaches and always far from the crowds of other boats and crowded anchorages. The ideal is to have a small cabin on board to protect yourself, a kitchenette and if you have a marine toilet, you will approach paradise in terms of comfort in coastal raids. If your boat does not have a cabin, you will have the pleasure of pitching your tent on the beach where you have chosen to spend the night…
But coastal cruising is not reserved for small boats alone. A navigation along the coasts, especially if they are sublime, is necessarily even more pleasant on a boat with all the comfort on board.
Where and When to Go?
The advantage of the formula is that it excludes no destination… The boat on the trailer, you can go wherever you want from your “home port”, which is most often your garage! Once there, just leave the car and trailer in a parking lot, and you’re off to the most beautiful of marine adventures. And why not consider a cruise on the other side of the oceans? West Indies, Polynesia, Greece? Everything is possible if you organize yourself early enough to prepare the transfer of your boat to the chosen area.
Among the favorite destinations of coastal raid enthusiasts, we find Corsica, Brittany (with the superb Gulf of Morbihan), but also Scandinavia, Scotland and its canals, the Adriatic and its anchorages as numerous as they are deserted, Greece, and of course the Caribbean or the lagoons of Polynesia… And what about freshwater navigation? We often forget them, yet, with a transportable, lakes or rivers become a destination that is not only pleasant, but often unforgettable. Navigating at the foot of snow-capped peaks or in the middle of fields remains a memory etched forever in the memories. It’s up to you to discover the nuggets that fresh waters can hold…
Ultimately, the only limit to your playground will be your imagination.
Before setting out to sea, be sure to check the weather.
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