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

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

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