The cruiser returning to Florida from a voyage around the Caribbean encounters an abrupt shift in official mindset. While the hassle of passports, visas, checking in and out, and petty third-world officialdom is gone, it is replaced by a different sort of regulation. PFDs, lights, flares, decals, whistles all need to be in order. Registrations, sanitation, expirations had all better be attended to, since there are almost a half-dozen law enforcement agencies with the right to board and search at any time and for no reason as you cruise the Florida Keys.
It’s kind of nice, though, not having to do mental arithmetic with a shifting currency exchange rate to figure out how much a meal cost, or trying to exchange only what you need before heading to the next country with different money. The language barrier is gone, and perhaps best of all, there are Publix supermarkets with foods both welcome and familiar. While we’re inordinately fond of foreign grocery stores filled with previously-unknown foods and sweets, there’s a comfort to a familiar, well-stocked American store with no surprises.
Another treat is the presence of working navigation aids and charts that are for the most past accurate. I say for the most part, because there are portions of the Intracoastal Waterway, especially between Miami and Key West, where dredging has gotten so woefully behind that there’s deeper water outside of the markers than between them.
From Key West, you can either go north along the Gulf coast, then cut inland at Ft Myers to cross Lake Okeechobee (if it has enough depth just then), and emerge at Port St. Lucie. This allows you to bypass the insanity that is the Keys, Miami, and Ft. Lauderdale, and still be poised to cruise up the east coast or cross to the Abacos. Of course, it’s easy enough to jump out into the gulf stream at the Miami inlet and ride it as far north as desired before entering at the nearest convenient inlet, of which there are many.
While the ICW along the east coast is not unpleasant, it is also not a quick way to get north, and most people take it in a hybrid fashion, jumping in and out as weather, mood, and circumstance dictate. I myself have never gone the same way twice, and by now the only bit I haven’t seen is the Georgia ICW, which gets mixed reviews from those who have meandered along it.
Several remarkable things about cruising the US east coast are that the social cruiser scenes, so much a part of life in foreign ports, are all but gone. The daily radio nets don’t seem to happen; marinas and mooring fields are filled with boats not lived-aboard, and it’s rare to bump into someone you couldn’t seem to shake in the Caribbean. You also can’t go ashore and be sure of a bus or taxi passing by that will take you anywhere for a few pesos—public transportation just isn’t as plentiful or affordable as other places.
Other than these generalizations, there’s amazing variety of cities and cultures and scenery. There’s buggy marshes, bustling metropoli, quiet seaside towns, and as you go further north, rocky islands covered in foggy pines. There’s something somewhere that will charm every sort of sailor, and if there’s no reason to move on, it will be because there’s plenty for which to stay. We ended up at the upper end of the mid-Atlantic coast, where the combination of work, scenery, and lifestyle all came together to make it the best place to pause the cruising and put down some roots, if only (we told ourselves) for a while. Just till the girls are older, and we’re well off enough to cast off the mooring (we have a mooring in a sheltered lagoon), and point Ganymede’s bows toward the ocean again. Rhode Island is a great jumping-off spot for just about anywhere: the eastern Caribbean, the Azores, Europe, Greenland, or even closer to home, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.