The day boating curse - fact or fiction?

[oceanfroggie]

One of the reasons we keep our boat on a cruising area 2hr from our home is to really get away from it all and do lots of overnight cruising. It's a sort of unwritten rule that we never spend a night at our harbour berth. Our home port is within 2hrs cruising time of about 10 other destinations. There is an opportunity to move to an alternate berth only 20mins from where we live but the cruising area less interesting and more spread out, reducing weekend overnight options to 3 other local caravan park marinas within an hours cruise. I fear we could end up meer day boating in the bay and overnighting more in the new home port instead of the crusing experience we are used to, and I fear it could take a lot of the joy out of boating, or worse become boring. Is day boating on a cruising mobo a curse or not? We are not into fishing. There are some attractions to having the boat closer to home.

 

[vjmehra]

Personally I would always have the boat as close to home as possible....in theory. However I sympathise with your situation as I live about a 15 minute walk from Limehouse marina, but it would be pointless for me to have our boat there, so we keep ours in Gillingham.

2 hours is a long way, but if you don't ever go out for quick trips after work, then I suspect that's not a massive issue for you and it if it opens up more interesting destination options I would stick with it, simply going to the same places all the time gets very dull very quickly!

 

[Greg2]

Hmmm....interesting. Our boat is twenty five minutes away on the Broads with the option to go somewhere if we want to but we are quite happy to spend a night or two in the marina. Just being aboard and seeing people we know is okay some weekends and on others we go somewhere else but often to far. Popping out for a day cruise on the river is also very pleasant.

Overall, just being on the boat is the main thing and I wouldn't want to have to commute a long way to get there.

 

[AndieMac]

Things will change over the years in your boating life OF, whether it's a stage of long distance cruising or a period of regular socialising with new friends and acquaintances at close-by anchorages....or dare I say it, even staying at the marina!

I wouldn't worry too much about what you do in regards to passages completed when aboard, as long as all the crew are happy participating.
You could always give the new location a try for a season, and if it doesn't do it for you, go back to the original marina. You never know, the other berth-holders may become great boating companions in the future.

 

[oceanfroggie]

Things will change over the years in your boating life OF, whether it's a stage of long distance cruising or a period of regular socialising with new friends and acquaintances at close-by anchorages....or dare I say it, even staying at the marina!

I wouldn't worry too much about what you do in regards to passages completed when aboard, as long as all the crew are happy participating.
You could always give the new location a try for a season, and if it doesn't do it for you, go back to the original marina. You never know, the other berth-holders may become great boating companions in the future.

Yes we've considered trying that. We have a good network of pals within our extended cruising area, but less at our homeport probably because we spend so little time there. We tend to arrive, park car 20ft from boat, load luggage, provisions boarded, lines off and away. On return we have it down to a fine art, taking about 15mins to moor, decamp, load car and start for home. We tend to meet pals and new folk at different destination harbours on the rare occasions we don't anchor out. Other times two or three boats cruise in company. The boat is based on southern lough Derg so have the benefit of inland or coastal cruising.

We spent half a season on the south coast of Ireland (ie Cork area) and loved it even though it's a longer road drive from Dublin (3hr). The latest option is Greystones on the east coast very near where we live (20mins), but the weekend cruising options are so very limited due to lack of nearby destinations unlike Cork, or Lough Derg. I fear we may end up day boating (eg anchoring off Killiney beech of a Saturday for a few hours and lunch), rather than 2/3 night weekend mini cruises. We dislike visiting large marinas as they are so boring and characterless.

 

[blueglass]

Stay where you are OF. We once had a mooring on the nearest bit of water to home only 50 minutes but very limited cruising. Lasted one season and completely bored with the same old routine.

 

[jfm]

Each to their own but I see no point having the boat near home if the cruising is rubbish. In your circs, bearing in mind the motorway network you now have, I'd get a very fast family car and keep the boat near Cork (assuming you don't want the Med so that's off the table)