The Wheel Thing
"Ready to take the dink ashore?”
Never had those words invoked as much anxiety as when my husband, Jeff, and I first moved to the Pacific Coast. Why? Because we had exactly zero experience with dinghy surf landings, and the possibility of being flipped upside down along with our two dogs was very real. And who likes to lose face in front of all their new cruising buds?
When Jeff and I had cruised the East Coast, plying the waters from Maine to the Bahamas, taking the dogs ashore for their twice (or thrice!) daily exercise was no big deal. If we weren’t near a marina or in close proximity to a dinghy dock, we were still in a sheltered cove with minimal wave action. It just wasn’t a concern.
However, after we found our dream boat, an Antares 44i catamaran located in Southern California, we decided that Mexico’s Pacific coast would become our new cruising
