Archives for 2009 | Distant Shores Sailing Newsletters

Seasons Greetings

December 2009

Seasons Greetings One and All!

We hope you are enjoying this festive time of year and are making uplifting plans for the seasons to come.

What's New
Following a delightful fall cruise around the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the USA, Paul and I are back ashore in Canada working in the Shard Multimedia studio on post-production of the season 6 episodes of the Distant Shores TV series.

Distant Shores broadcast in over 200 countries
Although it's snowing where we are and there are Christmas carols playing on the radio, we're immersed in images and sounds of tropical places as we work with our production team to edit, script, and narrate new shows to entertain you in the New Year. These new shows will be broadcast in over 200 countries this winter. See “Distant Shores on TV” on www.distantshores.ca for more information. Note: Season 6 episodes will be available on DVD when the television broadcast is concluded.

New Distant Shores Superpack DVD Collection – All 65 episodes!
Have you missed any of the previous seasons of Distant Shores on TV? Did you loan your Distant Shores disks to friends and never got them back? Or watched them so often you've worn them out and need fresh ones?? Just in time for the gift-giving season the new SUPER-PACK with all 65 episodes from Seasons 1 to 5 is now available on our online store. Hours of inspiring and educational sailing fun! Super savings too!
sailingdvds

Paul's New Boat Blog – See our new Southerly 49 at London Boat Show
In November, Paul flew over to England to the Northshore Yachts factory to check on the progress of our new Southerly 49. The boat is looking great and will be on display at the London International Boat Show in January. Come on by and we'll show you around! In the meantime, you can see photos and learn more about how we're equipping the our new Southerly on Paul's New Boat Blog:

See You at the Boat Show!
Paul and I love boat shows and this winter 2010 will be making guest appearances and conducting cruising seminars at the following shows:

London International Boat Show, England
Friday January 8 through Monday January 11
ExCel London
Visit us on our S49 at the Southerly stand N010 - Fri Jan 8 through Mon Jan 11
Seminar: “Transatlantic to the Caribbean & Bahamas” - Sat Jan 9 at 10:30-11:00 *
Seminar: “Shallow-draft cruising in the Bahamas & Caribbean” – Sun Jan 10 at 1200-1230 *
*Seminars to be held at The Show Stage, North Hall
www.londonboatshow.com/

Toronto International Boat Show, Canada
Thursday January 14 - Sunday January 17, 2010
Exhibition Place, Trade Centre
Seminar: “Shallow-draft cruising in the Bahamas & Caribbean”
Thurs. Jan 14th @ 4-5 pm
Fri. Jan 15th @ 1-2 pm
Sat. Jan 16th @ 5-6 pm
Sun. Jan 17th @ 2-3 pm
Seminar location: Presentation Theatre (located adjacent to Hall B entrance).
http://torontoboatshow.com

Sail Away Seminars with the Shards
Planning to go cruising and have lots of questions about cost, equipment, provisioning, communications and route planning? This winter we are hosting Sail Away Seminars at Port Credit Yacht Club in Mississauga, Canada, to help you design your sail away plan. These will be intensive one-day workshops. Attendance is limited to 20 people/day. Two dates to choose from:
Saturday February 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Sunday February 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Contact our office manager, Jill Schaffner, for more information or telephone: (705) 484-0061


Wishing you all the best for the holiday season and coming year!

Sheryl and Paul Shard
SV Distant Shores
www.distantshores.ca
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United States Sailboat Show, Annapolis MD


Thursday October 8 to Monday October 12 was the 40th Annual United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis MD and once again Paul and I and our Southerly 42, Distant Shores, participated in this wonderful in-water boat show. (See 15/11/08 Newsletter about about our trip south from Canada for last year’s boat show.)



Boat and equipment manufacturers from around the world display at this show, the largest in-water boat show in the United States. Every year it falls on the Columbus Day Weekend which is the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend too so many sailboat enthusiasts from across both the US and Canada take advantage of the long weekend and fly or drive in to Annapolis making it a very festive yachting event.



Our wedding anniversary always falls during the boat show and it’s a fun way for Paul and me to celebrate all our years together with cruising friends attending the show. This year we celebrated our 24th anniversary!



This boat show was another great opportunity for us to share information with those planning upcoming cruises and to meet with viewers of the Distant Shores TV series. This TV series (also available on DVD on our online store) follows our sailing adventures to countries around the world and gives tips and techniques for safe and enjoyable cruising aboard a sailboat.



The Distant Shores TV series is broadcast across the United States on the high-definition channel WealthTV. Check the schedule on the Wealth TV website if you are in the US or Caribbean. In Europe, Asia and Africa you can see the programs on Travel Channel. We’ll be announcing a new Canadian broadcaster in the new year. We are currently filming episode 78 about cruising in the Chesapeake Bay.



This year at Annapolis we had the pleasure of working with Ben Davies, Sales Manager of Northshore Yachts (the manufacturer of Southerly yachts) who flew over from England for the boat show and also with the new American dealers for Southerly, Jack and Sharon Malatich, of Southerly America who are based at the Gratitude Yachting Centre in Rockville, MD.



If you are interested in a new or used Southerly yacht, Jack and Sharon are the ones to contact in the US. They are handling the sale of our Southerly 42 while we await construction of our new Southerly 49! (Read more about our new Southerly 49 in Paul’s New Boat Blog) You can also see the boat listed on Yachtworld.com under Southerly 42RST.



As a result of the boat show, Jack and Sharon have been booking appointments for test sails aboard Distant Shores and we will also be showing the boat at the upcoming Open Dock at Gratitude Yachting Centre in Rockville MD on Saturday October 24 from 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. If you are looking for a fully-equipped ready-to-go luxury cruising yacht this Southerly 42 may be the boat for you! Start your cruising dreams now and contact the Malatiches for details. Tel. (410) 639 2777 or e-mail info@southerlyamerica.com.

In the next installment we’ll get back to cruising and tell you more about sailing around the Chesapeake Bay....


Til then,

Sheryl and Paul
Aboard SV Distant Shores
Annapolis MD

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Port Credit & Southampton Boat Shows 2009 - seminars

One of the pleasures of the cruising lifestyle is the opportunity to get together with fellow boaters and share stories, information and experience. This can take place informally aboard one another’s boats, at the yacht club, over a drink at a local sailor’s bar in some foreign port. More formally it occurs through books and websites, podcasts, DVDs, television programs like Distant Shores, or - like the last few weekends where we spoke at the Port Credit Boat Show in Canada and Southampton Boat Show in England - at boat show seminars.

I enjoy seminars since they are such a nice mix of formal and informal exchange of information. The classroom setting and style means a lot of information can be shared but the live interaction between seminar leader and seminar participants makes the whole thing casual and friendly, at least when the topic is about boating!

Paul and I have been cruising internationally now for 20 years and have 76,000 nm under our keels. We set sail from Toronto on September 21, 1989, on our first cruise, a 3-year Atlantic Circle aboard our self-built Classic 37 sailboat, Two-Step, that took us to the Bahamas, transatlantic to the Mediterranean, south to the Canary Islands and Brazil, then home to Canada via the Caribbean. The adventures have continued ever since with further travels in to the Mediterranean and countries of the Middle East and Caribbean. It’s a privilege and a pleasure to pass on what we’ve learned so that others may experience the joys of navigating to interesting places by boat too.

August 28,29, and 30th was the 19th Annual Port Credit Boat Show in Mississauga, Canada, just west of Toronto on Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. While Paul worked in the studio completing post-production on new episodes of the Distant Shores TV series, I attended the boat show and each day conducted seminars about cruising in the Bahamas and Caribbean. We’ve now made 8 cruises through the Bahamas and 3 through the islands of the Caribbean. The turn-out for the seminar was excellent with standing room only despite the cool windy weather on a couple of afternoons. Thanks everyone for coming out and for your input!

With the help of our parents and office manager, Jill Schaffner, who looks after our office and fulfills book and DVD orders, I also manned a booth alongside fellow authors and filmmakers and had a great weekend talking to boaters, both power and sail, about the cruising lifestyle.

September 11, 12, and 13 Paul and I were in England for the first weekend of the Southampton Boat Show where we were invited to participate in the world premiere ceremonies of the new Southerly 49 along with yacht designer Rob Humphries and 2-times world circumnavigator, Dee Caffari. The ceremony and press call was on the Friday morning.

For the rest of the weekend we were at the Southerly stand to speak to visitors and cruising sailors about their upcoming plans for long-distance voyages.

The Southerly 49 on display at the Southampton show, which runs until September 20th, is hull #1 and is headed for Australia. Our new Southerly 49 is hull #2 and is well under construction. It was fun to be at the show and get familiar with the 49 there by showing people around the boat.

There was a large fleet of Southerly yachts on display at the boat show from the 32 up to the 49 and with the beautiful summer weather that weekend, many people came out to see or try out the boats.

We also enjoyed meeting many fans of the Distant Shores TV series, which airs in the UK and 50 other countries in Europe, Asia and Africa on Travel Channel here. Northshore had set up a nice area where we could sit and talk to those people that dropped by to say hello and ask questions about outfitting a boat for long-distance cruising. It’s a two-way exchange since these sessions always raise interesting topics and give us new ideas to share with others through our magazine articles and TV programs as well the newsletters and New Boat Blog on our website.

Another great thing about boat shows is the chance to meet up with manufacturers and suppliers of equipment we have depended on over the years. Friday night we had dinner with the team from Pantaenius Yacht Insurance who has looked after us throughout years of adventure under sail. We have always dealt with the UK office but they recently opened an office in the US for those of you that are interested.

On the Saturday night we gave a presentation at the Southerly Owners Dinner at the Royal Southern Yacht Club a beautiful club in the picturesque village of Hamble on the Hamble River and had a chance to meet and converse with many knowledgeable Southerly owners. Most had never cruised in the Bahamas so using excerpts from the Distant Shores Season 5: The Med to the Caribbean and Bahamas DVD we showed them what a perfect place the Bahamas is for shallow-draft cruising.

All and all it has been a great start to the boat show season! Next stop is the United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis MD from October 8-12 where we and our Southerly 42, Distant Shores, will be at the Southerly America booth on Dock D. January 8-12 we’ll see you at the London Boat Show where our new Southerly 49 will be on display and then we’ll be in Toronto for the end of the Toronto Boat Show January 14-17.

There are lots of great new products and innovations on the market to make life aboard more comfortable, safe and pleasurable. As boats are hauled out and winter sets in planning next year’s adventures by doing research, taking a course, attending boat shows, reading a good book are all ways to deal with cold weather and keep the cruising dream alive until spring launch. Paul will be discussing the new gear we are considering for our new Southerly 49 in his New Boat Blog so we invite you to drop by the Distant Shores website regularly to take a look.
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Abaco Cays, Bahamas - Hope Town

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Montserrat - Island of the Volcano

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Saba - Hidden Kingdom in the Dutch Caribbean

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Passage from Bahamas to Antigua for Christmas

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