Who we are

CoastalBoating.net is an online community resource for the boater who enjoys all there is about boating and goes out for the joy of it. It's for the day sailor who snatches a lovely afternoon, for the cruiser who drops anchor in a secluded cove, for the racer who loves to get the adrenaline going, and for the coastal resident who'd like to learn more about it. It's for all those people who are out there and want to find out what's happening, want to always learn something new, and want to join a community of individuals who share their passion for the sea, and the power and majesty of the wind.

The mission of this site is to provide the best all around experience in a local resource guide that covers destinations, services, events, local news, including race results, and seamanship skills. Its intention is not to prepare people for the great offshore experience: there are plenty of resources out there for that. It’s for all of the rest of us who may dream about a big adventure yet find ourselves perfectly content, if not driven, to experience the waters in our own territory to the fullest. It's for all of us who know that in being on the water there is always something more to learn to and to share with those just getting started or moving up. If we can get one more person out there every week, that will be a reward worth having!

So please help us out. If you have questions or suggestions, please send them in so we can keep track of what’s needed out there. If we hear about a particular subject from enough people, we’ll find a way to help you out. Enjoy our website, and please let our sponsors know where you saw their messages. Thanks, and see you on the water.

Best personal regards,
Capt. Daria & Capt. Alex Blackwell

Daria & Alex Blackwell, founders of CoastalBoating.net. We love to hear from you, so please write.

About Captains Alex & Daria

Capt. Alex Blackwell has been messing around in boats since the beginning of his memory, which sometimes goes back to his early childhood. The main focus has always been sailing – first dinghies, for the past number of years cruising on Long Island Sound and beyond. Alex cruised the West Coast of Ireland in dinghys as a child, raced 470s on the German Olympic trials circuit, managed the Kiel University Folke boat, trained on the Irish sail training vessel Asgaard (which got caught in the Fastnet Storm of 1979), and built and sailed custom windsurfers throughout his university years. He is also a fisheries biologist by training, a printer, multimedia specialist (www.stardesign.com), and a really nice Renaissance kind of guy. Alex holds a USCG Master's license for 50 Ton Near Coastal operation, with sailing and towing endorsements.

Onyx - 'First Feline' and the editor at the helm.

Capt. Daria Blackwell is a consummate sailor who started in Sunfish on Lake George in the Adirondacks. She soon graduated to Hobie cats, first 16s then an 18 which was trailered all over the East Coast and launched on lakes, bays, and oceans…any place with water. As most sailers do, her next boat was double the size, a Sabre 36 parked in Oxford, MD on the shores of the magical Chesapeake Bay. Daria’s dream is to go off cruising “for awhile” and she’s spent the last few years perfecting her seamanship skills, including a USCG Captain's license (OUPV 100 Ton Near Coastal), advanced coastal navigation certificate (passed with a perfect score!), Amateur Radio Operator License - General (Ham call sign KC2KTD), CPR and first aid, diesel mechanics, weather prediction, PADI dive certification, as well as practicing her language skills in Ukrainian, French, Spanish, and so on. By the way, she is not the Daria of MTV fame, although Alex swears that she must have been the prototype.

Alex & Daria and their cruising kitty, 'First Feline' Onyx, typically put on about 1500 miles a season, first on their Frers 41 ‘Espresso’ (www.whiteseahorse.com/espresso), and are now continuing on their ‘new’ 30-year-old Bowman 57 ketch ‘Aleria’, all while planning their world cruise and working at big time jobs to build up the other cruising kitty. Alex and Daria are also the founding webmasters for www.americanyc.com, recognized as one of the premiere yacht club websites in the world, and contributing founders of Sail4Kids, a sailing community support effort for the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center.

Aleria ghosting along Long Island Sound.

email: info @ coastalboating.net

We do not provide a direct link to avoid the unfortunate pick up of website email address links by spam generators. Please copy the address into your email software and retain in your address list for future correspondence. Your vigilant eye is always welcome.

Dreams do come true

We’ve both had “interesting” lives with multiple iterations of careers and other complicating factors. Now, we’ve decided that what we really want out of life is to do what we like doing (novel thought, huh?). The difference between us and many people like us out there right now is that we decided to actually be brave and follow our dreams.

*Aleria* with her white seahorse spinnaker. Stop by and say hello if you see us out there.

Yep, that means major league reinvention of self once again. We both love to sail, we both love to write, we happen to know marketing, we both love the sea and everything in it and around it, and we both periodically follow our dreams. We are consummate cruisers and closet racers. We typically accumulate about 1500 miles a season cruising in our own back yards every weekend rain or shine. We anchor every chance we get, and sometimes we just have to have shore leave.

Our cruising reputation caused us to be considered by our friends as the “anchor cruisers,” and we managed to even win a few distance races along the way. With that reputation came the extraordinary list of questions from our friends. How do you do this? What if that happens? Who has the best whizziwig? Where should I go if I have kids aboard? Can I take part in a race with cruising gear onboard?

So we started formulating answers and then it came to us. Let’s just find a book that answers all these questions and we’ll tell people to buy it. Well, don’t you just know, we stumbled bleary eyed into the “aha moment.” The moment when you realize that there is no such thing and wouldn’t it be great if there was?

So, just suffice it to say, this website, our articles and our books, taken together are the answer…our dreams coming true…and it all started with so many questions from folks who just want to go sailing.

About White Seahorse, Inc.

White Seahorse, Inc. was founded by Daria & Alex Blackwell to explore a number of ventures that would combine their skills in marketing and communications with their love for the sea. The name and logo are attributable to a famous relative of Alex' stepfathers', Grace O'Malley, otherwise known in the West of Ireland as Granuaile. Grace was one of the most famous and formidable female sea captains who took to a life of piracy along the treacherous yet profitable coast of Ireland. She lived in the 16th century and sailed up the Thames to meet with Elizabeth I about the British vessels that were attacking her commercial ships. She was married several times, commanded armies of men and armadas of ships, and lived in several strongholds along the coast, most notable of which is the castle at Clare Island at the mouth of Clew Bay where we plan to retire. The ship under Grace's direct command was the Moytura and she flew the white sea horse as her personal pennant. Alex redesigned the white sea horse in honor of his stepfather's heritage to adopt as our personal signal, which we fly on Aleria.

Read more about Grace O'Malley in a book review on this website and more about creating your personal signal flag and naming a vessel in coming features.

Read about the Broadway show about Grace O'Malley - The Pirate Queen.

View the work Julia O'Malley-Keyes, a remarkable marine artist and cousin - she's got piracy in her blood. Day Hill Fine Arts Gallery.

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Dreams do come true

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