The coast's harbors are cluttered with moorings and yachts—pricey yachts not even designed to sail and hardly ever leaving those moorings. What does that leave aspiring mariners?

Luckily, the best sailing and exploring, the best fishing and clamming, the best birding and beachcombing is still reserved for small sailing and rowing boats that provide exhilarating crossings and can work their way into shallow water, up river estuaries, into placid coves, and along sandy beaches. With no encumbering electronics, engine racket, or stinky fuel, THIS is where sailing can return the sailor to the authentic elements of the coastal environment: wind, water, salt spray, currents, and the sweet smells and sights of terra firma. Dinghy cruising—along with being perhaps the best way to learn how to sail—is an affordable, ecological, and transcendent way to experience the sea and the coast with the ethic of the bicyclist or the hiker: simple camping equipment, old-fashioned human and sail power, navigation by chart and eye, and respecting the tides out of necessity.