If anyone knows about cruising in Puget Sound, it’s Migael Scherer. Scherer has been cruising in the area for more than 30 years and spent three years meticulously researching and writing “A Cruising Guide to Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands,” a quintessential resource for boaters wanting to know the countless nooks and crannies that make the region one of the world’s premier cruising areas.

The guide, which fellow sailor and author Jonathan Raban called “unusually well-written (and) very thoughtfully researched,” has become an indispensable companion for countless local boaters. Three Sheets Northwest, which is running regular excerpts from Scherer’s guide starting today, sat down with the sailor, writer and teacher to talk about the joys of cruising the waters she calls home.

How did you get into sailing?
My father built a 26-foot gaff-rigged schooner in the driveway of our house when I was in junior high. He built it by hand, everything. He even made the rigging and the blocks. It was a lovely little boat, the Spindrift. It must have stirred something in me. He launched it when I was in my 20s. My husband and I really liked it, so that’s when I really first sailed, on that boat. Both of my brothers were sailors—they were in Sea Scouts. So I kind of grew up with the Spindrift and the Yankee Clipper, which was and still is a Sea Scout Boat in Seattle.

My dad tried to teach me to sail. But I learned the way most of us learned—I went out on a sailing dinghy and figured it out. That’s how I learned—going out on Lake Union and figuring it out myself.

How long have you been cruising in the Puget Sound area?
Our first cruise was in 1978. I was living on a boat for 34 years, so I’ve done maybe 32 years of actual cruising. We used to go out a lot, through the Locks into Puget Sound—anchor, motor, sail. I’ve never had a time where I’ve been cut loose and we’ve just cruised for a year and never stopped. We’ve always worked for a living. We spent four years in Alaska. I had a job and we cruised out from that area.

What do you like most about cruising?
I like the attention that I pay to my surroundings. On a sailboat, you’re outdoors all the time. I really like that I have to pay attention to the wind and the weather and the tides and the current. Everything happens at once when you’re on the water, even when it happens very slowly. I like that. I like the navigating. And it means that I can go the same place all the time because those conditions change every time. I can go to Port Madison and have 10 different trips, 10 different times. Whereas in a car, I don’t think I would have that. It would be the same.

I also like the possibility that once I’m out in saltwater, I’m sort of on a big highway that could go anywhere in the world. And even though I don’t go everywhere in the world on that highway, I like that I’m connected to it. I just love that sense. It’s a fantasy.

Has cruising here changed much over the time you’ve been doing it? If so, how?
There are good and bad ways. It’s more crowded, so anchorages that used to be quite empty can be quite full now. Take a place like across from Friday harbor, Parks Bay. We used to be the only boat there.  Now, there are times when we can’t anchor there because it’s too full.

The thing that’s much better is the water is cleaner. There’s a lot less garbage in the water than there used to be. The ferries used to dump their garbage overboard. Everyone used to dump their garbage. I’d be on a beach, find a plastic garbage bag and I could fill it with junk. The downside is you don’t find cool stuff lying around like you used to. You used to find life jackets, cushions, buoys.

Another thing that’s better is you don’t see as much fuel on the water as you used to. The downside is there aren’t as many fuel docks. There are a lot less fuel docks than there used to be.

Do you have a favorite place for cruising in Puget Sound?
I think Sucia Island is one of the best, Sucia Island and Stuart Island. Stuart gives you the most protection. Sucia’s more exposed, but it’s beautiful and you have lots of choices. Even during the most crowded weekends you can find anchorage in that big Echo Bay. There’s a lot of exploring you can do there. It is so gorgeous and just a lovely place. That’s when the weather is good. I’ve had some of my worst nights in Sucia Island, when I was securely anchored but it was blowing like crazy from the Strait of Georgia and there’s no protection there. So it’s both my favorite and my least favorite.

My favorite cruising destination in crummy weather is someplace where it’s protected and there’s someplace to go ashore and you can have a nice little cozy breakfast. There are lots of nice places like that up and down the Sound.

Have you cruised in other parts of the U.S. or other countries?
We made the trip up the Inside Passage, up once and down twice. In each case we took six weeks. We took a couple months to go up and we took six weeks to come back. We had four years in between (while living in Alaska) and that was our cruising ground, in Southeast Alaska. Big distances. Gorgeous. I’d recommend it for anybody. You don’t go during winter, lord knows. But May and September can be your best times, and that’s of course when everyone empties out and heads south. It’s just spectacular.

What made you decide to write a cruising guide?
I didn’t decide at all. My first book was in publication and my literary agent, who comes from a sailing family, scurried into (publisher) International Marine’s booth because it had sailboat pictures up in it and she needed a break.

She talked to John Eaton, who was an editor at International Marine, and he said, “I’ve always wanted to publish a cruising guide for Puget Sound. Do you know a writer who can do that?” She said, “I certainly do.” That’s how it started.

I thought it was crazy. I looked at what it would mean and I just thought, how am I going to do that? How am I going to go to every cove and harbor in Puget Sound? I looked at what it would entail and I realized I hadn’t been to most of the places in Puget Sound. Like most of us, I go to the same places all the time.

I thought, I’m going to have to do a lot and my husband would have to take time off work without pay to do this, and it was a modest advance. But I couldn’t say no. I really couldn’t say, ‘No, I’m not going to write the first comprehensive cruising guide encompassing all of Puget Sound.’ So I said yes.

What was the experience of writing it like?
The research was fun but it was awfully focused. It changed the whole cruising experience. I had to pay attention in a different way. I had to take on my readers’ eyes and also be extremely thorough. We’d anchor somewhere and then we’d get in our little inflatable and we’d go through the whole bay. We’d go to every mooring buoy and use the little depth sounder on the inflatable to see, how deep are these buoys? Is one deeper than the other? It really became a research project. It made me a better navigator, way better—better at reading the land as well as the water.

Does doing the reporting work required to write a cruising guide take the fun out of cruising?
There was a little bit of that, yeah. It became a little bit of a job. It meant that I wouldn’t just kick back and have a glass of wine when we anchored. I had all these little handwritten notes and drawings and so forth, and then I had to make sure I filed them, and I had to make sure I took pictures. The first edition was all film, but the second edition was digital (photos), so I couldn’t risk losing the pictures. I’d use smaller memory cards and then in the evening I’d download the pictures to my computer and then back them up with a CD, every day, because I wouldn’t go back (to the place). So that was the chore of the project. It was like being a reporter.

Do you have plans for any future books?
I’d say yes. When I finish teaching, when I retire, I think there’s a book about that. There’s a book about middle school kids. I’m not sure what it is, though. I have to discover it. I’m not sure when I’ll revise the cruising guide again. Not for a while.

You’ve mentioned that you prefer cruising close to shore rather than offshore cruising. Why?
I get seasick in the lumpy sea. That’s my bad sea. I did a race around Admiralty Island in Alaska and I used the (Scopolamine) patch that helped me get through. I suppose I could get over it after a few days, but I don’t want to. I want to have a good time. Coastal cruising is what I like, but I don’t think I want to risk an ocean voyage. Everyone has their ocean, their motion, and mine happens to be out there on those ocean swells. It’s always moving, right? It never stops.

Tell me about your boat.
It’s a 45-foot ketch that my husband and I built. We launched it in 1974 and we’ve been pretty much building aboard and living aboard since. It’s been our only boat, our main boat. We’ve had numbers of inflatables. We have our (big) boat but I think our little skiffs and things are awfully important. We have a little sailing skiff that we go out in. It’s just a wonderful little thing. I think I do more sailing in that than in the big one. We anchor and then get in that and sail our brains out.

Do you like sailing on a small boat better?
Yeah, I love it. I have complete control. There’s not as much worry (as with a big boat). It’s just me and the boat and one sail, the line, the oars—it’s just simple.

Why did you and your husband decide to build a boat?
We liked the simplicity of it. This was back in the ‘70s, so this was the back-to-the-land time. People wanted to have their own place and grow their own food and simplify life and live without electricity. Our solution was, let’s not acquire so many things. Let’s have a boat and that will give us what we want. We can have a place to live, we can travel. We thought that would be fun. I think that’s why a lot of people live on boats. So we built a boat, moved on it and it just grew on us. We also liked the building process. My husband helped his dad build this house we’re in now (on Lopez Island) and he loved shipfitting and welding. It turns out I must have gotten my father’s woodworking skills because I love finishing and painting. I love that part.

If you could be cruising anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?
I think I’d like to be up in Canadian waters. At this time of year I don’t have a desire to go someplace else. If you asked me the question in January (laughs) it would be a different answer. I’d say it would be kind of cool to be in New Zealand, or in the Bay Islands, or down in Mexico. But at this time of year, I want to be here. I’d love to be spending a fourth of July in Sitka.