Featured Content
From House to Sailboat: How a Family Road Trip Changed Us
We traded a conventional life in Ottawa for the dream of raising our children aboard a sailboat — even though I had never sailed.
About Our Boat
SV Aphrodite is a St. Francis 50 catamaran — Hull #1 of an award-winning bluewater design. See her specs, equipment, and offshore features.
Long Reads: Galapagos
Volcanoes, sharks, penguins, sea lions, offshore fishing fleets, and a message in a bottle — the Galapagos is one of the most interesting and diverse places we have visited during…
Long Reads Grenada
A muddy hike, memory-making at Grenada Carnival, drama on a public bus, sailing passages from Trinidad to Grenada and Grenada to Haiti, and what happened when COVID-19 arrived in a…
Why the Caribbean Has Virtually No Tides
Why Caribbean tides are tiny — and why Panama’s beaches can vanish at high tide.
Luperón Long Reads — Boat Kids Go Local
Joining a local school taught entirely in Spanish, learning baseball, making friends, and discovering how quickly the Luperon cruising community can rally when help is needed.
Luperón Long Reads — Designing and Building a Mooring for Our 50-foot Catamaran
A technical long read about how we built a three-point hurricane mooring.
Luperón Long Reads — Waiting Out Hurricane Season
A gritty, funny, and affectionate look at Luperón, Dominican Republic — from stray dogs and bureaucratic red tape to unexpected kindness, cruiser culture, and lunch with Bruce Van Sant.
Bahamas Long Reads — Exumas Stories
Isolated anchorages, tidal creeks, swimming pigs, dock drama, cruiser life, and an encounter with a wild dolphin.
Southern Bahamas Long Reads — Beyond the Exumas
New to sailing, our family navigates shallow reef cuts, spots nurse sharks and wild flamingos, and visits remote island communities in the southern Bahamas.
Latest Blog Posts
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DIY Catamaran Safety: Our Pool Noodle Swim Enclosure
We own every safety gadget going, from tethers to a man-overboard module, but our favourite is the cheapest: a DIY floating swim enclosure inspired by skipper Mark Burton. Here’s how we built ours.
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Mr. Bricolage Martinique: French Caribbean Hardware Is Chic
Our family of six wandered a Home-Depot-sized hardware store outside Fort de France, where Mr. Bricolage’s lighting and gardening aisles left me with more questions than answers about French Caribbean life.
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Hosting Guests on a Sailboat: What 18 Visitors Taught Us
Eighteen people have stayed overnight aboard Aphrodite since 2015, and unbeknownst to our guinea pigs—I mean guests—I’ve been quietly tabulating statistics about every one of their visits.
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Anchoring in the USVI: Meeting the ‘Mayors’ of the Harbour
Every neighbourhood has someone who’ll scold you for putting recycling in the wrong bin. In Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, I’ve found the harbour’s nit-picker average runs unusually high.
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Reverse Culture Shock: From Luperón to St Thomas, USVI
After six quiet months in Luperón, arriving in Charlotte Amalie was a shock—cruise ships, mega yachts, and the chance to feel buyer’s remorse over a Swiss watch and an overpriced coffee.
