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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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.
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Leaving Luperón: A Story of Red Tape
Leaving Luperón, Dominican Republic, was stressful. We wanted to follow the rules, but shifting demands and bureaucratic red tape made our departure feel less like a procedure and more like a game of skill and chance.
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Heavy Rain Closes School in Luperón, and Our Kids Vote, “Yay!”
A year ago rain in Florida just meant mildew; here in Luperón it collapses school walls and floods the sidewalks. So when the heavy rain closed school, our kids voted a resounding “Yay!”
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Eye Doctor in the Dominican Republic: Betty Gets Glasses
A year of school in Luperon and our ten-year-old Betty couldn’t see the blackboard. Enter Ana Lopez, shopkeeper and patron saint of English-speaking cruisers, who helped us track down her very first glasses.
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The Orange Wagon That Forged Friendships in Luperón, Dominican Republic
Every weekday at four, I waited in the Luperon schoolyard with a bright-orange wagon. The day I gave four local schoolkids a dinghy ride, the delight was total. Small things forge the best friendships.
