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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Beans: Going Meatless While Cruising the Dominican Republic
Six weeks in Luperon and I’ve stopped eating meat and eggs, mostly because of how the meat looks at market. I’ll spare you the details. These days a caterpillar-ravaged cabbage barely fazes me.
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Sailing with Kids: Our First Year Cruising as a Family of Six
What it’s really like cruising with kids: I’m Lorraine, 44, former technical writer and mom of four. A year ago we left Carp, Ontario for a catamaran, and here’s a look back at our first year sailing as a family of six.
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Kindness Ashore: A Fisherman in Luperón
Walking back to our dinghy in Luperón, we trailed a fisherman pushing a homemade air compressor built from an old beer keg, covered in dust and sweat. What happened at the dock stayed with me.
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Baseball in the Dominican Republic: A Field of Dreams
Beyond Luperon’s green fields and tin-roofed houses, baseball is everything. Riding pillion on a motorbike with my son Paul, then crammed into a mototaxi to Andy’s house, we set out to learn the game.
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Common Cruiser Complaints About Luperón, Dominican Republic
Luperón has changed since I first wrote this, but I’d bet it still smells of fresh tomatoes and cilantro. Here are the common cruiser complaints from our early days—and why I loved the town anyway.
