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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Transitioning to a Boat: House Rented, Sailboat Not Ready
We pitched our tent so the painters could work in peace, then couldn’t bring ourselves to sleep in it. Two nights vacant. Turns out we’re reluctant campers even as we pack up the house for boat life.
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Building a storage solution
Storage is a ticklish problem: costly, and never enough. Our tenants agreed to let us keep our furniture in a basement room, the same trick Ottawa circumnavigator Herbert Stuemer once used.
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Before Moving Aboard: With House Rented, Where Will We Live?
I struggle to call our boat a yacht, and I know real homelessness is serious, but here we are: house rented, belongings sold, four kids aged nine, seven and four-year-old twins, and no idea where July finds us.
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Refits update on our St Francis 50 catamaran
Aphrodite is still awash with refit activity, from Brad heading up the mast to Pat Reischmann—builder of more than 200 boats—advising us on every corner of our catamaran.
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Learning about pulleys and gears on SV Aphrodite
Henry did his first-ever boat homework and learned about pulleys by hoisting a heavy toolbox over the doorway. The clip was too small for the bar, so he rigged a rope extension to make it work.
