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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Thrift Store Shopping: Was the Adrenaline Rush Worth It?
Psychologists have plenty to say about our attachment to possessions, but what about thrift store treasures? As a card-carrying Value Village member downsizing my whole home, my findings disappoint a little.
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Creating Curb Appeal in a Forest: A 5-Acre Woodland Retreat
A master project is brewing. Rick left for Florida with Betty for ten days, and in his absence two men are felling five dead pines in our yard. What worries me is the chipper, and where the chips will land.
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Short Fiction Example: Chicken Dinner Delight, 219 words
This post has almost nothing to do with sailing. While scanning old university papers for our liveaboard move, I unearthed a card from Rick and a piece I was paid to write in 1995, Chicken Dinner Delight.
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Decluttering Before Moving Aboard: Finding What Matters
Home in Ottawa, taking a break from downsizing everything we own to fit our essentials into a Honda Odyssey. Tenants arrive June 30th, and whatever doesn’t fit the van gets sold, donated, or thrown away.
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VHF DSC radio: what everyone should know
I passed my VHF license today, which makes me the newest internet expert on the subject. Fair warning, my old technical-writer self is showing. Today’s lesson: respect the red Distress button.
