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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Sail naked if you want, but wear your shoes
Pat Reischmann has built over 200 boats and seen his share of foot injuries, which is why he swears you can sail naked so long as you wear your shoes. I asked him after marking up our decks.
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Making maple syrup – a taste of home
You might think that the year we’re upending our lives for a sailing adventure would be the year we skip making maple syrup. You’d be wrong, and it’s entirely Rick’s doing, as it is every single year.
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A Boy Who Travels – Severe Food Allergies Limit Options But Not Opportunities
On tonight’s WestJet flight to Tampa there’s a rambunctious seven-year-old with an EpiPen at his waist. This is the raw story of how severe treenut allergies limit our son’s options but never his opportunities.
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Getting the dirt on cleaning a used boat
Buying used isn’t just about price. Our boat came full of someone else’s life, and Rick and I have already hauled roughly thirty garbage bags of stuff off Aphrodite. This is the dirt on cleaning a used boat.
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First night aboard a sail boat
Betty and I flew to Tampa to meet Aphrodite in person and sleep aboard for the first time—my chief obstacle being my beloved, unforgiving, retro MEC rad pants, which barely got me up onto the boat.
