Featured Content
Why We Want to Sail
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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Dead poets reveal sailing experience
The language of sailing carries its whole culture, and even in centuries-old poetry you can tell who manned the nav station and who sat munching a sandwich. I’d wager John Donne knew his way around a boat.
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We bought a boat
After months of research, our offer on a St Francis 50 catamaran was accepted, and we take possession March 31st. We even considered an Antares 44 in New Zealand before settling on Aphrodite.
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Trail markers of the sea
Sailors sometimes line up two landmarks with their boat to hold a safe route, called being in transit, or in range in North America. Simple enough, but wholly foreign to someone like me with little sea in her.
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Becoming a Sailor: Inspired by Diane Stuemer’s Family Circumnavigation
At 43, with almost no sea experience, Diane Stuemer and her family set off on a four-year voyage across some 65,000 km and 34 countries. Her story reminds anyone with a dream — you don’t need perfect preparation, just the courage to begin.
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Where to anchor at Namely Harbour (RYA Day Skipper Theory Training)
From struggling with a fictitious harbour in RYA training to crossing the Panama Canal on our own catamaran — this is a story about persistence, family, and finding confidence at sea.
