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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Bluewater Catamaran: A Detailed St Francis 50 Equipment List
The SV Aphrodite Equipment List describes our Bluewater St Francis 50 catamaran that we have refitted to circumnavigate.
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Medical Mission in Papua New Guinea: A Teen Volunteer
At 17, Betty Escher volunteered with AidOcean’s medical mission aboard Golden Dawn, helping deliver vaccinations, eye care, and clean water systems to isolated communities in Papua New Guinea alongside a team of doctors and nurses.
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Peter Joseph WWII Museum: A Backyard Full of World History
Betty Escher writes about rusted plane parts and dog tags in Munda, Solomon Islands: a backyard museum keeps the memory of World War II alive.
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Fish Hook Injury at Sea: A Double Hook to the Face
When a fishing accident left Paul with a barbed hook embedded near his eye while anchored in Munda, Solomon Islands, our family had no choice but to perform a makeshift extraction.
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Travel Safety in Honiara: Mugged on Skyline Road at Dawn
On August 7, 2023, our family walked to the American War Memorial in Honiara for the 81st Guadalcanal anniversary. An attempted mugging on Skyline Road changed the morning — and taught us practical safety lessons for travel in the Solomon Islands and pratical life lessons too.
