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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Four Methods We Tried to Manage Sleep Deprivation During Our Pacific Crossing (Galapagos to French Polynesia)
Offshore at sea, it’s not like being in a car on a road trip. You cannot just pull over somewhere to sleep. Crossing the Pacific Ocean with four kids aboard, we tested every method of staying awake, from one-hour shifts to drifting naps. Between homeschooling, tankers, and flying fish, we learned that a positive attitude is a sanity saver.
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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 our circumnavigation.
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What Lies Beneath? Barnacle Busting Outside the Galapagos at 2,000 Meters Deep
Galápagos cruising story: before entering the Galapagos, we scrubbed our catamaran’s hull in deep water to meet Ecuador’s biosecurity rules—an eight-hour, two-day exercise in 2,00 meters of water.
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Sierra Negra: Hiking in Darwin’s Footsteps on a Galapagos Volcano
Hiking Sierra Negra on Isabela Island, begins in what feels like an English moor, and ends in an alien landscape. It was a special place and we felt lucky to be able to visit.
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Speeding by Day With Our Downwind Parasailor Sail
Underway from Galapagos to French Polynesia, using our Parasailor downwind sail — with lessons learned from a past Code Zero failure that once ripped a hole in our boat.
