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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Freezing on a catamaran in Georgia
Nobody picturing catamaran life imagines A Christmas Carol, but here we are in Georgia, below freezing, out of propane, heater dead, and me in a balaclava like a ninja. So much for living the dream.
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Finding Space for a Splendide Washer/Dryer on Our Catamaran
After years of handwashing aboard our St. Francis 50, we bought a Splendide washer and dryer How we found the perfect spot and changed our life afloat.
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Humble seamstress beginnings: repairing a pillow case on our Sailrite (industrial) sewing machine
If you can’t handle a pillow case, what about our dinghy chaps? teased ten-year-old Paul as I faced our new Sailrite machine. My first goal was a single straight seam. My real goal is a whole lot more.
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Life raft gear: what if you were not rescued, how long could you survive?
How long could you actually survive adrift in a life raft? My late-night googling turned up coffee enemas, turtle-butchering tips, and a five-hundred-dollar shark magnet. Here’s what I’d really pack.
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Don’t mess with a missionary, man – Ile a Vache, Haiti
We arrived by wooden boat in the heat and slipped into a Sunday service already in full swing—a swaying, clapping chorus of suits, lace and satin in a church in Ile a Vache, Haiti.
