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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Memories of the BVIs: dancing with my girl, Betty
Hurricane Irma has flattened the British Virgin Islands we loved just months ago. I keep returning to a happier memory: dancing with my girl Betty, and Paul scaling a ferry wall to see a doctor for his eye.
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Fish obsessed in Bequia
Nine-year-old Paul is up before sunrise, brandishing cutlery and prophesying barracuda. Somewhere in Bequia my son became fish-obsessed, even hoarding a hair ball to make his own lures.
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Dominica: colourful and unique. It is the 4th dimension.
Before Rick, I ran with a badass, motel-and-duffel-bag crowd who wouldn’t be caught dead in the Caribbean. Then came Dominica, colourful and utterly unique, and it felt like stepping into a fourth dimension.
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Drama on the Bus in Grenada
I ha my rights and yuh ha yuhr rights. A fare dispute erupted on a Grenada bus, braids flying and voices rising, while the driver just kept driving. I watched it all unfold from the back.
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Sights to See (and Unsee) at Grenada Carnival 2017
A vivid family-travel reflection on Grenada’s 2017 Carnival: colorful costumes, street energy, cultural contrasts, and what left us speechless.
