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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Crewing up to cross the Pacific: 90+days, family boat, not really open to swingers
Rick wants a PERT chart and a 148-item to-do list before we cross the Pacific. Now we just need crew willing to spend 90-plus days on a family boat—and no, we’re not really open to swingers.
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Grenada Hash House Harriers – a walk or a run for everyone
On Canada Day our family walked a 3-mile loop with the Grenada Hash House Harriers, among locals and Canadian cruising boats. The hash cheerfully calls itself a drinking club with a walking problem.
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Sailing the Caribbean? Don’t Miss Montserrat!
A seasoned cruiser told me not to bother with Montserrat—nothing to see, and our boat might get covered in ash. She was right about the ash and mostly wrong about everything else.
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Sailing with kids? Check out our easy, DIY swim enclosure for catamarans
We own every safety gadget going, from tethers to a man-overboard module, but our favourite is the cheapest: a DIY floating swim enclosure inspired by skipper Mark Burton. Here’s how we built ours.
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Martinique: where even the hardware stores are chic
Our family of six wandered a Home-Depot-sized hardware store outside Fort de France, where Mr. Bricolage’s lighting and gardening aisles left me with more questions than answers about French Caribbean life.
