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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Another interview with CBC Reporter, Stu Mills (with audio)
A year after CBC’s Stu Mills first found us living in an Ottawa campground, I called him over Skype from our boat in Luperón for a follow-up segment that aired on Canada Day.
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Columbus Comes Alive at La Isabela, Dominican Republic
Christopher Columbus stepped off the page at La Isabela, Dominican Republic, where our family walked through his cliff-top house, the New World’s first church, and an old settlement’s cemetery.
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From the Vault: Cycling 1,000 miles Along the US Pacific Coast — with a Parrot
A nostalgic look back at the time Rick and I cycled 1,000 miles along the Pacific Coast Highway—with our chattering lory, Dixie, riding along.
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Beans! Beans! Beans! Abandoning Meat in the Dominican Republic
Six weeks in Luperon and I’ve stopped eating meat and eggs, mostly because of how the meat looks at market. I’ll spare you the details. These days a caterpillar-ravaged cabbage barely fazes me.
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Sailing Aphrodite: a year in review
For anyone visiting after the CBC coverage: I’m Lorraine, 44, former technical writer and mom of four. A year ago we left Carp, Ontario for a catamaran, and here’s a look back at our first year.
