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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Swimming With a Wild Dolphin in the Bahamas — With Video
A wild dolphin stayed and swam with our family for a full hour in the Bahamas—Rick spotted its bottlenose head first, and our friend Dave said he’d never seen a prolonged encounter like it. With video.
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Heading into Hurricane season
Hurricane season runs June to November, and while most boats flee north to Florida, we’re anchored off Long Island, Bahamas, quietly planning to head south. Here’s the thinking behind that.
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George Town Dock Drama
I’m not one for melodrama, but our approach to the Exuma Yacht Club fuel dock in George Town shaved a year off my life. And no, we didn’t ram the dock—what actually happened was worse.
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Jumentos, Bahamas — Leaving Chicken Habour
My sister Collette and niece Emily flew in brand new to sailing, and within days our life had rubbed off—Emily’s watched a nurse shark through a bathyscope and now casually uses the word “remora.”
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George Town, Bahamas — Summer Camp for Cruisers
From the first crackle of the VHF at dawn to dinghies rocketing past at midnight, George Town, Bahamas, is summer camp for cruisers. Beach clean-ups, balloon animals, and everyone keen to meet.
