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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Visiting the Peter Joseph Museum in the Solomon Islands: A Backyard Full of World War II History
Betty Escher writes about rusted plane parts and dog tags in Munda, Solomon Islands: a backyard museum keeps the memory of World War II alive.
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Family ER at Sea: A fish hook to the face in Munda, Solomon Islands
When a fishing accident left Paul with a barbed hook embedded near his eye while anchored in Munda, Solomon Islands, our family had no choice but to perform a makeshift extraction.
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Mugged in Honiara: Travel Safety in the Solomon Islands
On August 7, 2023, our family walked to the American War Memorial in Honiara for the 81st Guadalcanal anniversary. An attempted mugging on Skyline Road changed the morning — and taught us practical safety lessons for travel in the Solomon Islands and pratical life lessons too.
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Live tracker: Where is in the World is SV Aphrodite Right Now?
Want to know where in the world SV Aphrodite is right now? This live tracker updates as we sail. In June 2023 we’re inching from Fiji to Vanuatu, with posts from Panama, the Galapagos, and French Polynesia too.
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An Octave of Women: Shades of Contrast in Fiji
A broom maker in Fiji, a mother begging in Suva, and a painful glimpse of tourism’s blind spots. A personal story about seeing, spending, and what lingers afterward.
