Galley Notes: Making Yogurt On Board (AKA. Battle of the Bacteria)

As someone who travels as part of their daily life it seems inevitable that once a year or so I suffer through a bout of food poisoning. Tuesday, on a quick trip to town to pick up laundry, it seems I also picked up some greeblies. I won’t bore you with the details but let’s…

Pseudo-Single Handing & Cooking for One

Steve is away earning beer coupons, so we can keep doing this sailing thing. If you’ve been here for a while you know this is a kind-of-regular occurrence. By that I mean he spends 8-12 weeks of the year away working, just not necessarily on any regular or predictable schedule. This time however, it was…

Scenes from the Philippines Rice Fields, a Photo Essay

Almost every year for the past decade I have put together a calendar of photos that reflects our life on board over the last 12 months. Usually I have more than enough images of bucolic anchorages, dramatic landscapes, exotic local scenes and a few usable pictures of us. This year when I looked back over…

Galley Notes: Chicken Stock in the Pressure Cooker

Making chicken stock in my pressure cooker isn’t some sort of revelation, but it is a process I recently started using to reduce food waste. I had experimented with the idea back in the beginning, 2008, when I first bought the PC, or perhaps I should say when I bought my first PC. Back then…

Connecting the Disconnect

A few months ago I had some fleeting doubts about whether the sailing life was still for me. After 10 years did I still enjoy living on a boat, sailing the world? We were stuck in the boatyard doldrums so I knew not to pay such passing worries much attention. However, when the subject popped…

How to Repair Your Boat…Conversation

Boat owners have a habit of talking about boat repairs. Which would be fine, except that boat ownership often entails an ongoing string of breakages and repairs. Ask a question like, “How are you today?” and 90% of boat owners will tell you all about how they have been trying, probably frustratingly, to fix something….

Hidden Haul Outs In the South Pacific

It seems appropriate that as we FINALLY leave the boatyard here in the Philippines a round-up of yards that we have used and discovered on our travels through the South Pacific is published in Cruising World Magazine. If you are looking for a place to do work, hide during cyclone season or store the boat…

Galley Notes: Gluten Free, 3 Ingredient Banana Pancakes

Over the years we have had the opportunity to taste a large variety of bananas; stumpy starchy bananas, almost square ones, bananas that are not ripe until they turn brown, tiny sweet ones, red ones, green ones, bananas that are flecked orange in the centre.  Just before we left the Philippines banana season was in full swing….

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Leaving Your Boat on the Hard

The first time we left Kate on the hard I remember reaching across the back seat of the taxi as we pulled away, searching for Steve’s reassuring hand. My eyes welled with tears and I heaved a heavy sigh as he told me over and over that the boat would be ok without us. 30…

Before the Tide Turns, a Boatyard Update

“Cruising is just making boat repairs in exotic locations.” This is a popular saying in the sailing community, but one which we have never adhered to. (And, don’t even get me started on my dislike of the term “cruising.”) Yes, travelling and living on a boat dictates that maintenance and repairs will have to be…