The Hard Life

We are two months into a hefty list of very necessary projects and I can feel my sea legs atrophying. It’s not the time spent on land that is causing the problem, it is living on the hard. I have always liked that turn of phrase, “living on the hard.” It sums things up nicely….

Abandoning Ship, Cooking up a Storm, Keeping Your Cool and Solar Gadgets to Keep you Connected; Article Roundup

There is an old sailors mantra that says you should always step up into the liferaft, or in other words abandoning the vessel should be the very last resort. We had a chance to inspect our Viking life raft when we had it serviced in Fiji. Sitting inside the small, orange inflatable compartment was sobering;…

Top 10 Weird Food Sold in a Can

As part of my “Less is More” ethos for this year I recently did a major clean out on board. Our wee closet and drawers were thinned out yet again, the cupboard in the head was decluttered and all the holds in the galley were sorted through. What I ended up with was pretty impressive…

Boatyards and New Years

It seems appropriate that we are starting off 2018 in the boatyard. The New Year is, after all, traditionally viewed as a time of renewal, a chance to make all those improvements that you’ve been meaning to get around to for the past 12 months. An opportunity to take stock, address problem areas and make…

Galley Notes: Cranberry Blueberry Compote

Looking for a little something special for your New Years Eve cheese plate? You still have time to make a quick batch of Cranberry Blueberry Compote, it only takes 20 minutes! I wrote a nice little blog post about it for Marisa over at www.foodinjars.com, so head on over for the recipe. I certainly am…

We now return to regular scheduled programming

And we’re back! After 5 months (almost to the day) we returned to Kate in the Philippines. We decided to stay in Manila for a few extra days so we could catch a ride back to the yard with one of the Yard Managers. Sure we could have taken a 5 hour bus ride to…

Landsickness; The Sailors Stigma

Not a lot of people talk about it, in fact I think most sailors who suffer from it are a bit embarrassed. But, I think talking about issues like this is important, and I hope that by sharing my story I can help other sailors out there who is suffering in silence. What I am…

In for the Long Haul

A month ago we hauled the boat. It seemed like it took forever to finalized the haul out plan with the yard. Spaces were limited, the travel lift broke, communication was via email was difficult. Then we had to actually get there; hoping for wind that never seemed to blow while we were underway and…