Water, water everywhere
One of the most basic and fundamental needs of living on a true bluewater boat is carrying enough fresh water. You can have large tanks, you can store extra containers, you can install a water-maker or even harvest rainwater but the crucial and main…
V-berth vacations
The in-laws are coming to visit. Having friends or relatives coming to stay is always an interesting exercise. Visitors to a boat, however, have a completely different set of challenges to meet [...]
Dolphin Watching
While our boat is out of the water, prepping for leaving New Zealand shortly, we're heading south to visit some friends. First stop is Auckland and the lovely folks from s/v Dolphin of Leith, who we first met in the San Blas islands of Panama more…
They say you can never go home again…
...and they're probably right. For us a 'quick' trip back to renovate our London flat while living in it with our two teeny ones has turned into a somewhat epic battle of [...]
Alright me old mucker…
With various parts of our boat strewn across Whangarei and a new arrival in the family we thought that it was time to check in with the folks back in England. Flying for over 30 hours with a 2 year old and 6 week old infant in tow is no easy move,…
Haul or nothing: boat in bits
The New Zealand winter and having a new baby crew member meant that we weren't going to be sailing on the boat for a little while. This makes for a perfect time to haul out and do some routine maintenance as well as address any [...]
Putting faces to the names
While in Wellington on our recent travels we were able to pop into the Phil & Ted offices and finally meet our supporters there face to face. They provided us with both a highchair and playpen to experiment with on our journey as a sailing family.…
The best bit of travelling
While on the road I had an article published in 'The Natural Parent' Magazine. One of the other contributors to this magazine was lovely enough to reach out and get in touch with us, offering us any help she could as we are new to New Zealand. We…
A warm welcome to Wishbone
James, Rocket and I had the great pleasure of meeting Jenny and Rich of Wishbone Design Studio during our recent visit to Wellington. These like-mided designers have let their parenting experiences and ethos lead their product development resulting…
Bump in the road…
So why a roadtrip? And why now? You may well ask. Well, it's important to us to see as much as possible of New Zealand in honour of our second boat baby being born here. Plus, it's lovely to spend some quality family time together, just the three of…
Life on the open road
There are go times and there are slow times. This time last year we were prepping for crossing the South Pacific ocean, which dominated our 2014. Having safely reached New Zealand in late November we decided that to do justice to this beautiful…
Farewell skyline
Adios London, until we meet again [...]
The beauty of Blighty
A few shots of the atmospheric surroundings of our trip home to the UK [...]
Here, there and everywhere
When our little daughter, Rocket, was only four weeks old we had to unexpectedly fly to Mexico City and I found myself in the rather bizarre position of breastfeeding her whilst walking to join James in a queue at the airport. Yes, we have a baby on…
The art of letting go
If you read the post with our statistics of our first year on board you would have seen that we spent a total of 4 nights away from the boat. This year it’s a different story. In total we will have been off the boat for a whopping 11 weeks, this…
Mexican / Mexican’t
Whilst we happily wax lyrical about all things Mexican, (see previous post) we’re aware that our views are not shared by everyone. When mentioning that his future granddaughter would be born in Mexico, James’s father was met with reactions of horror…