log

There is nothing quite so daunting as suddenly being at the helm of your own boat for the first time. When it came to the 44 footers that I had first sailed on I was comfortable that my steering was effective, that my understanding of wind…

The first lesson of parenting is really to expect the unexpected. Funnily enough, the same can be said of liveaboard sailing. Often our travels see us going from one extreme to the other in terms of available supplies as we’ve sailed both to big,…

I suppose it must be true that sometimes it takes seeing yourself and your life through another person’s eyes to admit and accept certain facts. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly [...]

No, you didn't read that wrong but it doesn't quite mean that we're setting a course back eastwards either. A number of [...]

After the ghoulish curiosity for questions about storms and pirates abates, people are always interested in our engine. And it’s often with a tone of [...]

To row or not to row? That is the question. Getting your dinghy from A to B, from boat to shore, is an everyday occurrence for any liveaboard. But, although seemingly [...]

Remember the fuel page on our old format website? Well this season's sailing that took us from New Zealand to Lombok, via all the islands of Vanuatu, the Solomons, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, saw some major sea miles and some long, lingering…

Although “sailing the seven seas” is a phrase referring to journeying across all of the world’s oceans it’s one that seems quite appropriate to our cruising this last year. Leaving New Zealand saw us passage-making across the edge of the Coral sea…

When you come from a world of shops, fixed prices and hard currency it’s hard to imagine how you’d go about trading goods or swapping skills in exchange for your family’s food. Yet, in the last year, sailing in Vanuatu, the Solomon islands, Papua…

I remember when we sailed across the Atlantic ocean and had to get comfortable with seeing lightning out at sea. It’s a rather spooky feeling, seeing those dramatic forks and flashes and remaining calm, knowing that when the sky is clear you can…

The nature of the experience of travel is hugely dependent on the speed at which you move. When we first told people that we had grand plans to sail around the world, those that didn’t simply blink back at us in disbelief would nod slowly, as if the…

One thing that I’ve learned is that sailors are suckers for ritual celebrations. Crossing the Equator, cutting over the International Date Line, transiting the Panama canal and “closing the circle” upon circumnavigation are all [...]

“Oooh, aren’t you lovely and brown!” our families cooed in awe soon after we started our sailing adventures. Funnily enough, their admiration actually made us turn rather pink with embarrassment as, in our books, that meant that [...]

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 [...]

When your family onboard includes a Londoner with a rare and supreme talent in the kitchen, another Londoner with a great appreciation of good food and a Californian who likes to experiment with new flavours you know that the average mealtime is not…

The first lesson of parenting is really to expect the unexpected. Funnily enough, the exact same can be said of liveaboard sailing. One of the great challenges of sailing out from a country like New Zealand and on to remote islands like those of…

I know that one of the things it’s hard to get your head around if you don’t live on a boat is how a couple or even a family could be comfortable in so little space. The living area equates to far less than a tiny studio flat and yet we all seem to…