Wifi on board article

We first wrote up our experiences using the Iridum Go and Predict Wind here. Later on the good folks at Ocean Navigator magazine [...]

The cardinal sin

Traditionally there are certain laws or superstitions that sailors like to live by. “No bananas on a boat… don’t let a woman onboard… never leave port on a Friday…” All fine examples of dubious seafaring wisdom that we choose to bluntly and…

What’s in a name?

Once you’ve been cruising for a while you develop a shorthand, referring to every couple or family onboard by their boat name. We get cards or emails to “the Adamastors” and we never take offence at it, although it’s a far cry from our much cooler…

Season’s greetings

Here is our new baby girl [...]

It all comes out in the wash

We’re back in the UK, enjoying the reunions with family and friends that our brief sojourns from our ‘proper’ life at sea allow us. And there is one acquaintance that I must admit I am incredibly glad to see again – a washing machine. Not a bucket,…

We’d get nowhere without fuel

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…

On seas, straits and selats

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…

In search of the big fish

There are certain experiences that are really best managed if you live on a boat. A snatched 2 week holiday gives you a set and finite deadline to fit everything in and, particularly when it comes to matters of wildlife spotting, you need everything…

Staying Afloat

Sail Magazine in the USA isn't one that I write for regularly but I've had a piece in the works with them for some time that ended up being published earlier this year. It's all about the [...]

Cruising Outpost magazine

The nice folks at Cruising Outpost magazine in the USA gave us a 10 page spread for "The coconut milk run", a piece all about your [...]

Becalmed

Where has the wind gone? There’s an eerie feeling to losing even the merest scrap of breeze. We know the familiar adage “calm before a storm” so it’s wise to be on the alert when the air goes so quiet. Sometimes, a stillness in the immediate……

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…

The beach

Summer has begun. For us Brits the snatched breaks of bank holidays and family vacations send us flocking to the beach. Whether it’s the English seaside - complete with donkey rides, rockpools, and someone selling jellied eels - or jetting off to…

Worse things happen at sea

A boat is really a house combined with a car and put into an environment that constantly attacks it. Saltwater and sun destroy whatever they can without mercy. It’s a matter of constant maintenance as things will always break. Some items you can…

The pay off

Once the initial questions about storm avoidance and pirate dodging have come to an end we quite often find ourselves in conversations about how we can afford to sail the world. There are countless useful articles and several helpful books that lay…

Fly by

Drones are a pretty amazing new piece of technology. Here's a very short glimpse of [...]

The trading post

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…

Favours for sailors

It seems that the kindness of cruising strangers is the glue that holds the sailing population together. It’s funny when you think of how the stereotypical image of a sailor is a rather solitary figure. In order to separate the flesh of a fresh…

What’s so right about Sorong

There's a website for sailors called "Noonsite" which is an invaluable resource for folks like us. It forms a huge part of our researching any country, harbour or anchorage and is contributed to continually by cruisers and sailors worldwide. But,…

Thunderbolts, lightning, very very frightening…

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…