December 15, 2013
The beauty of Blighty
A few shots of the atmospheric surroundings of our trip home to the UK [...]
November 28, 2013
You can’t go home again…
...except for the holidays. We've decided that, as we've been away from merry old England for over two years now, it was time for family and friends to see our tanned, smiling faces and meet our baby girl. All the more important as [...]
November 20, 2013
Role play
A few years ago James and I were walking along the cliffs of a Cornish seaside town and I glanced out to sea at a sailboat on the horizon. “We could just buy a boat and sail round the world”. That sentence changed everything. He quite rightly...
November 7, 2013
Balancing act
Like any new parent adjusting to their role both James and I have had some uncertain moments. But it’s par for the course and a necessary part of feeling more confident in the choices we make for our child. We feel confident that being able to both...
November 1, 2013
Landlubbers no more
A short note to announce that we’re free! After over 4 and a half months of marina time (our longest ever) as we combined sitting out Pacific hurricane season with increasing our crew number we are at long last back on the hook at anchor. And the...
October 18, 2013
Year one vs year two: How did we do?
Our two year anniversary meant that I wanted to go back over our previous posts on statistics and see how we’ve done. There are some nice easy figures here that speak for themselves and others that need a little explanation. Easy ones [...]
October 9, 2013
Two years on…
Today is October 8th, the anniversary of the day that we threw off the docklines and said farewell to the UK. Since then a lot has happened and we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge everyone who has been supportive and encouraging of our journey...
September 28, 2013
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...
September 7, 2013
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...
August 23, 2013
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...
August 9, 2013
Wish you were here or an ode to all things Mexican
Nineteen years ago two young men got drunk in a bar in San Diego and came up with the brilliant idea of flying down to Mexico, buying horses and riding them from Leon to Veracruz. One of these men was James and the few months that he spent on...
July 25, 2013
New crew
At 0040 Mexican time (0640 in the UK) on Friday, July 12th 2013 Jess and James had a baby girl, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. She was 3 weeks early but is perfectly healthy and happy. She was 5lbs 2oz (2.35 kilos) and 46 cm long. She calls herself...
July 20, 2013
Let’s get up to date - What are we waiting for?
I had a picture in my head of what our life would look like as we prepared to have a baby. In this assumed image I’d be starting maternity leave from a stable job, spending weekends decorating the nursery with my husband, buying adorable little...
June 14, 2013
Method in the madness
So what vital bit of the story has been missing here? Were any of you questioning our decision to head north for 2,250 miles for over three and a half months in order to get to Banderas Bay in Mexico for hurricane season? Well, if not, then maybe you...
June 13, 2013
To Motor or not to Motor, that is the question
You are off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. The moon is setting. It’s five in the morning the wind is 9 knots from the North West and you have plotted your latest position on the paper chart on the nav-table. You have travelled only seven miles...
May 4, 2013
Reputation is everything
2013 began for me by considering the two big milestones we would need to get past in order to get up to Banderas Bay for hurricane season: the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Tehuantepec. With the first of those being easily achieved, drama-free in...
April 19, 2013
Beggars can be choosers
Since leaving the UK in October 2011 we’ve spent very few nights away from the boat. In fact, in 18 months, we’d only had 5 nights that we didn’t spend on board. Our plan to sail up the Pacific coast of Central America was very much influenced...
April 2, 2013
Time to turn
Long before we had reached the Pacific coast of Central America we knew that we would need to watch the weather for Papagayos. From December to March, high pressure systems move into the Caribbean, reinforcing the trade winds which then pour over...
March 23, 2013
On Phosphorescence
The Americans we’ve met call it bio-luminescence. When we crossed the Atlantic we talked about it as nightly green fireworks. Without doubt, one of the biggest changes we’ve felt since going from one ocean to the next is that the Pacific is brim...
March 22, 2013
The Pleasures of Passage Making
A frigate bird wheels overhead as the hazy dawn light is mirrored back by the water. The sea is absolutely still, more like a lake than an ocean, blurring the horizon so that the sky bleeds into the water. Slowly, gently, a large, old leatherback...
- 1
- 2