Fun
Close Encounters
We had a close encounter with a pod of bottlenose dolphins at Roberton Island, in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.
Diving
People often ask us if we're SCUBA divers and we always say we're happy snorkelling. It's true that we both enjoy floating on the surface, watching the fish and coral going by below us. And we both do a little freediving, Steven particularly. We've been lots of places that offered SCUBA courses, but it always […]
Searching for Vegetables - Visiting Visoqo
Things were getting desperate. It had been a few weeks since we'd seen a vegetable market and even then it had been poorly stocked. We were down to an onion, a potato, some dried out chillies and a couple of sad tomatoes. We needed vegetables. Armed with a set of GPS waypoints and a 20-year […]
Family Visits
One of the great things about visiting New Zealand was that I got to spend time with my extended family. Every member of my family, aside form my mom, lives in the Antipodes. With the exception of my uncles and two cousins who live in Australia, they all live in the Auckland area. So I […]
How We Stay Sane On Passage: Audiobooks
Although it's not the image of sailing you get from Horatio Hornblower or watching the America's Cup, when we're on passage there's a lot of time where there's really not much going on. The vast majority of the time at sea is mostly hanging on and trying to be comfortable rather than hauling lines or […]
Shore Leave in Samoa
We spent a week in beautiful Apia, Samoa. Here are some of the thing we saw there.
French Polynesia
We've spent over two months in French Polynesia so far, and are loving it here. Many places really do seem to have the elements of the tropical island paradises we imagine when thinking about the South Pacific. We first arrived in Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas. The Marquesas are high, mountainous islands, with beautiful skylines. […]
Gilligan's Lava Tunnels
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. At Isla Isabela in the Galápagos, one of the trips most people recommend is hiring a panga and guide for a snorkelling tour of the lava tunnels at Los Túneles. So, along with our friends Robert and Kelita from Freedom […]