August 2016 Our pantry stocked with a few fresh vegetables, we slipped our mooring in Neiafu at one o’clock in the afternoon and wound our way peacefully through Vava’u’s mosaic of emerald islands under a sky speckled with cumulous clouds. The beauty of the Vava’u group is undeniable, and left no mystery as to why […]
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August 2016 This whole voyage has been a leap of faith, a calculated leap in many regards, but a monumental jump, no less. Aside from resting our trust in each other and Red Thread, we’ve also placed immense faith in our individual capacity to land on our feet professionally on the other side of the […]
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August 2016 My handsome captain is naked; well, almost. I insisted on it. I want to get this photo right. I’ve been waiting for this moment, for this pelagic fish. Since sometime before we embarked on our voyage, I have wanted to recreate the image that covers The Cruisers Handbook of Fishing, the authority on […]
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July 2016 Nine-foot breaking waves clawed at the reef and mammoth swell surged on either side of the disconcertingly narrow pass through the reef—the only way in or out of the lagoon. My fists were clenched tightly around the helm, and I was trying my best to steer Red Thread along the line we marked […]
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July 2016 It’s black out, pitch black, aside from a delicate, sparkling necklace strung along Bora Bora’s shoreline and a single incandescent pearl set in the heavens. It’s 1 am, and it’s raining. Behind a duvet of heavy clouds, a sea of stars is obscured, but the full moon refuses be disguised tonight. Ping, ting, […]
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July 2016 Eastbound Sometimes passages are to be settled into, like a long road trip; others are just about getting somewhere, like driving a car across town. This was the latter. We had bypassed several of the Society Islands during our passage from Moorea to Bora Bora during Mark and Helen’s visit, and although we […]
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June 2016 Moorea’s aggressive contours were described in James Michener’s fictional tale, Bali Hai, as “peaks which can never be forgotten…the jagged saw-edges that look like the spines of a forgotten dinosaur.” Yes, we’ll remember Moorea. For us, Moorea will forever be the juncture at which our path less traveled converged with the route well-trodden […]
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June 2016 What if I want to stay…? If you had told me I’d be sitting in the cockpit in French Polynesia, snug in a sweatshirt and fleece blanket and cradling a cup of tea, I’d scarcely have believed a word from your lips. But here I am in Raivavae: faded sorority hoodie, blanket, tea. […]
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May & June 2016 Our passage from the Gambier Islands to Raivavae was seven days of the most peaceful ocean sailing imaginable. We always had just enough breeze to keep our sails filled and when the breeze picked up, we caught our first fish since our passage to the Galápagos! What a sight Raivavae was […]
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May 2016 Like the hem of a silk nightgown dancing delicately in the breeze, the foot of our spinnaker sashays in the twilight. A three-quarter golden moon dangles teasingly amid billowing clouds, cascading gilded ripples across the sea. The moon reappears beneath the nightgown’s hem just before the bow dips ever so gently, curtsying again […]
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April 2016 Our passage from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to the Gambiers Islands of French Polynesia was one of extremes. For nearly four days, we soared beneath our genoa alone and made over 6 knots average! On the flipside, we were pummeled by two back-to-back gales that made our last five days challenging and exhausting. […]
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April 2016 Bad things come in threes After 17 tremendous days of hiking and exploring Rapa Nui, day 18 felt like a triple-decker crap sandwich. First, we awoke to a cacophonous grinding echoing through the hull. Our anchor chain was wrapped on a coral bommie on the seafloor, some 80 feet below. Like string between […]
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April 2016 Today was the type of day we want our mothers to believe we do not experience out here. The Pacific morphed from its usually inviting blue to a fierce shade of gray, and gale-force winds gnashed at the boat for 10 hours. Sheets of rain lashed our faces and wind whipped the crests […]
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March 2016 Our passage to from the Galápagos to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile, tried our perseverance like no other passage we’d experienced. The trade winds had more south in them than we’d anticipated, so for most of the passage we close-reached, sailing 55 to 75 degrees off the wind in 18 to 30 knots. […]
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March 2016 If you tilt your chair at an angle of 35° and imagine living for [11 of 14] days with your kitchen dining room and bedroom tilted at that angle, and then suppose that it is all being bumped about like an iron-wheeled cart pulled over boulders, you will get a fair idea how […]
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"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
Author, Poet, Satirist, Social Commentator
follow our family on our sailing adventure.
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
gad·a·bout ˈɡadəˌbout/ noun a person who travels often or to many different places, especially for pleasure.
Story telling with data and pretty graphs
A publishing project of SF Creative Writing Institute
Sharing stories about how the pandemic is affecting you.
Musings and tales from the high seas
Sailing in Search of an Endless Sunrise
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
The Adventures of SV Cariba and her crew.
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
A family of four traveling the PNW aboard our 40-foot sailboat
Sailing adventures and photography
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
Sailing around the world, can't open a tin!
Nomads. Full-time RVers. Former cruisers.
Sail with the Flo - from England back to England - via the rest of the world
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
"The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea." –Isak Denesen
Sailing the world with kids
The adventures of Mia, Jon and Teo on Itchy Foot
Life is too short to say later. And winters suck.
s/v The Red Thread 