Blogging AND vlogging: Help us bring our stories to life
Hello friends! We’re going to be trying something new in the coming months and want to invite you to be a part of it. During our freshman year of cruising, we made a few mini-movies and have recently uploaded them here: Red Thread’s YOUTUBE channel We enjoyed doing it and a few friends gave us […]
Read More »
Six months Stateside: Vagabonds back to the grind
June – December 2015 Several of you have inquired about what we were up to when we returned to the US for six months to restock the cruising kitty and to wait out the Central American rainy season. So, here goes: a single-post synopsis of the physical and emotional elements of six whole months!Work and […]
Read More »
Voyage stats: Months FOUR thru EIGHT + Ep. 8 VIDEO
June 2015 We most certainly were not veterans, but after four months of sailing and nearly three thousand nautical miles, we had certainly begun to rub the velvet from our cruising antlers. During months four thru eight of our first season, we cruised from the heart of Mexico to the northern fringe of Costa Rica. […]
Read More »
The decommissioning blues: Readying Red Thread for a rainy-season snooze
June 2015 One of the things we’ve learned since buying our boat is that not using a boat at all is far more detrimental than using it all the time. Walk the docks of almost any marina, and you’ll quickly eyeball which boats are used regularly and which have been abandoned in solitary confinement. Without […]
Read More »
From Bahia Panama to the Canal de Panama
May & June 2015 We made the most of our final weeks in Central America and squeezed in a final inland excursion. Midday on the 28th of May, we boarded our first of two buses that would take us from Central Costa Rica to Panama’s industrial crown jewel, The Panama Canal. You might remember s/v […]
Read More »
Salty, sandy, sentimental Jessie
May 2015 I rolled a book, a Toña, and a straw into a small dry bag and clipped it to the center of our paddle board. I propelled myself on the cerulean sea toward an expanse of sand only visible at low-tide, where a handful of tourists had beached themselves on the sand. The sun […]
Read More »
Revenge of the vagabond Brits
May 2015 Mark and Helen’s last night in Costa Rica coincided with a reunion with two other familiar faces. Remember the two vagabond Brits we picked up in El Salvador? As it turns out, a night of vomming at sea didn’t turn Tim off to an extended stay on a boat, and as per the […]
Read More »
Rambling thru a jungle safari at Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
May 2015 The day after our passage from Bahia Ballena was our last full one with Mark and Helen. We awakened early and peeled ourselves from the relative coolness (low 80s Fahrenheit) of the cabin and then emerged from our fiberglass lair. Together, we savored fancy coffee and a delicious breakfast at Mercado del Porto, […]
Read More »
Expect the unexpected: Our final passage and The Red Thread’s new marina
May 2015 On May 13th, we weighed anchor at 2:50 am, hoping to reach our final port of call in the mid-afternoon. Our exodus from Bahia Ballena greeted us with good winds. Our guests awoke. The sunrise was a wildly stunning kaleidoscope of oranges and reds and yellows that rivaled any dawn we’d logged in […]
Read More »
Enamored at 10°N: Costa Rica turns up the charm
May 2015 On the morning of May 11th, we weighed anchor and motored a few miles west to Bahia Ballena, where we’d spent a couple nights before Mark and Helen arrived. Along the way, we ran our watermaker, and Mark hauled in a jurel (aka crevalle jack). Although the fish is often dried and consumed […]
Read More »
A two-island oasis: Islas Tortugas, Costa Rica
May 2015 Once again, wind funneled north into the Golfo de Nicoya, directly on our nose, preventing us from making use of our sails. The sky was blue, however, and having friends aboard made motoring less bothersome and the day more beautiful. Leaving Little Jesus and the Cedars, our destination was Islas Tortugas, two islands […]
Read More »
A few days in the Golfo de Nicoya, CR
May 2015 We awoke in a state of near-giddiness on the 5th of May. In less than 24 hours, Mark and Helen, two of our dearest friends would have their flip flop-clad feet on Costa Rican soil. We weighed anchor, and began the final push to our rendezvous point in Puntarenas, a gritty commercial port […]
Read More »
Rolling in-n-out of Gringolandia + an impromptu overnight passage
May 2015 A few hours after we arrived in Playa del Coco, we dinghied to the beach, survived the surf landing, and got to the business of clearing back into Costa Rica. This time around, we were not rookies. We knew what to expect, and we managed to go through the process relatively quickly; half […]
Read More »
From Nica to Tica: The Red Thread Returns to Costa Rica
April 2015 We untied our dock lines and set out from Marina Puesta del Sol in the early afternoon of April 28th. The day was hot, 92° Fahrenheit to be exact. Four-foot seas rolled long and steady from the west southwest as we exited the estuary. Fourteen knots of westerly breeze filled our sails, and […]
Read More »
Grooving in Granada, Nicaragua
April 2015 The wide-open spaces alongside the highway began to populate with houses and shops. Buildings painted blue and orange and red began to imbue the countryside with color. Our bus rambled to a stop in a dimly lit, dodgy alley in the 500-year-old city of Granada. Neil, Tim, and I hoisted on our packs […]
Read More »
s/v The Red Thread 