My 4-year-old squealed with delight, the sound muffled by his snorkel. He pointed to the majestic turtle not more than 6 feet away, and I could sense his excitement. I held his tiny hand as we kicked in unison through the gin-clear water, the turtle now within our reach. Gliding past effortlessly, the turtle was completely unperturbed by our presence. Farther on, we noticed two larger turtles peacefully eating seagrass from the ocean bed. We watched from above as my two older sons moved through the water like fish. Diving down several meters, they found themselves almost face-to-face with the impressive creatures. With their mottled shells, leathery skin and kind eyes, these gentle giants were humbling. We felt fortunate to be swimming with them in their natural environment.

Having only just researched the green turtle that morning, it became clear, at that very moment, we had made the best decision of our lives. We were right where we were meant to be. Our home bobbed peacefully at anchor barely 100 meters away, a Moody 47 yacht we had aptly named Roam. The tiny claim we had staked in the beautiful Tobago Cays was perfect. My husband, Dave, was collecting firewood on a nearby deserted beach, his skin tanned and his body toned. That evening we were planning to toast marshmallows under the starry sky. Earlier that day, we had hiked to the small island’s highest peak in bare feet, the rocky ground warm below our still-fragile soles. The view left us almost breathless. Before us was a patchwork of blues: aqua, turquoise, sapphire and azure. We stood there for a long time, taking it all in. There was nowhere else we needed to be. How life had changed from the pandemonium we were used to in the rat race!

Back in Christmas 2015, we were gathered around the dining table in Adelaide, Australia, enjoying lunch with our families. Having recently watched a sailing documentary, it struck us—we were wasting our prime years working jobs we didn’t enjoy and missing out on precious time with our children. It was the wakeup call we’d needed to make a ­crazy decision, and it felt like that moment was the perfect time to share the news. Buzzing with excitement, we cleared our throats in preparation for the announcement, feeling far more nervous than we’d anticipated.

“We have something to tell you guys,” I announced anxiously.

The table fell silent, and my ­sister-in-law joked, “You’re pregnant?”

We laughed, assuring them that we were definitely not having any more children. Taking a deep breath, Dave took the lead. “We’re going to buy a yacht and go sailing around the world,” he said, our faces bright with excitement and anticipation.

Silence fell over the table. Seconds later, the entire family burst into fits of laughter. My sister almost spat out her drink, exclaiming that it was the dumbest idea she had ever heard. “You can’t do that with kids,” one family member said. “You know nothing about sailing,” said another. They stared in disbelief, their eyes as wide as their dinner plates. Feeling deflated, we tried, unsuccessfully, to convince them of our plan.

Two years and two months later, we waved our families goodbye and boarded the plane on a one-way ticket to Grenada. We had purchased our boat, sight unseen, and rented out our Australian home. We had both been fortunate enough to negotiate two years’ leave without pay from our jobs, and we’d saved more money than we ever thought possible. In almost every way, the universe had conspired to help us achieve our dream. We had packed our belongings, painstakingly mulling over every item. Stashed below us in the plane were 10 bags full of boat parts and swimsuits, boardshorts and schoolbooks. The previous two years had flashed by in a blur. Fastening myself into the plane, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was the physical barrier I needed to not only stop me from running in fear, but also to remind me to hold on, sit back, and enjoy the ride. Closing my eyes, I laid my head back, trying to steal a moment to take it all in. The hum of the engine increased, and I braced myself for takeoff, flashing a quick smile across the aisle to my husband and sons as we began our incline.

Our arrival in Grenada, the tropical Caribbean island 100 miles north of South America, will remain one of my fondest memories. Almost instantly, we began to fall in love. This sleepy island was a far cry from Adelaide, where the boys had been raised, yet it felt so familiar; it felt like home. With its friendly people and vibrant social scene, Grenada was the perfect introduction to both the Caribbean and cruising life. We spent two and a half months there until we were finally ready to untie the lines and set sail into the great unknown. We were sad to leave our Caribbean dreamland yet excited to discover a new and exhilarating world. Learning as we went, with myriad people willing to help, we soon learned the ropes. Navigating from island to island was like nothing we had ever experienced before. The freedom was intoxicating, our thirst for exploration never quite quenched. Mistakes were made and lessons learned; however, despite the many challenging moments we faced, we never gave up.

Thriving in their new environment, the children flourished in every possible way. We witnessed their mousy-brown hair change into sun-bleached long locks; they barely resembled the militant-looking children they’d left behind. Rarely going more than a week without the company of others, their social skills improved, forming meaningful friendships with other like-minded souls, despite knowing them for only days. Exploring new places together, hand in hand, we would see our family’s bond strengthen and our minds expand. Reveling in each newfound country’s uniqueness, we savored the sights, sounds and smells of these exotic places. We made friends with the locals and experienced their way of life firsthand.

Eighteen months passed by in a blur of sandy feet and salty kisses. Before we knew it, we were leaving the Caribbean and sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. We spent 17 magical days at sea, sailing across the vast blue expanse without a care in the world. Those weeks alone on Roam were blissfully peaceful. The simplicity of life brought everything into focus, away from the distractions of the modern-day world. With absolutely nowhere else to be, we were free to spend our days in a guilt-free utopia, never once feeling bored or scared.

Our safe arrival into the Azores, an archipelago of nine subtropical islands located 900 miles west of Portugal, will remain one of our greatest achievements. We felt unstoppable; if we could cross an ocean as a family, what else were we capable of? Eager to continue living in our bubble, we found ourselves effortlessly falling in love with the laid-back villages, green rolling hills and cobbled streets, the friendly locals, and the affordable cost of living. Weeks turned into months, and the picture-perfect islands wooed us with their charm and sophistication.

However, with the budget dwindling, thoughts soon turned toward home. We left Roam on the hard in Praia da Vitoria, on the island of Terceira, in the Azores. The time had come for us to return to the “real world,” but what was real, and would we still belong?

RELATED: Learning to Sail in the Caribbean

Upon returning to Australia, the anxiety hit almost immediately. Having never suffered from it before, we were now overwhelmed by the lifestyle we had left behind only two years prior. We felt like caged animals, trapped in a life where we had little control over what we could do and when we could do it. We were awakened by alarms and told when to eat. Our feet ached from wearing shoes, and we felt exhausted from the endless time spent rushing and racing from one place to the next. Thankfully, the kids slipped effortlessly back into their routines, and their teachers remarked about their maturity and worldliness.

While I enjoyed the conveniences of everyday life—the washing machine and dishwasher, the bathtub and hot ­water—I was now more acutely aware of the environment and the meaning of money. I couldn’t help but find everything to feel wasteful and unnecessary. Our spacious home seemed almost indulgent. I missed the close confines of the boat, the togetherness, and the conversations that flowed because of that. We’d gone from being together 24/7 to seeing each other in fits and spurts between work commitments and obligatory events. Instead of spending our days around ­people living their dreams, we were surrounded by those who didn’t seem to have any dreams at all. Illness and disaster became topics of discussion, and the next tropical island or a storm on the horizon soon became a distant memory.

We don’t for one minute regret our decision to cut the ties and sail away with our children. Our family has grown in more ways than we can ever measure. We are far more resilient, and working toward a common goal as a family has shown us our strength. We’ve learned the importance of teamwork, so imperative to the cruising life. While our boys still fight and argue, as all kids do, they also play for hours together in the old-fashioned sense, building forts or shelters, pretending they are still on deserted islands or frolicking in the sea. They pretend to captain their own ships, and indulge in imaginations unleashed since living aboard. They fiercely protect and defend one another, and their bonds are stronger because of the trials and tribulations we encountered together at sea.

Life on the water was challenging in so many ways, yet the benefits far outweighed the struggles. Life was exciting; we felt truly alive, thriving instead of merely surviving, the latter of which so many do. We taught our children the joy of adventure, the rewards of hard work and the benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone. This will forever be a part of their story, of our story, and for that we feel blessed. So, what does the future hold for this family who now find themselves wondering if it was all just a dream? In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Man’s mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimension.”

We’ve set a date to return to the Azores and continue what we started, to finish crossing the Atlantic Ocean and meander through the Med. Twelve months can’t pass soon enough!

Hailing from the land Down Under, Erin Carey and her family quit the rat race and moved aboard a vessel they bought, sight unseen, on the opposite side of the world. The family returned to Roam in March 2021 and are currently cruising the Med. Follow Erin’s journey on Facebook and Instagram, at Sailing to Roam.

The post The Magic of Sailing with a Young Family appeared first on Cruising World.

Gather round for the story of Thunderbird, a 49-foot cruising trimaran for a growing family with, yes, a half-dozen adventurous and athletic kids —a huge step up from the Open 40 monohull they used to call home…and a truly magic ride to the surf spots and rock walls where they all thrive.

After two days of air travel from Port of Spain, Trinidad, a layover in Paramaribo, Suriname, then to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, our motion finally came to a halt. The airport shuttle stopped in the arts district of Amsterdam Noord on a quiet street that ran between the former NDSM shipyard and a waterfront canal. My husband, James Burwick, our five kids, and our driver off-loaded bags out of the van onto a sidewalk next to docks adjacent to the Rhebergen Multihull Yachts yard. Sweet-smelling summer wildflowers taller than my three youngest ­children stretched along the verge; the sun was shining, ­butterflies fluttered, and bees were buzzing.

On the ground next to us, our entire lives were packed into four duffel bags, one tool bag and a camera bag. The kids each carried a backpack with their personal belongings. We told them they could bring from our former boat, an Open 40 called Anasazi Girl, to our new yacht—a completely different one in almost every way—­anything they could fit into bags and carry on their backs.

We looked through the chain-link fence. All of us were wild with excitement as we stared at the big white trimaran floating on the canal with blue Victron Energy logos on the amas and the name Sound of Silence on the hull. There before us was our new home and sailboat.

It was late June 2019 when we’d found her: a Peter Bosgraaf-designed Gaviota 49 cruising tri. The seven of us had been living aboard Anasazi Girl like sardines at Crews Inn Marina, in Trinidad’s port of Chaguaramas. Over a year had passed since we had made any significant sailing passages.

On so many fronts, things were about to change dramatically.

Where to begin?

So many amazing life experiences had ­unfolded in the five years since breaking Anasazi Girl’s mast in the Southern Ocean in 2014. After more than two years of hard work in the high latitudes of South America, we’d successfully earned the funds needed to pay for the replacement rig and cost of the epic transport from Watsonville, California, to Puerto Williams, Chile. During our dismasted period, we became residents of Chile, formed a Chilean LLC for our marine services, yacht brokerage and photo business, and I gave birth to my fourth child, Tarzan.

Miraculously, Buzz Ballenger’s alloy rig and two pallets of equipment and sails had arrived safely and undamaged. With the help of the Armada de Chile—the Chilean navy—we successfully stepped the replacement rig on the existing carbon mast stump in November 2016.

After sea trials in the Beagle Channel and completing our voyage prep list, we were ready to depart. In March 2017, we sailed with our family along the entire Atlantic coast of South America from the Beagle Channel to the Caribbean Sea. Our four kids—Tormentina, Raivo, Pearl and Tarzan—were ages 8, 6, 4 and 11 months, respectively, when we departed.

While en route from Rio to the Caribbean, we crossed our old track from 2011 off the coast of Recife, completing our ­circumnavigation with our two oldest kids. A milestone.

From July 2017, when we arrived in Grenada, to March 2018, we did a refit and delivery, as well as a brokerage project that allowed our family to keep sailing on a bigger boat: a Kiwi-owned, Chuck Paine-designed Bougainvillea 62. We took the Bougainvillea halfway down the coast of South America, from the Caribbean Sea to Rio de la Plata, off the south coast of Uruguay. The vessel was sold underway to a buyer we showed the boat to in Salvador, Brazil. Our bags were rolling down the dock two days after arriving in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and we were soon en route by buses and planes back to Chile.

Our kids are exceptional athletes, so after the delivery, we invested in private rock-climbing and surfing lessons with pro instructors. The kids climbed in the mountain towns of El Chalten, Argentina, and Puerto Natales, Chile, and learned how to surf the waves surrounding the famous Chilean break at Punta de Lobos. We dealt with residency papers, Chilean taxes, drivers’ license renewals, our LLC, and reporting Tarzan’s birth to the US Consulate so he could get a US passport in addition to his Chilean one.

By the end of May 2018, business was in order, we were back in the Caribbean for hurricane season, and I was pregnant with our fifth child. We stayed aboard Anasazi Girl, now tied up at Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina in St. George’s, Grenada. The marina’s high-speed, on-the-dock cable internet made working in our virtual offices efficient. We carefully lived on the income from the Bougainvillea and my photo sales, keeping constant watch on any tropical systems that might force us to move south to Trinidad.

Port Louis Marina facilities were clean and secure, with an ATM, bakery, restaurants, shops and various marine businesses on the property. Six on the boat was tight, but after caring for someone else’s vessel and renting funky short-term housing in South America, it was nice to be back in our own space. We appreciated the low-maintenance and functional simplicity of Anasazi Girl. Lack of indoor space was balanced with a full-time, active outdoor life.

The kids wanted to surf bigger waves and climb higher-grade stone routes. They got strong, lean and fit, swimming laps in the pool, in inland freshwater holes, and snorkeling and freediving at Grand Anse Beach. The island was an excellent backdrop for creating outdoor and active kids’ imagery aimed at the photo department of a longtime supporting client, Patagonia Inc.

Because we had one more on the way, James was constantly working and scouring the internet for a bigger boat. Our circumnavigation was over. Thanks to the kindness of the owners of the Bougainvillea, we had been fortunate to prolong the gift of sailing with the family a bit longer, but now our sailing days seemed finished. Anasazi Girl was on the market, and though there were always interested parties, nothing serious materialized. With no sailing voyages planned and our funds slowly disappearing, it was not long before we began mentally rotting in port.

In October 2018, James flew to the Netherlands and France to help a client from Brooklyn inspect several boats, one of which he purchased. The funds from the sale provided us with just enough of a budget to fly to Chile and back for the birth of our daughter Jade that December. Like Tarzan, she held dual US/Chilean nationality. Afterward, James got a job managing the refit of a Chris White-designed Atlantic Cat 55 in Chaguaramas, and we returned to Trinidad.

The project was estimated to take two months. We were totally unsure how we could pull it off aboard Anasazi Girl with seven people—after all, the boat had originally been designed for solo and shorthanded adventures—but decided we would make it work.

On arrival to Trinidad in February 2019, we relaunched the boat and got a monthly berth at Crews Inn Marina. Trinidad’s crime statistics seemed worse than two years previously. Despite many invitations from local friends to do activities outside the marina, we stayed mainly in the marina bubble. The facility provided us with on-site security, a pool, a fitness center, a couple of restaurants and a grocery store.

That year, there was also a drastic increase of Venezuelan immigrants seeking refuge in Trinidad. With sadness, we read about the desperation and exploitation they experienced on both sides of the border. We met many Venezuelans waiting outside the port’s immigration and customs clearance offices. With delicacy, we asked what was happening. Some were more open than others about sharing their experiences. We watched as they stocked up on basic life necessities such as rice, flour, toothpaste, diapers, toilet paper, salt and sugar before heading back to Venezuela with supplies.

All these encounters made us feel grateful. Despite whatever hardships we personally experienced in our lives, the reality was we were so fortunate and privileged. Lack of personal space was nothing. We had work, freedom and the ability to feed our kids.

By the end of June 2019, the first phase of the Atlantic 55 refit was coming to a close. And we were all ready for a change. The seven of us living in a such a small space was bordering on ridiculous. I am sure the other marina guests thought we were nuts. We loved our Finot-Conq Open 40. She had allowed us to make a truly memorable circumnavigation with our older kids, especially the legs in the incredible high latitudes. But the reality now with so many people aboard was that we no longer had the capacity to carry enough food and water to make any long passages.

We were done with being nonsailing liveaboards tied to ­marinas. We wanted to get our family off the dock, on the hook, and sailing again in a completely different cruising mode.

Because we were seeking minimalism, creature comforts were not so important, but we did want the ability to carry a few things, such as a dinghy, surf boards, a small sailboat, or a couple of kayaks. Adequate water, fuel, food and off-grid capacity were necessities. Pubescent teen years were just around the corner for our oldest kids; more space and privacy would soon be critical.

We mentally struggled. With the refit funds we’d earned, we could instead invest in an undeveloped parcel of land or make a down payment on a fixer-upper commercial property in Chile. It would be a practical thing to give to our kids for the future. We thought hard about it but just could not do it. It did not feel like this would be choosing to live la vida loca.

James was 65, and it felt like our window for sailing together would soon close. For him, there was no “later.” If we did not go now, then maybe we would never voyage as a family again. If we went now, then there was hope that he could pass on whatever knowledge of seamanship he had to the kids while he was still mentally and physically sharp.

We stopped looking at real estate and dived into an intensive search for a new boat. James found a trimaran in Madagascar and a proa in Australia. The proa was not a vessel we could imagine circumnavigating aboard, but we did see a plausible project of sailing between Australia and Indonesia, a workable scenario where our kids could be full-time surfers.

With the trimaran in Madagascar, we saw the potential for having a really wild cultural experience. I was turned off by the idea of bringing my kids to a place where child-prostitution ­tourism was prevalent, but the Malagasy history, culture, landscape and unique fauna were all positives. With that vessel, we could do a South Atlantic loop between South Africa, St. Helena and Brazil.

Either way, the reality was that the current condition and seaworthiness of the boats were unknown until we committed to going and looking. Both felt like somewhat of a gamble—in time more than money—and a step down from the incredible sailing machine that we already had. But we had to do something. Time was ticking; the moment had come to make a change for our family.

James’ friendship with sailors and marine-industry pros around the world has always been a great sounding board for problem-solving, ideas and advice. One friend in particular, a Dutch solo multihull sailor named Henk de Velde, told him that he honestly didn’t like either of the boats on our wish list. He knew we did not want a full refit project, that we just wanted to go sailing.

He asked James to wait on moving forward. He thought there might be a boat in the Netherlands that would work for our family. He was sure it was a strong, seaworthy, go-anywhere vessel. He believed we could make a circumnavigation on it, and there would be enough space that we could stretch into it at least for a few years. It was not on the market yet, but he had a hunch that it might be soon.

We waited to hear from him, and true to his word, Henk soon sent us information about a 49-foot trimaran called Sound of Silence (aka SOS). Immediately after seeing photos and reading the specs, we felt like it just might be the perfect boat. She was a 1996 design but had great lines and appeared to be a super-sexy-looking sailing machine. Dutch-built, she was made of fiberglass, epoxy and strong plank. Beams were constructed of carbon, glass and aluminum, and she had a carbon mast with Navtec rigging. The tri was just shy of 50 feet long and very wide, over 36 feet, but she had a Farrier folding ama system that shrank the beam to a little less than 20 feet, allowing for ease of haulout, storage and maneuvering in tight spaces.

All living space was in the center hull, and there were three cabins that could fit a total of six crew—still a bit tight for a family of seven but palatial compared with an Open 40. All the systems had top-of-the-line gear, and for certain it felt like we could potentially make a smooth transition from one incredibly cool boat to another.

We were unsure that we could financially pull it off, both in the initial purchase price and the ongoing maintenance. But we had an undeniably good feeling about her. We decided to follow our instincts and pursue it, figuring we had nothing to lose by trying. We asked Henk to go to Amsterdam to inspect the tri for us. Upon returning, he reported that it was in excellent ­condition and just needed a little TLC. He sent us updated photos and was certain it was sound enough that we could get on board and start sailing right away.

Trusting him, we made an offer on SOS sight unseen, with the funds from the refit project as a down payment and a loan from the owner of the Atlantic Cat for the remainder (secured with Anasazi Girl as collateral). We were incredibly nervous to live beyond our means but believed somehow we could pull it off until Anasazi Girl sold.

Unbelievably, our offer was accepted. It would be binding, contingent on James’ personal inspection of the boat.

The first week of July 2019, James flew to Amsterdam for two nights to see the boat. He hauled her out, called me, and told me that all the sailing gear looked excellent, functional, and in good condition. The systems on the boat were much more complicated and required a lot more maintenance than Anasazi Girl, but he felt confident we could manage the work or simply not use the systems that were not critical for sailing. After all, we had been “camping” aboard Anasazi Girl for the previous eight years. The well-maintained vessel had only two owners for the past 20-plus years and had been sitting in a freshwater canal most of its life when not at sea. The four separate compartments of the amas were for storage but could potentially become in-port berths for the older kids.

With my approval, he signed the final purchase and sale contract papers, then flew back to Trinidad.

We dropped the price of Anasazi Girl to cover the balance of the loan we had taken, and spent a week preparing for haulout, decommissioning and long-term storage. We packed our bags, then booked flights to Amsterdam via Suriname. Our lives were about to seriously change.

Now here we were, teleported from the Caribbean tropics to the Northern European summer. I’d spent the previous couple of weeks looking with excitement at photos from Henk, the broker, and even an old Google Earth satellite image of the vessel on the dock. Our plane landed two days before my 42nd birthday, and this was an amazing present.

My stomach was filled with joyful anticipation as we walked through the gate. The kids ran down the docks, jumping in pure bliss on the trampolines.

She was impressive. Despite being an older design, Bosgraaf’s lines made her a classic and timeless beauty. Having no experience with a trimaran, I had no idea how we were going to sail the boat, nor even any idea of how we would move the massively wide beast out of the canal. SOS looked as though she had been parallel-parked like a compact car on a one-way city street into her berth at Rhebergen’s.

All of this we would figure out with time. The reality was we had been given a true gift. We were so grateful to Henk who found the boat for us, our friend Colin Dykstra (the owner of the Atlantic 55 who loaned us funds), Bosgraaf for his brilliant design, and to Reinout Vader (founder of Victron Energy and the owner of Sound of Silence) for giving our family the gift of sailing.

Vader allowed us to move aboard before the transfer of funds was complete and offered to go out for a daysail when we were ready. A few days later, funds were dispersed, papers signed and in order, and we were officially the new owners. We renamed the boat Thunderbird. Our first night aboard, my oldest son, Raivo, was so used to sleeping on a hard surface that he got out a camping pad, laid it down and slept on the floor! Not only did we have mega cushions, but we had space, both inside and out.

The creature comforts were a bit overwhelming: a microwave, two-burner induction cooker, freezer and fridge. Hydraulic systems folded and unfolded the amas; lowered and lifted the boom, centerboard and rudder; and controlled the bow-thruster, windless and several winches. Three sources of power generation charged the boat’s lithium batteries: an alternator on the 51 hp Yanmar, a WhisperGen DC generator (serving also as a hot-­water and space heater), and eight Solbian 50-watt solar panels. Wiring was 24-volt, and Thunderbird had a Victron Multiplus inverter for controlling charging and converting to 220-volt AC.

We were now in serious pump land, with a big Spectra ­watermaker, indoor and outdoor shower, 110 gallons of water, 158 gallons of diesel, and more than 50-gallon holding tanks. The navigation system included two modern B&G Zeus 3 chart plotters with AIS and radar; an older B&G processor; and Hydra 2 autopilots, speedos, compass and depth sounders. In our sail quiver was a 968-square-foot main and 538-square-foot jib from North Sails, and a spinnaker and gennaker from Incidences.

We spent the next month in Amsterdam waiting for reflagging, servicing and learning about all the systems of the boat. Henk gifted us his Rocna 72-pound anchor, which never failed him on his voyages with his trimaran, Juniper. New lettering and graphics were made for Thunderbird. We made our pre-voyage checklists and dived full time into our new project.

We did little tourism, only a token trip to the Rijksmuseum to see all the classics. We ate amazing Dutch bread, baked goods and cheeses, tried bitterballens (a deep-fried Dutch snack) and local beer. Our kids helped us with the workload, balanced with recreational time rowing around in a small dinghy in the canal, climbing fences in the boatyard, running wild on the docks, picking wildflowers, swimming in the canal, foraging for summer berries, and exploring the surrounding neighborhood.

We were most definitely in Amsterdam. Across the canal from us was a cannabis cafe. Along the wharf was Rhebergen’s yard and the NDSM shipyard, which was now converted into a space for a hundred artists of all disciplines. Twice a month, the biggest flea market in all of Amsterdam (IJ-Hallen) was set up in the open-air outdoor spaces surrounding NDSM. Spray-paint art was encouraged, and we watched artists creating epic murals on the old shipyard buildings, the walls of which were sometimes completely transformed daily.

Though there was a marina in Amsterdam Noord and canal boats everywhere, our location was not within walking distance of all the yacht services and chandleries we needed. For this, we rented a vehicle and went to the port of IJmuiden at the end of the North Sea canal to get needed parts and new netting for our trampolines.

James met with Bosgraaf at his floating design office—a canal houseboat—in downtown Amsterdam. A couple of weeks later, Bosgraaf drove through the canals in a small powerboat he had designed to visit us aboard Thunderbird. He spent an afternoon answering questions and talking about the history of the boat.

Henk visited us weekly at Rhebergen’s and became a surrogate grandfather to my children, always bearing chocolate and local treats. We spent time with Laura Dekker—the Dutch sailor who was the youngest to sail alone around the world, at age 16—who we knew from New Zealand back in our Auckland days; we met her family, and she taught the kids how to sail a Pico.

Vader took us through the locks and bridge canals to the inland lake of Markermeer for a daysail. We learned the history of how he started Victron Energy, and watched in amazement at how he sailed the tri. “No using hydraulics,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. Tall, fit and lanky at 75, he was still grinding winches with joy and making sail changes.

The US Coast Guard Documentation Center at last emailed us our paperwork, and we were ready to depart after five weeks. We set sail from Amsterdam in August 2019, making our way through the English Channel to the port of Caen, France. In September, we crossed the Bay of Biscay to the port of La Coruña, Spain, and got approved for a Schengen visa extension. In October, it was on to the Canary Island of Lanzarote, where the boat was hauled out in preparation for crossing the Atlantic. Two days after Christmas, we were again on the move, bound for Cape Verde, arriving in São Vicente just after the 2020 new year.

Departing from there the last week of January, we crossed the Atlantic in 10 days, arriving in the port of Cabedelo, Brazil, where we learned we were expecting our sixth child. We sailed south to Salvador de Bahia, Caravelas, and then Vitoria, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. We stayed there for almost two months in self-quarantine, doing repairs and maintenance on Thunderbird, awaiting the arrival of a used sail to replace the 20-plus-year-old delaminated main, watching as the early stages of the pandemic unfolded. We then decided to continue south, seeking isolated areas to cruise safely with our family.

While awaiting the birth of our next child, we explored the region between Ilhabela and Ilha Grande. Our son, Atlas, was born in late August of last year.

Our aim in raising our kids has always been to give them time with us, to choose their teachers and offer rich life experiences, to expose them to inspiring people, give them a practical understanding of the world, and support their passions.

Sailing is an excellent platform for all these things—and much, much more.

Saving for college educations, lucrative financial investments or a pile of material things is not part of our life goals. All of which would be wonderful to have, but we are just not savvy investors. For us to achieve even some of these things would require both of us working full time plus overtime, a sacrifice of time with each other.

Working really hard and then “gambling” all of it into impossible sailing dreams for the opportunity to experience the world is something we can do, and do together. It feeds our souls. We work and sail and do everything together. What we have is time to invest in our kids now, before they choose their own life paths. We don’t know everything, but we can teach them what we know and seek out teachers to show them the rest. The hope is they will have the confidence to follow their own outrageous dreams, and understand how to navigate the steps needed to achieve them.

Here in this voyaging life, we operate in our mode of feast or famine. We departed the Netherlands in a state of financial famine, but we felt positive and hopeful. Somehow things have always worked out, much of it having to do with our amazing friendships, leaving a clean wake in every port, and a lot of serendipitous moments.

With Thunderbird, we feast on the sea, the world’s oceans fully open to us. We are officially a family of “rafters” with the ability to cross oceans, now able to live at anchor and get into shallow-­draft spaces. What an unreal feeling to once again give our family the gift of sailing, taking with us all the rich things that ­accompany the life of a voyager.

Following the birth of Atlas last year, photographer/writer Somira Sao and her family are continuing to explore the coast of Brazil. She writes: “As a family of eight, we participated in the 70th Santos to Rio Race and the 2020 Ubatuba Troféu das Ilhas Race. For us, there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning about sailing. We are doing the miles, moving to a different anchorage every single day.”

A Freedom Machine Called Thunderbird

Peter Bosgraaf designed the custom-built cruising trimaran for a Dutch businessman named Willem Woestenburg, who fanatically sailed a Farrier 31 trimaran with his son, Rob. When Woestenburg hit the jackpot in the stock market, he decided to build a bigger tri with the same folding principle. Bosgraaf had just designed two smaller trimarans, so Woestenburg commissioned him to design his 49-foot tri.

A Dutch woodworker/boatbuilder named Fred Winter built the boat at Woestenburg’s metals and hydraulic factory. Woestenburg’s factory team fabricated all of the hydraulics and metalwork for the boat. Winter, along with Rob Woestenburg, worked on all the construction and interior. The folding system works just like the small Farrier systems, but due to the weight, hydraulic cylinders were added to control folding from behind the wheel.

The boat was built out of strong plank, which was widely being promoted by a boatbuilder in the Netherlands at the time. Strong plank uses PVC foam-cored strips with fiberglass sheathing around those strips. Due to the stiffness of the battens, it takes the minimal amount of building frames to set up the hull. Once the hull is sheathed with the strips, only one or two layers of fiberglass cloth is sufficient to obtain a stiff hull.

After the boat was launched in 1998 and named Gaviota, Woestenburg did not get to sail much, but his son, Rob, logged some miles on the boat. Financial problems forced him to sell the boat to Reinout Vader a year after it was launched.

Vader is a Dutch physicist who developed a pure sine wave inverter. He is the founder of Victron Energy and developer of the WhisperGen Stirling generator. He renamed the tri Sound of Silence, or SOS. Over the course of 20 years, he sailed to the Caribbean, through the Mediterranean, and in the North Sea.

Thunderbird sails fast but is a cruising tri, so she’s a little on the heavy side. She needs approximately 12 knots of apparent wind to really get going. She sails upwind super well. We try to maintain 10 to 13 knots on average, but in the Bay of Biscay and going around Brazil’s Cabo Frio, we saw boatspeeds of up to 17 to 20 knots. James is working now with Bosgraaf to offer for sale a modernized, stripped-out racing version of the boat as a new construction.

The post Family Cruising on a Trimaran appeared first on Cruising World.

Of the many hats cruisers must wear, one is sanitation engineer—we often talk sh*t. At least we’re a mature enough bunch to enjoy a nice sunset while diving deep into the details of a clogged holding tank or failed macerator pump. When nature calls, a tutorial on best practices with the sundowner host boat’s toilet is assumed—even if it’s a new model WonderPooper 2000. Where does the toilet paper go (or not go)? Is it a wet or dry bowl flush?

“Welcome aboard, let me demonstrate how the toilet works!” Not the usual welcome when visiting a home on land, and not far from the truth afloat. And STILL it can be problematic; an experienced cruiser left one of our heads pumping to overflow, literally running crap through the main cabin, during sundowners on Totem in Madagascar.

Marine toilets are…special. They even get a different name: the head. Their use, maintenance, and problems are different than land heads, I mean toilets. The unpleasant business of dealing with them when things aren’t flowing is a leveler among most cruising boats.

Just like bears poop in the woods, and cruisers poop in the ocean. Part of Cruising and Pooping 101 is acknowledging the unpleasant truth that almost all of us are putting blackwater overboard. Yes, blackwater is the euphemism for the stuff that’s going down the toilet. Pumpout services are easy to find in some countries, we’re sure—we just haven’t cruised through many of them. Or any of them? Outside of the USA, I cannot think of any country where we had easy and dependable access to a holding tank pumpout. The classic situation was regulation in Australia requiring use of a pumpout facility, and then having exactly ONE available along thousands of miles of Queensland coastline.

Dealing with Poop

This means, of course, like so much in cruising—ya gotta deal with sh*t on your own. Here on the Pacific side of Mexico, we can think of only a few pumpout stations along these few thousand miles of coastline—and big gaps between them. Nobody has a holding tank big enough for the gaps! What do you do? The same thing as in just about every other country we’ve cruised: do what you have to. Don’t be gross. Be as respectful as you can to neighbors, and the public swimming pool you float in, and source of watermaker water lapping against your head’s seacock.

Laws Governing the Poop

In the USA, the general EPA rule is that it’s illegal for recreational boats to discharge raw or insufficiently treated sewage within three miles from shore, with a startling number of stricter and no-discharge zones. Using that distance as a rule of thumb, it seems like the burden of putting a few miles between yourself and shore to empty a holding tank isn’t a big deal. And most of the time—it’s not.

Why do these rules matter—it’s just organic stuff, right? Don’t fish eat poop?

Well, sewage in water makes it icky not for the obvious reasons, but because it increases nutrient levels, alters pH, and can affect oxygen levels. So there’s a whole host of marine life impacted, not just the irate neighbor who didn’t want to swim by a snickers bar.

Click to access the live map from the EPA.

Holding Tanks

Considering travel distance to where you can courteously pump out assumes the boat has a holding tank, of course. And while a lot of boats do, many don’t. They may have been built when it wasn’t required. They may have been removed by a prior owner. If this is troubling, forget you just read the last two sentences—and try not to think about it when swimming in an anchorage. Hopefully, it’s not a big deal to monitor a holding tank. But sometimes it is a bit of a bigger deal. If the holding tank gets full (oops!) and there’s no alternative, there might be some nearer-to-shore overboarding taking place. And then those boats without a holding tank…

Composting Heads

How about not putting sewage over the side at all? That’s theoretically a benefit of composting heads. Waste is managed in situ, then disposed of later. They aren’t odor-free (we’ve visited enough boats using this method) but do tend to be less smelly. Cruisers with conventional heads would groan that these simpler beasts with fewer plumbing components to maintain or fail.

The waste does have to be disposed of eventually, and it’s not actually compost made in a composting toilet; that process takes more time. It’s just not “hazardous” waste any more, according to EPA standards. But it is still waste, a step up from a diaper (and the cocktail of other ingredients and plastic involved). Shoreside bathroom facilities, or even a porta potty, are where it should be dumped.

In places like the Florida Keys, where there’s a 12-mile distance required for any sewage overboard from recreational boats, there is ready access on shore to toilet or porta-potty facilities to dump your poop. It’s a fantastic solution for this sensitive marine park and has helped keep waters healthy and beautiful.

Do you think there’s a shoreside porta potty at the anchorage you’ll first hit in French Polynesia? No, and probably not the next few dozen anchorages either. So yes, the boats with composting heads are probably overboarding their poop, too, and somewhat negating the theoretical benefit. Longer-distance cruisers also have to source composting medium, the product added to the tank that the poop sits in to decompose a bit. No problem when Home Depot is in range, or Amazon delivers the shrink-wrapped coir biscuits. But Home Depot? Amazon? This does not describe most of the cruising world we’ve been in! Even in relatively well-connected/supplied Mexico, the calls for help in sourcing medium for a composting head crop up often enough in the community. Foraged solutions for the medium are prone to be buggy…no thanks.

Another way to treat sewage on board is with a product called Lectrasan. It’s a small tank that uses chlorine and electricity to zap the bacteria and make it passable by EPA standards to send directly overboard (but still not OK for use in no-discharge areas, because—they discharge). It’s probably a great option for liveaboards who have access to consumables / repair services / replacements, but got mixed reviews from long-term cruisers (in discussion during sundowners of course).

From Manual to Electric: The Poop on Totem

We have two heads. When we bought Totem, one was an electric Vacuflush that pumped into a holding tank. The other, a Jabsco manual pump model pumped overboard and leaked worse than Jamie’s first boat. At the time we subscribed to the belief that manual was better (less to break/repair). But it turned out that our younger children didn’t have the muscle to pump out the manual toilet. Calls for “can you flush my doo doo?” got old, fast! We decided that the electric toilet would stay; the macerator switch is labeled Entertainment Center on our electrical panel. The other toilet was replaced with a manual Lavac, and routed overboard—when allowed, of course. The combination has worked well for us in a few ways. A holding tank to, well, hold The Goods until there’s an appropriate time/place to pump over, and a direct-over for when that’s not necessary. And because every cruiser seems to have plumbing issues—having a second head means the inevitable backup isn’t a bucket.

If you followed our social media posts while refitting in 2019, you’ll remember one of our favorite upgrades was an electric toilet in the aft head—a Tecma Nano ECO model (the thrill of the first flush was a family affair! Cruising, even more exciting than you imagined…). Why did we replace the Lavac? In a word, maintenance. The joker valve and flap valve (which directs the flow of poop) are flimsy and quickly deform from mineral buildup, even with the frequent addition of vinegar. Replacement parts were relatively easy to install, once you scrape away mineral build up and urine/poop residue (good times! Living the dream!), but the parts kit was expensive and only a few of items were needed. And as our kids grew, and built substantial muscle mass enough to pump the manual toilet without assistance, they became so strong as to crack the plastic pump housing. Twice! Oh, and the seawater flush can smell like rotten eggs from decomposing marine critters.

With a year-plus on the Tecma head, we’re really pleased. In fact—with some costly parts nearing end of life on the Vacuflush, we’re planning to replace it with—yes, another Tecma. Zero maintenance (so far), only about one liter of fresh water per flush, no smell with fresh water… and push-button simple is a LOT easier to explain to visitors. Sundowner conversations got one notch less awkward.

We’re currently up in the USA, on a round of visits to family. Today we’re gazing out at Shaw Island from Friday Harbor, on a postcard-perfect day in the San Juan islands. We arrived yesterday on the ferry from Anacortes, and my aunt Julie welcomed us into her home and then explained in great detail the operation of the guest toilet. We know all about the septic system, the toilet paper protocol, and have a laminated sheet to reference in case we forget. The toilet wasn’t a WonderPooper 2002, but guess maybe we aren’t so different, after all!

TOTEM TALKS

Coming back this weekend! ‘Tis the season: with hurricane season spiking up, we’ll talk about how cruisers cope and stay safe.

When: Sunday, Jul 25, 3:00 pm Pacific Time

Register

Registrants will be sent a confirmation email with a link to join the session; as always, we’ll record it to share later if the time doesn’t work for you. And as always, feel free to send questions in advance – happy to help in particular situations, too.

Historical tracks by month in the Caribbean

ICYMI

We were in the Financial Times last week! 

They have a front-of-section piece on #boatlife, and if this isn’t acknowledgement that the cruising life has nudged into mainstream acceptance, I don’t know what is. And if that means more people get a peek into this fantastic world of life afloat, we’re calling it a win!

The post Sailing Totem: A Frank Discussion of Marine Heads appeared first on Cruising World.

Departure Day: As the plane lifted off the runway, I muttered my final goodbyes out the window. My parents had purchased an Island Packet 445 10 months prior, and the day to board this boat had finally come. I was 11 years old and knew absolutely nothing about this cruising lifestyle my father had been speaking so highly of for the previous five years. I wasn’t on that plane by choice, but rather bribed on with the promise of a trip to Disneyland; the only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to leave my home.

Because I didn’t have any say in this big life change, I did anything possible to avoid moving onto the boat. I didn’t help pack the house. I made my homeschooling exceedingly difficult for my mother. I filled my younger brother with lies and tales of how he wouldn’t get to bring his stuffed animals onto the boat, how we would die, and how we would run out of money and food; my brother ate up all of this with a big spoon. I am told the excuses I constantly presented to my parents became increasingly hysterical as we came closer to the departure date.

Despite my best attempts, we were on a San Francisco-bound plane that September morning. My father was excited, my mother nervous, my brother impartial, and I sullen. I was not at all eager about this change in my lifestyle. My attempts to wreck the trip had failed. I had finally accepted defeat after I sat down on the plane, and I, to put it simply, was an undesirable child for the next week (maybe a year, according to some).

The Adjustment Period

The first three months on the boat had not been very easy. What my dad called an adjustment period, I called a nightmare. My “adjustment” to a homeschooling program had not been going well. In fact, my school days started with endless yelling and ended with streams of tears; I still hadn’t got the hang of working so independently. To make matters worse, my most dreaded fear was coming true: We had not met any other boats with kids, as my father had promised would so quickly happen. In contrast to how my father guaranteed I would have fun, I was having increasingly terrible days. I was always quick to make suggestions to return to Canada, my desire to turn this idea around still strong in my mind.

But, after three months of traveling, we had a lucky break. In La Paz, there was another cruising boat with a 13-year-old boy aboard. At the time, I was quite shy and didn’t want anything to do with him. But my parents were determined to make me a friend, and two weeks later, Glen and I could be seen endlessly boogie boarding the crashing waves to the beach. As I began to enjoy myself more and more, many other things happened. A big one is that the amount of time I spent on my schoolwork shrunk from eight hours to four, and the tears I had so endlessly shed began to make fewer appearances. All I wanted to do was play on the beach.

After meeting Glen, cruising for me began to get better and better. Kids having other kids to do kid stuff with is really important, and for some reason, we did not meet any other boats with kids for a long time. I began to get up early and finish my schoolwork so I had the rest of the day to myself. This system was working out great for me; I was having to complete only a couple of hours of schoolwork a day, and then the rest of the day was mine. At some point during these months, I must have decided to give this cruising idea a chance. I tried to withhold my suggestions to return to Canada and kept my negative comments to myself. I tried to ignore the negatives and focus on the positives, and after a while, I permanently ignored any negatives and enjoyed all of the positives. Instead of refusing the idea of living on a boat, I refused the idea of moving onto land.

Six Months Later

The day I shot my first fish was the day I began to consider myself a true cruising kid. (You know the type: long sun-bleached hair, ragged clothes, skinny-looking.) Why? We had met a new boat with kids on board, just a week after parting ways with Glen and his family. This boat was called Exodus. The father on Exodus, Tim, introduced my father and me to spearfishing. This became the new sport for our little group. Every single day, the kids and the dads piled into a dinghy along with all of our wetsuits, snorkels, fins and spear guns for a day of searching for fish, lobsters, scallops and anything else we guessed to be edible. This new sport took up the majority of our days and was a large part of my life at the time. That activity, in a way, represented how I was growing up. I was learning new skills and learning how to work independently, as well as part of a team. I was growing up in a way most kids don’t; I had adults around who helped me succeed and gave me support whenever I needed it, always doing their best to guide me in the right direction.

Read More: Point of View

One Year Later

Leaving from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, we arrived in the Marquesas after a 23-day Pacific Puddle Jump crossing. What an experience to be so alone for so long. Well, we did have a radio and SSB email, but it was still a real test to be stuck with the same three people in a small space for over three weeks.

We continued touring through the South Pacific, soaking up the attractions of French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, American Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. During this time, my independence continued to grow. I often took a five-hour watch during the dark hours of long passages. This was quite a bit of responsibility to hand over to a 13-year-old, especially considering I was in charge of reefing and adjusting sails as the conditions changed, as well as dodging squalls using the radar, and keeping an eye and ear out for any problems. I woke up my father only when a ship was nearby and I wasn’t sure of its intentions. Almost everybody in the cruising community treated me as an adult while still understanding I was a child, thereby giving me the flexibility to make childish mistakes.

As of this writing, my family has now been aboard for three years. We have just left French Polynesia, and I am still enjoying this lifestyle we have embarked on. We have plans to return to Canada in 12 months and, similar to how I opposed moving onto the boat, I am now completely opposed to moving off it. I have so much fun and learn so many things on this boat that I can’t imagine ever returning “home”—a place I hardly even remember, where people are so different than the cruisers and the locals I have mingled with since.

Kyle Danielwicz and his family are back in Canada after cruising the Pacific aboard Lady Carolina, an Island Packet 445, for four years.

The post How a Young Sailor Learned to Love the Cruising Life appeared first on Cruising World.

“It’s the world flattest anchorage!” Jamie quips from Totem’s main cabin. We’re propped on jackstands in the shipyard, and truly, it is so flat! On our last night afloat, I savored every lick of water whispering through the hull. It’s an unnatural feeling not to have that gentle movement, that soundtrack of life on the water.

Flat it may be; easy living it is not. Life on the hard can be, well, hard. The ladder to get on board, the inconvenience of having not quite normal use of water and holding tanks, our reluctance to use the yard’s community shower/toilet facilities before vaccinations kicked in. But we can deal with all of that, and we have—over six haulouts. Even when Puerto Peñasco hit the scorcher weeks of summer (did it ever go below 100°F from August until nearly the end of September? I’m not sure it did), we’ve always stayed on board while in the boatyard…until now. We have just become CLODS—Cruisers Living On Dirt.

Home sweet apartment

I’m writing this from an actual desk in an actual one-bedroom flat on a quiet street a short walk from Totem. It’s quite surreal. We’re still getting our land legs. Our temporary home is in a compound belonging to a family who has built out a number of informal units to let.

It’s an extension of this already social yard: every unit is occupied by another cruiser doing work at nearby Cabrales Boatyard! Passing along apartments here, cruiser to cruiser, has become almost a word of mouth tradition. We all appreciate the local-style ambiance: trees surrounding the compound mean our mornings are garnished with birdsong. In the evening we have dinner on the porch, listening to neighborhood children playing soccer on the sand road that runs to the east.

Adjusting to land

The first sign that we were, well, fish out of water was when we moved furniture around (comes with! Bonus!). Mairen used the descriptors fore and aft, and inboard and outboard, to give directions. We did have a discussion and determine that there wasn’t a way to have port and starboard sides of the apartment.

Then there are all the crazy new appliances. A few days in, Siobhan made chocolate chip cookies. (Tangent: it turns out that land ovens actually get really hot, and they do it really fast… cue pizza night!) She called from the galley, I mean kitchen, to say the process would have to wait a while so the butter could soften. I pointed out the miraculous properties of the microwave on the counter, and commenced the ancient mother/daughter ritual of transferring this valuable knowledge.

Some changes are easier to make! We don’t have to call a pumpout truck. There are a couple of air conditioners we’ll be especially grateful for soon. The freezer freezes things (laugh, sure, but we haven’t been able to keep ice cream hard since ever)! We will enjoy the coffeemaker and toaster, but do fine without them later too.

Why we’re moving ashore

It wasn’t necessary before—why now? We have plans that require turning portions of not just the exterior, but the interior of Totem into a workzone: it’s not really habitable. And the weather…  have I mentioned the weeks over 100°F?  One of my favorite sayings in life is “misery is optional,” and I think that might just qualify. That 2019 summer saw heat index routinely 110°+. It’s really nice to retreat to a clean, cool abode.

The last few nights we were on board, dust grinding fiberglass on the transom as Jamie cut in the swim steps had wafted through those mysterious routes air finds inside and settled onto our bedding. No. Just, no. I am OK with a lot of things, sleeping in fiberglass dust isn’t one of them, and we moved just in time to keep the happy factor at a reasonable level on board.

In other news

On the shortlist of things to catch up on once we settled into Puerto Peñasco were some routine checkups. Siobhan was interested in contacts and Jamie felt his prescription was changing, so we trundled up to get eye exams with more sophisticated equipment than we’d had locally before.

Surprise: Jamie’s left eye had a cataract! Double whammy: at a surgical consult a week later, it turns out both his eyes have posterior cataracts. WELL THEN. Add cataract surgery to the fun and games on Jamie’s docket. We’re proceeding with surgery ASAP and he’s excited about the prospect of clearer vision.

An ophthalmologist/cruiser friend pointed out that being relatively young for this diagnosis (a good two decades younger than the average age for cataract surgery in the US) means Jamie’s eyes should be easier to operate on. And I’ll call the circumstance of timing fortunate, too. Thanks to demographics, nearby Arizona has a saturated market for ophthalmology services. That means a lot of options when researching for a quality surgeon, and competitive rates (it’s all out of pocket. Ouch. And we’ll deal, as always.)

Maybe now the kids will wear sunglasses? Maybe.

Learning opportunities: routing and sails

Routing fundamentals. planning from the big picture to passages, with considerations for better efficiency and comfort along the way. Jamie and I are delivering this for the Salty Dawg Sailing Association; register for Route Planning Strategies – A Cruisers Perspective on their website ($12 for non-SDSA members).

Sails for cruising. Last weekend we held our latest TOTEM TALKS, and Jamie held forth on his area of expertise: sails! amie has a unique blend of experience as a professional sailmaker… who took his proficiency cruising, and learned a lot about how well-intentioned sailmakers sometimes miss particular needs cruisers have. The replay is now online! Listen in to gain no-nonsense insight on sails for cruisers.

The post Sailing Totem: Cruiser Speak—The CLODs appeared first on Cruising World.

Water splashed over the bow as I held the Sea Pearl 21 tight to the wind. Glancing to port, I gauged the distance between our little boat and the nearby coral-laced cut between two deserted Bahamian cays. The tide was ebbing fast into the open ocean beyond, which meant we were fighting the current as well as the wind.

I guessed we were making 2 knots. Maybe. But I was grinning, exhilarated to finally be sailing across the bright blue waters I’d dreamed about for so long.

“We’re gonna round the point on this tack, Bri, I can feel it!” my husband, Rob, called. He was manning the clunky wooden oars from a makeshift seat on our cooler in the center of the boat. Rowing gave us a helpful boost since we had no motor aboard.

At Rob’s feet, our 3-year-old son, Talon, was napping in a yellow life jacket, using a dry bag as a pillow. I reached over to adjust our toddler’s hat to block the late-afternoon sun, then pulled in the mizzen another inch. And that’s when the 30-knot gust hit.

We were halfway through a weeklong bareboat cruise in the Exumas, a playground for anyone who loves white-sand beaches, clear-water snorkeling and cruising between deserted islands.

And when I say “bareboat,” I mean bare bones, as well as captainless. We chose to charter the Sea Pearl from Out Island Explorers for two reasons: first, affordability. At $1,000 for eight days, the price was one-fifth the cost of chartering a larger sailboat.

Second, accessibility. Hundreds of miles of shallow waters and shifting sands make the Exumas one of the most beautiful places on Earth—and one of the more challenging places to navigate without grounding. Sea Pearls draw only 8 inches with the daggerboards up, and their flat bottom allows them to be beached. Most monohulls can’t sail on the Bahama Banks side of the southern portion of the Exumas island chain, which means battling the rougher conditions on Exuma Sound and missing some of the most stunning anchorages in the area. Even ­shoal-draft ­catamarans risk grounding in many of the Exumas’ pocket bays, which drain completely at low tide.

The downside of chartering the Sea Pearl? It’s basically a big canoe. Without a cabin, we had to camp ashore every night.

Five days before, we’d done our food provisioning at the only grocery store in George Town, the main settlement on Great Exuma. The next morning, Dallas Knowles, owner of Out Island Explorers, picked us up, and we drove north to Barraterre Cay. The charter price included enough fresh water for our week at sea, packed in dromedary bags. We also rented a stove and fuel from Knowles at a nominal price, along with a couple of beach chairs and a small folding table—camping gear that was too bulky (or illegal) for airplane luggage.

At a small dock with no other boats in sight, Knowles showed us how to rig and sail the Sea Pearl. The sails slide on sleeves down two identical masts, one forward and the other aft, and are reefed by simply twisting the mast in its step. Sails are unfurled by pulling on the outhaul line along the boom. Two lead-weighted leeboards swing off the gunwales on either side, easily raised in shallow water by pulling a line and securing it in cam cleats on the rails. Without a keel, these boats don’t point particularly well and perform best downwind.

Knowles gave us charts and detailed descriptions of various anchorages and potential routes for our eight-day cruise. He also handed us a small repair kit and an old-school push-button ­cellphone to call him if we needed help or wanted a weather report. Then he threw us the dock lines, calling out: “Have fun! Be safe!” Talon waved goodbye as we sailed east toward Boysie Cay.

The first three nights we’d found private, pristine beaches where we could nose the Sea Pearl right up to shore. Winds had been light, but I hadn’t minded the lack of a motor. Calm conditions were great for snorkeling and fly-fishing from the boat, and the oars worked well for maneuvering the 700-pound Sea Pearl when becalmed.

Day four had started out perfect for sailing. After a breakfast of eggs and bacon, we packed up camp on Normans Pond Cay, then sailed to the island’s northern shore in a lovely 15-knot breeze. Anchoring in a calm bay, we ate lunch on a deserted beach. Rob and I took turns exploring the reef while the other played tag in the sand with our son.

When it was my turn to snorkel, I dived down to spy on two big lobsters hiding under purple fan coral. The water in the Exumas was as clear as a looking glass, and rife with cool sea life. So far, we’d snorkeled alongside schools of snappers and jacks, stingrays, turtles, moray eels, and a reef shark.

Around 3 p.m., we reboarded the boat for the short 3-mile sail to Williams Cay, where we planned to camp that night in a well-protected bay. A norther was predicted to blow in around sunset. Since we could see whitecaps forming, we reefed both sails and donned foul-weather gear.

It had been fun sailing for the first half-hour, but then the wind began to howl from the direction we were trying to sail, and a current was steadily pushing us sideways. I was starting to wish for some iron horsepower, especially as a 30-knot gust hit us, just 300 yards from the point we were trying to round.

Rip! The mizzen tore above me, the wind rendering the sail to tatters. I lost steerage and couldn’t keep the boat pointed to windward with just the reefed main. Rob began rowing harder to give us more speed.

Crack! The starboard oar snapped in half. We exchanged a look of disbelief. The tide carried the Sea Pearl quickly toward the cut and the open water beyond.

We had to think fast so we didn’t end up on a reef. I turned the boat downwind toward a speck of white sand—the last holdout between us and the open ocean. Fifty yards from shore, Rob let out the mainsheet to slow us down, then hopped overboard to hold the boat off the rocks bracketing the beach.

I chucked the stern anchor over, then hopped in too, stubbing my bare toes on a piece of coral. The water was chest-deep. Waves buffeted the boat, turning it into a bucking battering ram as we struggled to secure it.

At the bow, Rob was trying to dive down to bury the main anchor in the sand, frustrated because he kept floating to the surface.

“You still have your life jacket on!” I yelled. He pulled it off, then set the anchor to keep the bow pointed into the wind and waves.

As Rob climbed back aboard to roll up the flogging sails and unrig the boat, I reached into the center hold, pulling up our son by his arms and hoisting him over my shoulder. Wading to shore, a part of me floating above the scene marveled at my ­adrenaline-fueled strength.

I put Talon gently on the sand in the shade of a large boulder. Miraculously, he stayed asleep. Rob started wading to shore, ­holding our day bag overhead—a backpack full of snacks, water, extra clothes, navigation charts and the emergency cellphone.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, relieved that we were all safe. I took stock of our surroundings as I shed my sodden life jacket, foul-weather gear and clothes. An abandoned house stood above the small beach, its paint long peeled off. The sun, framed by billowing gray clouds, was only a couple of hands above the horizon. I could smell rain in the air. Waves rumbled like thunder on the outside reef.

With the boat secure and all of us safe, I called Knowles to explain the situation. He came to the rescue two hours later in a twin-engine fishing boat, a new mizzen sail rolled up along the gunwale. Working fast in the fading evening light, we rigged a tow line on the Sea Pearl so Knowles could tow it to Twin Beach, the anchorage we’d originally been aiming for.

Talon—who’d taken our near-emergency in stride upon waking in the sand instead of in the cockpit—was thrilled about riding in a shiny, fast powerboat. He laughed as we sped across the choppy silver water.

“You handled yourselves well,” Knowles said. “That definitely could have been bad news.”

He never asked if we wanted to call it quits after the traumatic afternoon. Maybe he knew we’d say no.

As he helped us untie and anchor the Sea Pearl, Knowles told us the wind was supposed to get stronger that night, then clock around to the southeast. Rob asked whether we should take advantage of the wind shift to sail over to the rarely visited Brigantine cays for the last half of our trip.

“If you check out the Brigantines, you could tack up the Odi Creek to Barraterre and make a full loop,” Knowles suggested. “Just call me that morning and let me know if you want me to pick you up at the dock or at Odi Creek.”

After he zoomed off, we set up camp in record time. The rain began after we climbed into the tent, where we ate a cozy picnic dinner and read each other stories, grateful to be together and sheltered.

The next morning, we woke to clear skies, though the wind was still whipping up chop beyond our little bay. We took a rest day to regroup. While Rob stayed at camp, Talon and I went for a hike.

We climbed up a rocky ridge, spotting dozens of giant stingrays swimming in the shallows below us, their black bodies rippling like the skirts on a flamenco dancer. Then we headed to the other side of the island to treasure hunt, finding a washed-up soccer ball, a doll and a wooden sword. Back at camp, Talon created castles from pearly-pink conch shells—the ubiquitous (and tasty) Bahamian mollusk. That evening we collected firewood and made a bonfire, watching the moon rise and the Milky Way appear.

Rejuvenated, we set out early the following day for the Brigantines, taking our time to explore along the way. Talon and Rob fished from the boat for snapper at Tug and Barge rocks, while I snorkeled alongside two curious barracudas.

Though only 5 miles from the windward cays in the Exumas, the Brigantines felt very different—and even more remote. The water was a beautiful milky green due to limestone deposits, and the beaches were larger. Acres of silty-soft sand were exposed at low tide, where a maze of protruding mangrove roots arched over mounds made by clams. The Sea Pearl was perfect for gunkholing in these shallow waters. We saw only two other boats in two days, both manned by local fishermen.

We stopped to camp at a mile-long crescent of beach on Brigantine Cay. Talon helped collect coconuts to drink with our dinner of chicken and rice, proud of his tropical foraging skills. At sunset we set up hermit crab races, betting on whose temporary pet would make the finish line before getting distracted.

On our final day in the Exumas, the weather turned again. We stuck close to the mangroves to skirt the wind and waves as we headed back to Barraterre Cay. The last mile was almost ­comical—we had to tack at least four dozen times to sail up narrow Odi Creek. Luckily, we made it just before the rain started pouring down.

After hoisting ourselves into Knowles’ truck, I reached over to give him a high-five.

“No one I’ve chartered to has ever sailed all the way up Odi Creek,” Knowles admitted. “Most people choose the easier way back.”

“Yeah, we rarely choose the easy way,” I said with a laugh, ­winking at Rob. “But it usually leaves us with better stories to tell.”

Brianna Randall is a freelance writer and the founder of Adventure Families. She sails mountain lakes in Montana and cruises in the Bahamas any chance she gets.

The post Sailing a Sea Pearl in the Exumas appeared first on Cruising World.

This story originally appeared on Sailing Totem.

Stepping off the bow while Totem hung in the Travelift at Cabrales Boatyard’s slipway, Jamie and I wondered to each other how Totem’s bottom would look once we could step back and look. We’re three years into our Coppercoat application. It’s worked for us, but we had just spent more than three months sitting in a high-growth area. Parked in Santa Rosalia, the dirty harbor and cold water left us uninterested in jumping in to clean.

Coppercoat myths or misconceptions

Stepping back: our article in the recent issue of Cruising World – now online! – breaks down a number of the myths that exist around using this particular type of antifouling (don’t call it paint. It’s epoxy). We’ve been happy with it, but for some reason it’s…controversial? Misunderstood? It seems to spark opinions, at any rate. To understand the range of experiences, I spoke at length to a number of cruisers to try and get a handle on the critical success factors, and why it worked for some but not others.

The details are in that article linked above. The short version: there are two main factors in a happy outcome. First, getting it applied correctly, which isn’t as simple as slapping on fresh paint – that includes exposing the suspended copper, too. We outlined the step-by-step process on Totem. Second, the expectations from boat owners on how it works (it’s not magical! Less frequent, easier cleaning… not zero cleaning).

Ultimately, the DIYers tend to be happier campers. Nobody cares about getting it right as much as you do! We’re also more likely to be ready to pop into the water to wipe down slime. OK, except when it’s cold and we’re stuck in a dirty harbor… this was not a banner winter for our crew. Thus the touch of trepidation we had before getting a look at the bottom upon last month’s haul.

How Totem’s Coppercoat fared

Jamie and I stepped back from the Travelift, and checked out Totem’s bottom. The first look left us slightly dismayed; from a distance, we could see some three-dimensional striation on the hull. We looked at each other, shrugged, and got on with other tasks. To understand the range of experiences, I spoke at length to a number of cruisers to try and get a handle on the critical success factors, and why it worked for some but not others – although the story told is ours.

Realizing key benefits

Coppercoat has been a big win for us, and getting into our third year of cruising in a high-growth area gives us confidence in the results. We’re experiencing most of the major benefits first hand (hauling again is for other reasons!):

Cleaning less often. At first this was deliberate. We wanted to observe the rate and type of growth first hand. Now we know how much less cleaning is needed, at least in Pacific Mexico. It’s not just less frequently needed (about monthly), it’s mostly soft, and even if there’s some hard growth—cleaning is dramatically easier with the hard epoxy bottom compared to conventional paint.

Being kinder to the environment. This is such a big win, and where we value Coppercoat most: how it has allowed us to be kinder and gentler to the marine environment around us. I’m so happy about this!

Hauling less frequently. One of the real assets of Coppercoat is not needing to haul as often to repaint the bottom. Oops! We’ve hauled anyway, but not because we had to address bottom paint.

Is Coppercoat expensive?

There was no difference in cost for us to apply Coppercoat, in comparison to the second-choice hard paint we had picked out as a Plan B. But we had the benefit of starting from a bare hull. Bottom preparation can be extensive (we wrote about ours in detail), and it’s both important and necessary: this why people complain about the cost of Coppercoat. So the cost isn’t Coppercoat; it’s the level of prep you may (or may not) be required to do.

Four other Coppercoat stories

In preparing for the article in Cruising World, I spoke I spoke with a number of folks who shared their experiences. Here are a few that didn’t make it into the final piece; each highlights a different aspect of the antifouling to consider.

Complexity: overseas sourcing

Jim and Barbara Cole took a cue from evolving regulations when deciding what to put on their Hallberg-Rassy Complexity’s bottom in Malaysia. Standards were bending towards more environmentally friendly rules: they looked for a paint that complied with strict California law. While researching copper leaching data, Barbara learned that Coppercoat exceeded the California standards by a factor of 10!

Their international application had a few hiccups as they pieced together supplies. “The rollers that were available for the application had too long of a nap. This left a lot of texture in the finished surface. I spent many days sanding off precious copper. If I had it to do over again, I would seriously consider hiring the local spray painter to apply the Coppercoat.”

In 2020 they sailed from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean, through the Red Sea. “Before each leg of our passages to the Med, our young crew cleaned the bottom. There was very little to scrape, mostly just slime. What few barnacles were on the bottom came off very easily. When our crew cleaned bottoms for other boats in our group, it sometimes took them several days to do one boat. They could always do our bottom in an hour or so.”

Soulianis: DIY perspective

Lauren and Kirk decided to DIY their Coppercoat application when they put it on the bottom of their Tartan 37, Soulianis in Florida in 2018. They cruise the warmer waters of the Bahamas and Florida, and have had to haul a few times for travel away from the boat. “I am super pumped I haven’t had to paint again each time before splashing. That for me is the biggest win so far.” But to hear Kirk’s description of the maintenance routine—”last year, we were in the water from Feb-June and only scrubbed it twice. There has been some growth but not much”—it’s sounds like a win on the antifouling front, too.

The couple are clear about the tradeoff of cruising kitty funds for effort: “…it absolutely IS a DIY job; you can do it with zero experience, and our hull is proof. But, be forewarned: It is one hell of a big job.”

Grateful: bottom prep blues

Jamie and Niki knew application was key, and decided to research experienced pros to put Coppercoat on their Fountaine Pajot Lavezzi 40, Grateful. “After stripping old bottom paint down to the epoxy barrier, our contractor insisted on applying an additional epoxy barrier prior to the Coppercoat. Six months after the Coppercoat was applied and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from our contractor, we found several areas where the second epoxy barrier coat had peeled off and others with numerous tiny blisters.” Coppercoat remained tenaciously adhered to the epoxy – but the epoxy was literally falling off the boat! They suspect a residual chemical contamination from paint stripping, but they’ll never know.

When hauling a year later, the fix was a low-drama event: they applied Coppercoat on the exposed, original epoxy. This has been problem-free in the years since.

Distant Shores III: incomplete initial application

Paul and Sheryl Shard know their way around boats, after more than three decades of living aboard and cruising—sharing their stories by videos first on TV, and now also on YouTube.

They decided to put Coppercoat on the bottom of their third and most recent Southerly, Distant Shores III. But the rush to launch and get the boat to the boat show in Düsseldorf meant that the application wasn’t completed properly. The cured epoxy wasn’t burnished to Coppercoat’s instructions, and it might have been snowing during the application. Antifouling fail resulted!

The couple later hauled the boat under warranty in Annapolis to have the bottom re-done and properly burnished. The difference in performance is striking. Sheryl says: “Distant Shores III was in the water in Panama for seven months of lockdown, but looked like new when we returned.”

Touching up Coppercoat

Totem is getting some spa treatment here at Cabrales Boatyard. Among the projects: hull painting. This means we could adjust the waterline slightly and it’s tempting. While we don’t need to raise the waterline, per se (a tactic used when boats are loaded down more than they should be), the fact that growth does creep above the waterline makes it tempting to push it up. The verdigris tint would be a fine peek of color below whatever we pick for our boot stripe… thumb wrestling on that choice is ongoing! Otherwise, our antifouling shouldn’t need work for many, many years.

The post Sailing Totem: Coppercoat, Three Years On appeared first on Cruising World.

This story originally appeared on Sailing Totem.

“Don’t make them like they used to!” One of the refrains about cruising boats is how newer vessels don’t have the desirable qualities of their older brethren. It’s not inaccurate to say they’re different, but it’s not right to suggest older boats built for bluewater sailing are better.

Totem is nearly 40 years old. Our current Old Boat Headache is rotting stainless steel. Yes, rotting!

This week Jamie pulled out our cockpit drains. They looked OK; just a little surface rust, no big deal. Except stainless steel doesn’t age well, and these are original. Knowing the stainless surface we can’t see is where stainless trouble happens, and having replaced nearly all stainless steel on board, it was time to upgrade this minor component. This would be an easy starter project to tackle as we got into the groove of shipyard life again. When the drains were pulled, this crumbling rust is what we found under that shinier top.

Classic bluewater or new production?

Totem is a Stevens 47 (later evolved Hylas 47s, and same mold for the long line of Hylas 49s); these are among the makes put on a pedestal for their suitability to offshore sailing. We wouldn’t disagree that Totem has been an excellent magic carpet to safely carry our family across oceans. But suggestions that newer, “production” boats are inferior isn’t fair, either. It’s a longer discussion (and one we get into somewhat in our TOTEM TALKS about what makes a bluewater boat: link from our Events page to watch the replay).

Taking this from the other side: the assumption that older bluewater boats are better, because of the build quality differences, isn’t accurate. Something buyers fail to appreciate is that older boats come with old boat problems—like those deck drains, along with chainplates, tanks, cleats, stanchion bases, standing rigging, steering chain/cable, and countless fasteners. It’s a small example but represents the wider problems that may not be apparent at purchase, despite a good surveyor’s efforts. Refitting core components can add up significantly, and may leave a hopeful cruiser struggling with a money pit instead of another fine sunset at anchor.

Boat listings commonly mislead

Sometimes, buyers are simply so taken by the promise of affordably buying their “proven” bluewater boat that they fail to appreciate the full investment required. Boat listings are often more marketing mud than truth: “ready to go,” “she knows the way,” “hop aboard and sail away!” Our new cockpit drains are only $59 each, an inexpensive DIY repair. Listings that don’t detail rigging age, accurate engine hours, weeping through hulls, or those glassed-in chainplates that seemed like a good idea in 1979 but now represent a serious PITA project may just keep you in the boatyard longer than resources support. There’s a good looking, highly-respected UK built bluewater boat near us staring down a rusty cast iron fuel tank (among other projects) and wondering how much time is left ticking on that bomb.

Jamie decided to follow up on the cockpit drains by removing Totem’s deck drains. These drains aren’t necessary with our perforated toe rail (the lip is about 3/16ths of an inch); water simply doesn’t accumulate. Totem originally came with three drains per side. He removed four of them in 2007, but not the final ones because it meant a cosmetic above the waterline patch job. Now that we’re staring down a paint job, out they’ve come – and the only way was in pieces!  Another case of seriously rotten steel.

Meanwhile on Totem

We’re still coming to grips with the scope of our projects for this haulout, but it’s been a very busy start in several ways. We had three trips to the USA in three weeks. It started with J&J COVID vaccinations at the high school gymnasium in Ajo, Arizona.

Then we road tripped with Salvador Cabrales, who runs the show for cruisers in his shipyard, in his big rig to San Diego. Salvador was picking up a boat to truck back to Mexico; we were picking up a car generously loaned by friends. We tagged in a bonus day to spend time with cousins in Carlsbad.

The subsequent trip to Phoenix got our youngest crew member on the COVID vaccination train (Siobhan couldn’t get J&J; that’s only 18+ currently). Last weekend was our “vaxxiversary” for the J&J shot. It feels very, very good to have our family on the road to all being fully vaccinated.

Little projects like the drains get us into the routine of shipyard life; we have a long haul[out] ahead. There are plenty of projects awaiting this 39.4-year-old boat. Of course, newer boats have their problems too; the newish Leopard adjacent is sorting out puzzling hull coating issues.

Maybe the dogma about the capabilities of new and old boats is a statement of crew competency more than actual capability.

Meanwhile, routines return: revisiting favorite taco carts, getting to know shipyard cat Dulce all over again, and sharing a drink with friends at the end of the day – and in this case, sharing it while we all muddle over older-boat challenges: rebuilding a rudder, replacing an engine, replacing rigging, galley remodel… And the list goes on.

In case you missed it

Last weekend on TOTEM TALKS: our topic was – get weather smart! We’ve heard so many sailors say “the forecast was wrong,” when usually it wasn’t wrong… it was mis-interpreted. Replay this session to hear how to avoid the typical mistakes in understanding GRIBs, and tips for downloading GRIBs offshore.

The post Sailing Totem: Hidden Issues in Older Boats appeared first on Cruising World.

This story originally appeared on Sailing Totem.

The passage was brief; just 250 nm from the middle of Baja to the top of Gulf. We broke it up over three days, spending the first night anchored and the second underway. As miles passed under Totem’s keel, the Sea of Cortez served up some of the best it has to offer, while reminding us of the worst.

Katabatic wind

The worst part, thankfully, was early and brief. This region serves up land-driven katabatic winds that are hard to accurately forecast; they earn every bit of respect you can give them. We knew there would be katabatic wind coming out of Santa Rosalia on Friday morning, and anticipated around 30 knots. Reality: solid 40s with a top gust at 52, right on the beam.

After two hours it abated, and the 20-knot range felt like a reprieve…until it clocked around to come out of the north. Of course, this was the direction we wanted to go. Unpleasant seas often go hand in hand with this wind, especially if current is involved; in the northern Sea, current is frequently involved. But within four hours of leaving the dock, the winds dropped to negligible levels and the seas flattened for the rest of the journey. Eventually, the horizon merged with the sky over geometric patterns of our wake.

Remote anchorages

The first day’s adverse conditions gave us a late arrival to our destination, Bahia San Francisquito. While we don’t like arriving after dark, we’d been here before: Totem’s prior tracks and anchor waypoints, and our familiarity with the bottom composition, made us comfortable slipping in in the dark hours before the moon rose. Not a single light winked out from shore. After the bustle of a village waterfront, the near silence of this bay amplified the smallest sounds: every rasp of water retreating from the rocks, every bird call, every distant coyote yip.

There was no need to rush off Saturday morning: we had plenty of time to go overnight and arrive in Puerto Peñasco before sunset on Sunday. Slow brunch matched the mood, and was the excuse to open a special jar of honey (yes, there are special jars of honey. Check out State Street Honey. Not just special because they are sailors!). Drizzled on cornbread toasted in the pan that fried up our bacon, it was a bit of heaven.

The girls called out from the bow to share critters they’d spotted in the water below. In the drift carved by our anchor chain, a pair of starfish appeared to have been spinning: perhaps they all found tasty treats in the disturbed bottom? Dozens of small stingrays—the little guys that whack you if you’re not careful—fluttered over the sand 20 feet down. A shovelnose shark—then a second—glided and grazed while the sunshine warmed our bones.

Friendly fisherfolk

Anchor up and underway, our northbound track wove between Baja’s mountains and the wild islands just off the coast. Bays we keep meaning to visit fall behind our wake with another promise to return, someday. Passing an island darkly named “Get out if you can”—Isla Salsipuedes—a panga comes charging up, the pangueros whistling to get our attention.

Jamie calls me to the cockpit, because my Spanish is better—but their universal sign for drinking is unmistakable. Agua, water, yes—we can help! Their stash ran thin, but we have plenty, and pass a few gallons filled from our tanks across along with a package of cookies. Would we like scallops? Why, yes, and thank you! With big smiles and gestures of gratitude on both sides, our boats part ways—and a kilo of gorgeous scallops remain aboard Totem.

The respite of being off-grid

Cell towers fade with the lights of Santa Rosalia; the northern Sea disconnects us from our internet tether in favor of connecting with the landscape and each other. Eagerly anticipating an internet break, we remain just in touch enough in contact with our IridiumGO. It’s welcome headspace to ruminate, to make plans, and to just share the space together.

Our progress is so smooth, Easter egg dying is possible. Dye concocted from turmeric (yellow), red cabbage (blue), and onion skins (chestnut) fills glasses nearly to the brim; one at a time, eggs lowered in to be steeped and tinted. They’re baked into a wreath-shaped braided loaf the following morning.

An organizational spurt strikes, and I turn around to find one of our pantry lockers has been emptied and is in the process of being cataloged. As much as wind to sail would be nice, the utter stillness makes it easy to see a distant school of fish, the centric circles marking cormorant’s duck dive or pelican’s cannonball. We look for whales.

On the whiteboard behind them, I spy the note tucked in with the honey: “May it sweeten the day, whether in a perfect anchorage, or heading into short interval seas on the nose.” It did exactly that!

Magical night watch

Northbound in the canal de ballenas—whale channel—we remember the fin whale that surfaced next to our dinghy in this stretch. The blue whale that paced next to us another year. The gray we heard was up this way not long ago. Several whales spotted early on the journey, but back in the windy stretch at the outset was hard to tell their spouts from spume; we couldn’t discern their direction, much less their number or species.

I come up on watch around 10pm after hearing voices in the cockpit. Jamie, Mairen and Siobhan are taking in bioluminescence: striking vibrance in symmetrical shapes that rise and expand and fade. My timing is off and only a few sparklers twinkle our wake. But the millpond sea offers another treat: it is so still, and so dark, that each individual star is reflected in it like a mirror. Gazing dumbfounded for several minutes at the beauty, I go below for my camera at last—only to find in those few seconds that a breath of wind ripples everywhere and the moment is left only to memory. Timing off again!

My watch passes uneventfully, with just a single shrimper. Red over white, fishing at night? This boat is lit more like a Christmas tree, but at least that makes it easy to keep clear! Darkness returns save a faint glow in the east that hints at pending moonrise. While waiting for it to peek over the horizon I simultaneously hear and feel the impact of a whale breaching very close to Totem. The night is so inky, I cannot even tell where it is—a boat length? Two? If there was any doubt, a loud exhale quells it. The whale—or whales?—breach five more times in succession. I listen breathlessly looking out in to the dark, simultaneously thrilled and terrified. The moon lights the surface of the water just a few minutes too late to assist.

Sunrise promises another day of gliding through nutrient rich waters in the northern Sea. We arrive in Peñasco and snap into a new reality. As soon as our anchor is set, jet skiers turn Totem into a target, and our view is a beach packed with holiday frolicking (this is the end of Semana Santa, Holy Week, the biggest vacation time of the year for Mexico).

Lying in our aft-cabin berth last night, the gentle rock of the boat and lap of water on the hull make me prematurely nostalgic. Today we’ll haul out at Cabrales Boatyard again, and will be propped on the hardstand for months. But this bittersweet edge on returning to the bustle and music of Peñasco, leaving our peaceful time afloat, doesn’t even register when weighed against how much we look forward to seeing our friends again. The miles we won’t make this year will wait longer, and meanwhile, the Sea has made us a gift of her finest.

Braided Easter Egg Bread

• 2.5 cups flour
• 2 Tbsp dried milk (optional)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 package / 2.5 tsp dry yeast
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 Tbsp butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 5 raw, dyed eggs (optional)

Warm water, and place in a large bowl with a tablespoon or so of the sugar; and sprinkle yeast on top to proof.

When proofed, stir in 2 eggs and remaining sugar. Add softened butter, 1 c of the flour, milk powder, salt, and beat well.

Gradually add remaining flour, about half a cup at a time, until you have a soft dough. Knead: you can turn it out onto a floured surface, but I usually just knead it in the bowl. It’s easier underway, and less to clean up! When the dough smooth and elastic, it’s ready to rise. If you’ve gathered the sticky bits off the side of the bowl, just add a tablespoon or so of oil and swirl the dough ball to coat it and the sides of the bowl. Cruisers don’t want to use up any more water on dishes than necessary.

Rise until doubled. Punch down, divide in two parts, and let rest for 10 minutes. Then roll each round into a snake, about a yard/meter long. Twist these two snakes around each other loosely, then form a ring – pinching the ends together. Place on a baking sheet (I have a silicone baking mat underneath; without you’d want to grease it). Pull spaces between the bands of dough and slide dyed eggs between them. Let rise again.

Bake. Who has a boat oven that actually can be set to a temperature? Feel lucky if you do! Just get it hot! If you’re trying on land, 350°F should do it. I brushed an egg wash on top; you could also use melted butter. Neither is necessary, but the make a lovely golden crust. Baking times are as ephemeral as oven temperatures, but it’s around 45-55 minutes. The eggs you’ve inserted in the dough bake in the oven to a nice soft-boiled texture.

The post Sailing Totem: Sea of Cortez Sendoff appeared first on Cruising World.

This story originally appeared on Sailing Totem.

Along part of the west coast of North America, hurricane season officially starts on May 15. That’s still just a date on the calendar; it’s unusual to worry about systems in the Sea of Cortez until sometime in August. Even so, we’re sailing north and hauling out next week.

Since learning at the beginning of the year that our engine had …issues, we have intended to get back to the Cabrales yard in Puerto Peñasco. It’s probably “just” a head gasket, but we wonder what other issues are looming after 8,00 hours of running it. It’s been reliable and we’re diligent with maintenance. But that’s a lot of transmission wear. And the seawater pump has recently started weeping. We believe a reliable engine is an important piece of safety gear on board, so it’s time for a Yanmar whisperer (if you know one, get in touch!). This could mean putting our engine into the back of a truck and driving it to San Diego; who knows. Expertise will help us determine if we’ll put money into our 76hp 4JH3-TE (turbo), or if we’ll start researching options to repower.

At a gut level we see this swinging towards a repower (and no, not even for a second contemplating engineless – in case you saw our April Fool’s Day posts on Facebook or Instagram). We would rather not repower further south in Mexico for a few reasons. Not because there aren’t good mechanics here. Actually, there are genius mechanics to be found! So, why the move?

First, we believe the process will be a lot easier with where we can drive new stuff over the border than shipping and importing it elsewhere. It’s only an hour to Arizona from there (Salvador swears you can do it in 45 minutes, we drive… more slowly!) And San Diego may be a good place to sell it for parts, if that’s the right decision.

Second, hurricane season isn’t THAT far off. Cabrales Boatyard is the only hardstand in the Sea of Cortez that is not impacted by hurricanes. Northerly wind events generated up in Four Corners, yes. These usually blow in the 30s, and we’ve seen 50 knots! That that’s not a hurricane. Over the years, historical tracks show tropical remnants that make it that far, and they have even less wind than the northers. Kansas has had more remnant hurricanes than Puerto Peñasco! If you want a safe place to leave your boat, this is it.

Third, that pandemic that’s on? Our family are all now eligible for vaccinations in north of the border. Why wait for our jabs when we could do it soon, as a number of other shipyard denizens have already done?

Fourth, we can visit friends and family so much more easily. Generous friends are again making a car they aren’t using available for us. Having wheels translates directly to quality time stateside to connect with people we love. We SINCERELY HOPE to be headed for remote islands in 2022, so those visits are extra precious. (Look out Castle clan, we are practicing our Chicago rummy!). Pictured here are my parents: known as Poppy and Plug to their grandchildren. Mum is in a residence for memory care, and after many months, Papa can finally visit her in person instead of through a pane of glass or a screen. She doesn’t know our names any more, but she KNOWS US, and it will be really nice to get some time with both of them.

Fifth, the prospect of time on the hard is making us look anew at other projects on Totem. While we refit in 2018 and 2019 with the intention of time in remote corners again (damn you, COVID!) as usual our spending was all on safety and reliability. This time, we’re looking at making a few aesthetic improvements. Totem is pretty scruffy, inside and out; while that’s not a big deal in the scheme of things, we’re all excited about a little spiffing up. I have a half-built workstation. There are two cabins with primer but no paint. There’s a stove on its last legs. Galley countertop wearing through. With help from the crew at Cabrales, we can affordably do a lot of sprucing up.

Finally, and far from the least driving our enthusiasm to get north—rejoining the excellent company of friends at the boatyard. Several of our bubble boats from 2020 are there, and others are coming. Our socializing has been very cautious during COVID, and we are REALLY READY for that to change!

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