I’ve been sailing for most of my life. I started out sailing sunfish on Lake Wequaquet on Cape Cod, later graduating to faster, more tender boats like the Sidewinder 16 that Melissa not-so-affectionately named Miss Manners. Eventually we bought our first keelboat – a 1974 O’Day 23 Sorcerer’s Apprentice – named for the many buckets […]
We knew when we bought Windara that a refit was in her near future. Now that we’ve had a couple years on the boat and know her systems and how we use her, we realized it was time. It was SO hard to make that decision, especially since it was one we had to make […]
We’ve talked about taking Safety at Sea for years, and this offseason presented the perfect opportunity to finally do it. This past weekend, we completed a session hosted by the Cruising Club of America at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, and it was a fantastic experience. Prior to our in-person session, we had to […]
2023-2024 Season Stats October 25, 2023 – September 18, 2024 (or October 10, if you count the time we lived on the boat in Belfast) Since we started tracking our miles in September of 2022, we’ve recorded 5,150 miles, and we estimate that since we started living aboard, we’ve sailed at least 6,500 miles. It’s […]
We’ve been living in this odd limbo – not quite cruising, but not quite land-dwellers. After the excitement of dealing with the shaft issue, we spent the weekend on the dock so we could begin preparing to move off the boat. I packed up a bunch of summer clothes that we don’t need, bedding and […]
With provisions secured, we had a wonderful sail through the Deer Isle thorofare, past the lighthouse on Mark Island and over to Calderwood Island. We anchored between Calderwood and Burnt Islands just in time for golden hour. There were more boats there than we were expecting, but we found a great spot to drop the […]
Anchored off Hells Half Acre in the Merchants, I realized I’ve run out of adjectives for the beauty of this place. Hells Half Acre is a small, granite island with a little forest, wild flowers, wild raspberries and a surprising number of birds. The Maine Island Trail Association maintains three primitive camp sites, and small […]
Tuesday morning, we were up early to make the hop down to Little Cranberry Island. Windara felt super sluggish, and we were down about a knot from where our boat speed should be as we motored in the morning calm. We were worried that it might be an engine issue (we’re just past the 4,000 […]
After work, we hauled anchor and raised the sails, bound for the anchorage behind Bar Island. The wind went light, and we eventually had to turn on the engine in order to make it before dark. Normally night sailing isn’t an issue for us, but with the carpet of lobster buoys all along the Maine […]
We left Belfast as the breeze filled in and raised sail off Turtle Head at the end of Islesboro, beating our way to the Eggemoggin Reach. It was a perfect reach through the Reach, and we managed to avoid the minefield of lobster traps. The scenery was amazing, Windara was fast, and it was one […]