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 […]
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 […]
We pulled into our slip on Friday morning, and at first I was so excited to be back. However it was admittedly strange… I couldn’t help feeling a little like an outsider. We’ve been away for so long, and we didn’t really see anyone all day, so it didn’t feel that much different than pulling […]
I’m quite sad to share that our beloved FRIB 330, Squall, left us suddenly this morning around 11:30 am. She passed quickly from a burst seam in the bow. We knew her time was running short – a PVC dinghy doesn’t have a hugely long lifespan when constantly exposed to sun as she was, but […]
We live in a tiny home, and what we bring aboard matters. When outfitting a boat, there’s so much to think of – gear, spares, provisions – and it all takes up space. There are very few things aboard Windara that don’t serve a purpose, and we’re constantly revisiting what’s aboard and what we really […]
We weren’t able to extend our slip at Marker 8, and the Municipal Marina couldn’t take us until Sunday, so we anchored out Saturday night. With the help of our friends, we left just before low slack. Our original thought was to anchor over by the Vilano Bridge, but the anchorage was pretty busy, and […]
This week, I’ve been really stressing about getting everything ready to go. Our original plan was to leave as soon as Chris got back from New York. Normally I would have been ok with this, even though we’d be cutting it close to sunset and the ebb (outgoing) current would be running decently. But we’ve […]
In frustration last week, I started this post with the working title “Sometimes Boat Life Sucks.” (And sometimes, it DOES suck.) I still want to share some of those thoughts here, because the reality is that life, boat or land-based, isn’t always sunshine and roses. I’m struggling a bit with this – I want to […]