community

Women Who Sail Who Write: our writing group is six months old!

Cover photo for the group – nuts and bolts and screws for when we screw up! (Taken at Minney’s Yacht Surplus in Newport Beach)

Back in November when we were anchored in San Diego I was feeling the effects of being on the move, without a solid group of friends or colleagues around me. I wasn’t getting much time to myself or to talk through stuff with friends, and, although I’d hoped to keep up my daily writing habit when we left Vancouver, it was hard to find time between sailing, provisioning, laundry, route planning, boat jobs, parenting, socializing, and exploring all the new places we were traveling through. I’ve been a member of the amazing Women Who Sail Facebook group and a couple of its sub-groups for a few years now – such great sources of knowledge, support, and advice – and after seeing a few comments about writing from other members, I realized what I needed was totally within reach:

A virtual writing group! Continue reading “Women Who Sail Who Write: our writing group is six months old!”

Little angels in paradise: haircuts, kids, and magic moments

Nobody was inside the hairdresser’s, and the woman sitting outside, twiddling her hair and focused on her phone, didn’t look too impressed that I´d interrupted her to ask if I could come in. It´s a long time since I´ve had a haircut in Spanish, and she was equally unimpressed by my almost useless efforts to describe what I wanted. She kept showing me pictures in a worn magazine and I kept showing her photos on my phone and eventually after a lot of confused, unimpressed looks, she shrugged: “Un bob clásico, es un bob clásico”. To get things moving, although I was already wondering whether it might be better to leave before anything went horribly wrong, I agreed that a bob clásico would be just fine. She didn´t seem like someone who wanted to make small talk and we settled into a slightly awkward silence. I sat there feeling uncomfortable and she stood there looking grumpy and we probably both just hoped the whole thing could be done with as quickly as possible. Continue reading “Little angels in paradise: haircuts, kids, and magic moments”

Endings and beginnings

So 2016 is coming to an end and what a year it’s been.

We are delighted that this was the year we finally got Illusion up to British Columbia, were able to live-aboard as a family for a while, started exploring the amazing Salish sea, and shared some great sailing and boat-based social times with friends, old and new. Summer feels a long time ago now, but wow, we had some brilliant local trips and started to get the hang of sailing with a little one. We didn’t do a great job of updating the blog, but our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages are usually fairly current, and perhaps over Christmas we’ll add some videos or posts about our time in Desolation Sound and other beautiful places round here! We’re excited to gradually get to know more boat-people in this area and are especially impressed by the hardy liveaboards who brave the winter here, despite a lack of official support for long-term anchoring in False Creek and nearby beaches, and manage to keep cheerful too. Everyone should have a few (friendly) pirates in their lives! Continue reading “Endings and beginnings”

Stormy seas and safe harbours – lessons in community

Pacific-storms — Storms in the Pacific. August 2015

Forecast-Mon-7Sept2015 — Three hurricanes in the North Pacific!

Back in 2013 when Doug was solo-sailing from the Marquesas to Hawaii, and wondering whether to just carry straight on up to Vancouver, he heard radio check-ins from a couple of boats doing that journey who were having a pretty rough time of it. Rough enough for him to realize that he should call it a day for that season’s sailing, leave the boat on Oahu, and get himself up to Vancouver for some much needed rest and shoulder surgery. He’s mentioned those boats a few times while we were working out whether he could sail to Vancouver this summer, not wanting to leave any later than the end of August if at all possible. The last few months have been all about trying to get the engine fixed, while simultaneously prepping the boat to be ready to set off. As the end of August approached, and with the engine really close to working properly, things were still up in the air about whether Illusion was going to be leaving the harbour. Continue reading “Stormy seas and safe harbours – lessons in community”

Raivavae

After the drama of the anchor dragging we settled into an amazing week on the island of Raivavae, a place I’d never even heard of which suddenly became home to us. Mostly we were working on the engine or trying to do other boat jobs to prepare to set sail so we didn’t see the stuff tourists go for – beautiful beaches off out by the reef, mountain walks with incredible views, diving, snorkelling, canoeing. Apparently that’s what tourists do anyway, when tourists visit. Chez Linda, the attractive pension run by the lovely Linda and John, where John and Deb were staying, organized all that kind of thing, along with lending bikes and cooking delicious meals. In the time we were there, though, I think only two other couples arrived. Interestingly there was a lot of local opposition to the airport being built thirteen years ago and you still get the feeling that, despite being welcoming and friendly, this is an island that is quite happy to not be inundated with visitors.

Continue reading “Raivavae”

Above all else, it’s the Wind…

Everyone talks about the wind here in Rapa. There are few places one can go to get away from it. Today a few of us went on a walk into a valley facing west, looking out onto the “Pacific” (anything but pacified around Rapa) towards New Zealand – a world of experiences away now, even though we departed less than 2 months ago. Walking in a stream in this valley, I suddenly became aware that the sound of the wind was not with us. That ever constant, gale-force roaring had dissipated and I could hear only the gurgling of water pouring down its rocky bed.
Continue reading “Above all else, it’s the Wind…”

I’d always thought of sailing as quite a solitary occupation – days out on the ocean with just the wind and the waves, all the time in the world to think and dream and wonder. So it surprised me to hear from Doug that one of the things he most loved about his past years of sailing were the people of all ages he met along the way and the sense of community they shared. Continue reading “Community”