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Category: STORIES What if you are “empty nesters” over the age of 50, and want to go sailing off into retirement with your spouse. Are you afraid you will seldom see your children? Will you miss spoiling the grandchildren and watching them advance through the stages of childhood?  Nothing can stop a woman from reading! Reading served to fuel my determination that one day I would go cruising. My wish finally came in 2006 after finally having a little space between children’s final exams. Our six children are spread over a large range, and for many years we were constantly preparing one of them for high school graduation. The break came and this was my …Read more  Imagine this…You are one week out on a three week trip and you realize that funky odor is coming from your trash and there is no place to toss the bag and get it off the boat. Okay, I might be a bit obsessive about my trash and I admit it, but I come by it …Read more  Recently, a big hubbub was made in the national news about a family of five – the Craftons – who completed a circumnavigation aboard their sailboat! To landlubbers who are unaware of the global cruising community, the Crafton family’s circumnavigation seemed so audacious a thing to attempt, that it must be singular, so unfamiliar, it must …Read more  I always thought that my fellow female cruisers experience the cruising lifestyle in a sort of similar way. That is, have similar expectations, apprehensions and passions. That fears they experience, the interests and dreams pursued and the skills obtained, would be generally the same. So, I asked some questions. In fact, I asked all the lady cruisers I had …Read more  We are so excited! A project in the making for almost a year is finally coming together! We call it 12 Questions to 12 Sailing Families, and the first contribution – the story of sv New Life and the Echenard Family of three from Switzerland — is already in place. Rich with …Read more  When our family of 4 began our exciting transition to the cruising life aboard our 35′ Cal Cruising Windfall in November 2008, we had everything planned out. We would explore Mexico by skimming lightly off our savings if we needed to, but the monthly interest that we received off our conservative investments would be the …Read more  On even the most perfect weekend afternoon, we see only a handful of empty slips; most boats jostle restlessly in place like drunken tombstones. Smart, motivated, and capable people own these craft: doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, teachers, engineers, etc. They’ve sacrificed and saved and dedicated significant resources for years to buy, berth, and maintain their boats, yet …Read more  Through a sequence of connections it would take a page to recount, I’ve come back in touch with a cruiser I first met in a group of West Coast sailors getting ready to leave for the South Pacific from Puerto Vallarta back in 2003. A series of maintenance problems cropped up and kept Nick and his …Read more  I have learned from many sailors over the years, but none so much as the years I spent in the cockpit of my father’s ‘old classic woodies’ on the Great Lakes. Being the youngest of 5 and having lost my mother to her nursing career, I tagged along behind the Captain (my father) and learned by …Read more  In 1998, we purchased our first real cruising boat, sailed quickly from Tortola to Venezuela, and began converting her to a floating palace. We figured it would take just the four months left in the hurricane season to make the boat perfect, then we’d cruise back to St.Croix for the winter. Tony and I each had over …Read more  In April, Betsy Morris wrote about the division of boat jobs aboard Salsa (Boat jobs: Pink or Blue? Betsy Morris’ Confession). She wondered how other cruising couples divided up the jobs and whether they were happy with the result. Marcie Lynn commented here. Following is Meri Faulkner’s response. I have …Read more |
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Blog • Sponsored by Kathy Parsons, author of Spanish for Cruisers and French for Cruisers |
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