Our contributors usually send in their posts and articles from their boats, using wifi, a satellite phone, or a local internet cafe.

I correspond with our contributors ...Read more]]> In case you have been wondering, Women and Cruising has no corporate office. Our webmaster Sylvie works on the website and blog from her boat in the Caribbean.

Our contributors usually send in their posts and articles from their boats, using wifi, a satellite phone, or a local internet cafe.

I correspond with our contributors by email or Skype. Gwen and I often discuss and edit her Admiral’s Angle column while chatting via Skype.

Here is where I have been updating the Women and Cruising site this week: the Water’s Edge Internet Cafe in Alice Town, Eleuthera (Hatchet Bay).

There are plenty of diversions: cruisers and locals and semi-locals drop in to check the internet, eat a burger, drink a beer, or just chill out. Yesterday they were watching football.

And after a long afternoon in the “office”, it’s back to the boat and a lovely sunset.

More info:

Become a Women and Cruising contributor: Email kathy@forcruisers.com

Sign up for Skype, to give you another way to keep in touch with your cruising friends, as well as friends and family back home.

The Cruising Compass interviewed Pam Wall, Outfitting Manager for West Marine. Pam is an accomplished sailor who has sailed around the world with her husband, Andy of Andrew Wall ...Read more]]> Throughout the month of November both Blue Water Sailing Magazine and The Cruising Compass is focusing on Fitting Out For World Cruising.

The Cruising Compass interviewed Pam Wall, Outfitting Manager for West Marine. Pam is an accomplished sailor who has sailed around the world with her husband, Andy of Andrew Wall Rigging, and their young children. Pam and Andy have become Fort Lauderdale’s resident expert for all cruisers, motor or sail.

Pam outfits every kind of boat from small sailboats to mega-yachts. She also teaches sailing at the annual Bitter End Yacht Club’s “Women on the Water Week” in the British Virgin Islands. (Pam is also part of the Women and Cruising team, presenting our Women and Cruising seminars at boat shows.)

Here are links to the first three installments on the Blue Water Sailing website:

• Part 1. Rigging
• Part II: Ground Tackle
• Part III: Comfort and Safety Below Decks

Want to learn more?

Visit the Women and Cruising Outfitting Resources page where you can download Pam’s Outfitting Checklist.

Read the current issue of Cruising Compass or search the archives.

Read some of Pam’s contributions to Women and Cruising: What I like Most about Cruising, Galley Advice from 18 Cruising Women

How are you doing with your French in French Polynesia?

I took French in high school and university and I was really looking forward to speaking French again in French Polynesia.

I got out my refresher books and studied mostly every day from Juan Fernandez, Chile to our arrival in the Iles ...Read more]]>

We asked Marcie …

How are you doing with your French in French Polynesia?

I took French in high school and university and I was really looking forward to speaking French again in French Polynesia.

I got out my refresher books and studied mostly every day from Juan Fernandez, Chile to our arrival in the Iles Gambier.

I walked into the Gendarmerie in Mangareva and without hesitation, began speaking Sprench and Franglish!

Having spent the last few years in South America, the Spanish just took over with enough French to confuse speakers of either language.

I’m happy to say that after two months in French Polynesia now, the French is finally coming back.

Of course, the French here has a Tahitian twist to it with many Polynesian words interspersed.

I can generally read signs and brochures and I can carry on a reasonable conversation now.

Many people in Tahiti speak English and they’re very patient with non-French speakers.

In general, however, a basic knowledge of French is very helpful…especially when you can actually get it out of your mouth.

The microwave meals offering beef tongue and tripe …where else would you find these?

About Marcie Lynn

As liveaboards since 2000, Marcie Lynn and her husband, David, have traveled over 50,000 miles to date aboard their Liberty cutter, NINE OF CUPS, visited 27 countries and are 9 years into a 15+ year circumnavigation.

Ports of call have included many ports off the beaten path, some close to home and some very remote. Marcie readily admits that traveling is key to her interest in sailing.  She is now cruising the Pacific.

More info

• Read Marcie Lynn’s blog.
• Check out her website. Read her entries on French Polynesia.

Related articles

• Marcie’s contributions to Women and Cruising:
  Galley Advice from 18 Cruising Women,
  What I Like Most About Cruising
• Language for Cruisers (Admiral’s Angle column #36)
• Kathy Parsons’ mission: learn the language (and teach it to cruisers)

“Let me tell you how Yvonne chooses how we cruise. May I add here she has never taken ...Read more]]>

Gwen Hamlin devoted her April and May 2009 Admiral’s Angle columns to “How We Choose Where We Cruise”. Here the husband of one of the Admirals throws in his two cents:

“Let me tell you how Yvonne chooses how we cruise. May I add here she has never taken me to a place I have not immensely enjoyed in the last 45 years of cruising.

We were heading from Tobago to Venezuela and as we came out into the bumpy ocean she cried, “The bloody wind is on the nose again”.  She changed course and when I awakened to a rollicking sail we were heading North to a new destination.”

- Bernie Katchor, s/v Australia 31

(Bernie’s wife Yvonne is one of the Admirals that contribute to Gwen’s monthly Admiral’s Angle column in Latitudes and Attitudes magazine.)

More info

• Check out Bernie and Yvonne’s website: www.berniekatchor.com

Related articles (on this website)

• Gwen’s Admiral’s Angle column “How We Choose Where We Cruise” – Part 1 and Part 2.
• Take Your Passion Cruising: Birdwatching

How do you choose where you cruise?

Let us know. Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Suzanne Giesemann sent in the following news a little over a week ago.

I knew she had a new book coming out (this one has nothing to do with sailing, yet it sounds very interesting) and I was hoping she might mention something about it.

Suzanne writes:

I was at anchor this evening in Mobjack Bay ...Read more]]>

Suzanne Giesemann sent in the following news a little over a week ago.

I knew she had a new book coming out (this one has nothing to do with sailing, yet it sounds very interesting) and I was hoping she might mention something about it.

Suzanne writes:

I was at anchor this evening in Mobjack Bay enjoying my new iPhone.  Our laptop wasn’t picking up a signal to give us Internet access, but emails were getting through on the cool little gadget.  How cruising is changing with all the new technology!  An email from a friend put the icing on the cake to a perfect day underway:  She had just received her copy of my new book, The Priest and the Medium.  I don’t even have my own copy yet … I’ve only seen the galley proofs on 8 ½ x 11 paper!  There’s no telling when my copies from Hay House will catch up with me as we head north to Canada, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

Next challenge:  getting access to a good phone line to co-host a live seminar on Hay House Radio on June 9th (see www.HayHouseRadio.com).  I know it will all work out.  I’m a firm believer that just because we’re cruising, we don’t have to give up our passion, and what better place to be inspired to write than on the water.

Suzanne’s sailing website is www.LibertySails.com

Suzanne’s writing website is www.SuzanneGiesemann.com.

Read what Suzanne likes about cruising (from the Women and Cruising website).

To read Part One of How We ...Read more]]> You can now read the the current installment of my Admiral’s Angle column in Latitudes & Attitudes Magazine — How We Choose Where We Cruise, Part Two – in the online version of the May 2009 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

To read Part One of How We Choose Where We Cruise, or any previous issue, you can go to the Lats & Atts Archives or the Admiral’s Angle section of the Women and Cruising website.

"The passage from Chile to Iles Gambier, French Polynesia was, for the most part, pretty benign and without a doubt, the slowest passage in our sailing history. No wind ...Read more]]> We’d like to post news from Women and Cruising contributors, so here is our first which was sent by Marcie Lynn of s/v Nine of Cups:

"The passage from Chile to Iles Gambier, French Polynesia was, for the most part, pretty benign and without a doubt, the slowest passage in our sailing history. No wind or contrary winds and currents had us either dead in the water or heaving-to many times, but good spirits and perseverance prevailed. Warming up and shedding layers of clothing as we sailed north from the Roaring 40′s was wonderful. We stopped at Juan Fernandez Islands (Robinson Crusoe) for a week, revisited Easter Island for the third time for 11 days (still awesome) and then experienced a lifelong ambition to visit remote Pitcairn Island. What a thrill! Photos and stories are on our website: www.nineofcups.com. Looking forward now to time in Polynesia as we meet up with the Milk Run folks and head to New Zealand for the cyclone season.”

Just a bump on the horizon, but land ho! Pitcairn Island ahead … 1,455 nm and 16 days after leaving Easter Island.

Marcie and David in Chile in January – Kathy Parsons took this photo while visiting them.

Marcie’s website: http://nineofcups.com

Marcie’s contribution to the “Tell us about your Galley” article: www.womenandcruising.com/galley-marcie-lynn.htm

Marcie’s contribution to the “What I Like about Cruising” article: http://www.womenandcruising.com/about-cruising.htm#MarcieLynn