It’s the time of year when many magazines compile their top ten lists. So we decided to make our own list. What conclusion can we draw from 2011’s list of most popular posts on the Women and Cruising Blog? Perhaps only that we women cruisers are a diverse group – as concerned about the practicalities (shampoo!, dinghies!, finances!, seasickness!, pressure cookers!…) as we are about the experience of cruising.
So check out this list. Perhaps some of these posts slipped by you this year. Add your own comments to these posts so that future readers can benefit from your experience. And while you are at it, put on your to-do list for 2012: Write for Women and Cruising!
Here are the 12 most-read posts on Women and Cruising in 2011.
We are still year round boaters and consider from time to time when we might head off again for a year or more of sailing. Currently work beckons and so we enjoy Witchcraft, sailing when we can in the Thousand Islands Region. It sure could be worse.
There is lots of good company here, many interesting boats and a boat builder specializing in Fire and Rescue Boats, some of which many of you may have seen in action.
“What would we do differently when we strike off again” is a question — or perhaps a series of questions.
Did we enjoy our travels? Was it worth it? Would we do it again? Are there things we would do differently? The answer to all of those questions is ABSOLUTELY.
In their new book Cruising conversations with a daring duo! Corinne and Chuck Kanter delve through their 30+ years of sailing experience, especially their 15 years as full-time liveaboards. In this memoir, they share their learning experiences, the wonderful people they met, and the joys of the lifestyle outside the proverbial box.
The following excerpts are from the chapter “Woman to Woman”.
My life style
Cruising was a new way of life for us and our family. It bore little relationship to anything we ever did before and totally shook up our three children. Sure, we had plenty of family sailing, racing, fishing and other outdoor activity, experience, but living aboard and cruising? Decisions, decisions, some of the considerations we had were, think about selling the house or renting the house, unloading stuff to kids or relatives or storing goods.
Beginnings
We began as weekend sailors with our three small children and a trailerable sailboat.…Read more
There’s no two ways about it: being out at sea changes me.
It’s hard to write about this without streaking off on a tangent of froth.
To an artist, the sea is a moody canvas of light, texture, color and motion to capture, but to a sailor, it’s more than that. The surface of the sea is a living membrane between two worlds.
Both have oxygen and carbon, light and darkness, calm and tempest. Both worlds move fluidly, even if the creatures that move within them at times seem clumsy.
Offshore, the boundary between sea and sky is delineated by density, gravity, a 360-degree horizon, and by the form that water takes—mostly vapor in one, mostly liquid in the other. …Read more
One of the things I want to ask other women about is going up the mast.I feel silly about it because twenty years ago I was adventurous and really liked heights and was into rock climbing! But over the past few years I have become fearful of heights and no matter how much I tell myself that I am being ridiculous and that it’s totally safe and that I normally love this stuff, my body freaks out. I shake and lose control and get dizzy and disorientated.
I feel like an idiot! I am an artist and I have nearly fallen off of ladders working on murals. It’s getting quite annoying and I don’t know why my body reacts this way when my mind it telling me it’s all fine… Of course I am concerned I will have to go up the mast at some point -I tried once and froze and it was humiliating.
Elli wrote us to say thanks for all the support and inspiration she has received from Women and Cruising, and from our 12 Sailing Families.
Back after a year’s cruise, her log book entries vividly bring back the reality of cruising. Part 1 of this 2-part post was published on Oct 14.
5. Buenos Dias! – Luperon, Dominican Republic
‘In an island nation whose economy is driven by agriculture and tourism, it’s perhaps not surprising that poverty is real and evident in every small town and village we have driven through.
Yet by all appearances, this is also a country that is also able to provide for its people in ways that we have not encountered since our trip began.
This is a country of warm, happy, constantly smiling people… Music and laughter flows freely and everyone, young and old, is always eager to lend a helping hand.’ …Read more
Our nine months at sea proved to be both challenging and rewarding in ways none of us could have imagined.
(Straus Family Aboard WIND OF PEACE – Baltimore, Maryland)
My name is Elli Straus. My husband and I pulled our two daughters out of school three years ago this October and sailed for the better part of a year on our 42ft. Beneteau, Wind of Peace.
Our adventure began in Baltimore, continued down the East Coast, through the Bahamas chain, the Turks and Caicos islands and on to Luperon in the Dominican Republic where we spent five weeks before turning the bow back towards home.
Much like the twelve featured families on your website, we left wondering if this was something we could actually do, and returned thankful for an experience that will remain in our hearts forever. I kept a daily log of our journey and took hundreds of pictures for good measure.
Since returning, I have faithfully followed Wendy Mitman Clarke’s adventures on Osprey, often weeping with the strength of the memories they conjure.
I am writing to you this evening to offer long overdue but heartfelt thanks for your wonderful website.
I have turned to it often, first looking for advice and resources when we were in the planning phase of our trip …Read more
I’m a sucker for a well-told tale, and Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche is just that. Decades ago, sailing sagas were told by weathered men sailing solo on distant seas; today they are told by the women convinced to go along.
Not unlike Janna Cawrse Esarey’s Motion of the Ocean, Swept is the true story of a young woman who falls for a guy who has a dream of sailing the world. She doesn’t know he has the dream when she falls for him, and, when he falls for her, he doesn’t believe her when she confesses she is deathly afraid of the ocean.
Somehow love counterbalances terror just enough to get her aboard for passage to the South Pacific
Torre’s fears are realistic, and her experiences — good and bad — are as well. …Read more
Heading Home: The start of our return to port, before we knew we’d be seeking shelter from the storm! [Photograph by Ann Marie Maguire]
We sailed into our home port of Belfast, Maine, after two weeks of cruising just days before Hurricane Irene made land fall in North Carolina. We spent the winter refitting and living aboard our Bristol 24, Mama Tried, but the previous two weeks were the first cruising either of us had done.
We hadn’t intended to return to Belfast, but our engine was overheating and a chainplate had wiggled its way along the hull and created a nasty gash in the deck, not to mention tickling our nerves a little. We had decided to delay our lives as transient boat hippies just a little longer to make the repairs, when caught wind of Hurricane Irene stewing far to the south of us. Just as well, we thought, as we pointed Mama Tried for home.
Upon arriving in Belfast, we were a little surprised to find the harbor, which is a small but busy one in Maine’s Penobscot Bay, was sparsely populated.
I will be offering a SPANISH FOR CRUISERS webinar through Seven Seas U September 26 – October 17 (6 online evening classes on Mondays and Thursdays)!
If you are cruising to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, or Spain this season, this course will give you an excellent jump start on Spanish.
You will arrive in country knowing the most important words and phrases for the sorts of things we cruisers do – clear in and out, fix the boat, shop the markets, travel inland, chat up the locals. Plus you will have learned the building blocks that allow you to build your own sentences to meet your needs.
Hurricane Irene – August 23, 2011 – 21:45 UTC – Photo Goes East
As readers prepare for hurricane Irene, we are re-printing a story that Pam Wall wrote about going through Hurricane Dennis in the Abacos.
In it she shares a list of things to have aboard to help you prepare as well as a checklist of preparations to make as a hurricane approaches.
Several years ago we were in the Bahamas for our summer vacation. It was early July and we had not been worried about hurricanes at that time of year.
But, good old Bertha didn’t look at her calendar! We were in White Sound, Green Turtle Cay, in the Abacos at that time. Our family of four plus our dog were aboard, and while we were all a bit frightened, we were proud that we had stayed aboard our boat, Kandarik, a Freya 39. Bertha did her best to ruin the islands, but thankfully there was not much damage.
And now, just two weeks ago, we were again in the Abacos, and as our luck would have it, Hurricane Dennis came out of nowhere and tested our wits again.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami predicted it would go to the East of the Abacos. When the Northeast seventy-plus knots of wind died for about fifteen minutes and the wind veered to the Southwest with a vengeance, we knew the NHC was wrong and the eye of the hurricane had come over us. And this was our vacation!
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We are still year round boaters and consider from time to time when we might head off again for a year or more of sailing. Currently work beckons and so we enjoy 
In their new book 
It’s hard to write about this without streaking off on a tangent of froth.
One of the things I want to ask other women about is going up the mast.I feel silly about it because twenty years ago I was adventurous and really liked heights and was into rock climbing! But over the past few years I have become fearful of heights and no matter how much I tell myself that I am being ridiculous and that it’s totally safe and that I normally love this stuff, my body freaks out. I shake and lose control and get dizzy and disorientated.
‘In an island nation whose economy is driven by agriculture and tourism, it’s perhaps not surprising that poverty is real and evident in every small town and village we have driven through.
![Heading Home: The start of our return to port, before we knew we'd be seeking shelter from the storm! [Photograph by Ann Marie Maguire]](http://www.womenandcruising.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Robin-McCarthy-Irene-2.jpg "Heading Home: The start of our return to port, before we knew we'd be seeking shelter from the storm! [Photograph by Ann Marie Maguire]")
I will be offering a 
