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This is the story of our brush with Hurricane Elsa. I jumped out of bed and rushed around packing our laptops, boat papers, passports, shoes, warm clothing, a torch, wallets, chargers, battery boxes, and of course my hip flask of rum. I fell asleep easier knowing that if we had to jump out of our […]

How have we spent 8 weeks onboard already? It feels like no time since I wrote our week 3 snapshot. At this point, we’ve only left Bequia for a couple of weekend trips. Most of the cruisers we’ve met have left, or will soon move on. We’re ready to leave too, but we have a […]

I’ve always been a rusher. Hurried. Impatient. I don’t sleep deeply. I find it hard to dawdle (except in supermarkets, when I’m crippled by indecision). I fidget. My short legs seem happiest at a trot. I plan, obsessively, and once I’ve started a plan I work tirelessly until there are results. My life is full […]

N.B. We’ve stayed at Sandy Lane since, to shelter from Hurricane Elsa, so this review effectively continues in a more recent blog. When I had to decide where to spend my first birthday away from home there was only one choice. We had stayed at the Sandy Lane Yacht Club in 2018, a year or […]

We may not have actually stayed at the Mandarin Oriental Canouan, but in our couple of hours there we got enough of a feel for it to put it on our bucket list. When we stayed at the Sandy Lane Yacht Club, we asked in advance whether there were any tours we could do. They […]

The reality of living on a boat is that things break, things go wrong, you get sick, and you get used to cuts and bruises. It’s a reality every sailor has to pass through and settle into as they choose to continue their life onboard. It’s a challenge. But it’s a challenge many of us […]

It might be in Grenada or Guadeloupe. It might be in the ABCs or San Blas. Or it might even be in French Polynesia or the Whitsundays. It could be a week, a month, or years. But we will continue to make connections, and see familiar hulls, and find ourselves stretching out on the sand […]

First of all, thank you. Thank you for all of the support and feedback over the last few weeks. We had to think hard about what to share on this blog. It would be so easy just to share lighthearted stories about exhilarating sails and lazy days on the beach. Photographs of a tropical paradise. […]

We’re now Mirounga’s owners, in every sense. The Thursday after we moved onboard we signed the registration papers, and a few days ago we went into the customs office to register as Mirounga’s crew. We’ve insured her. We’ve replaced her old SVG flag with a new one (and added a fun Bequia flag). We just […]

Designed by British-based architect Jake Edgley, who trained with Sir Norman Foster, Mangwana was built between 2007 and 2010. Apparently, his brief was to “create something with a high “wow” factor that is very comfortable to live in with lots of natural ventilation”. If this is the case, the brief was perfectly executed. We’ve been […]