My mother-in-law, Elaine, and my Aunt Rita—a.k.a. “the ladies”—arrived from the States in tip-top shape, albeit minus one suitcase. Their missing luggage launched us into Queenstown with an immediate mission: gear up with raincoats, socks, and other essentials at our…

Tramper noun 1. a person who tramps 2.  New Zealand, a person who walks long distances, often over rough terrain, for recreation If you day-hike for ten days in a row, does that make you an official New Zealand tramper?…

Biblical. That’s the best word to describe living on a boat in this kind of weather. It’s been raining hard for four days and nights—but it feels like forty. Everything (and I do mean everything) is wet: the new sheepskin…

When your Kiwi friends tell you not to miss the Cavalli Islands and Whangaroa Bay, you listen. So we detoured north to go south. From our time in this region, there are two things I want to remember forever—and one…

It’s official—our TikTok channel, if we ever had one (which we won’t), would be called Ice Cream Around the World. The name works for us because, first and foremost, we have so much content. Just this week, we sampled frozen…

Hi, it’s me. Sorry I haven’t called. It’s so unlike us not to talk at least five times a week. I have so much to tell you. First, I’ve missed you. I hope you’re warm and comfortable where you are…

Week 1 We were full of energy and happy to be back. Gerty was not even a little worse for wear, so we immediately got to work preparing her for our passage to New Zealand. She splashed within twenty-four hours…

If I were Queen of France for a day, I would toss aside my cumbersome gown in Paris, don my royal sweats, and summon my favorite companions to a countryside château for a game of pétanque. There, amid the vineyards,…

Gerty is resting in the Raiatea boatyard, waiting patiently for her captains to return.“Soon,” I whispered this morning. The word came out in a fog as my breath touched the cold Maine air. Then it floated upward through the autumn…

We put Gerty to bed at the end of April. We undressed her, sail by sail. We bathed her, scrubbing the hard-to-reach places, and lovingly oiled her engines. We even sewed new hatch covers before tucking her into the boatyard…