If you cross your hands over your heart, hook your thumbs together and fan out your fingers, then you have made the emblem of Albania. I learned this from Greta (Albanian-Italian), who is the wife of Andrea (Italian), who is…

There’s water everywhere!  The streets are flooded and children are splashing into giant puddles.  The sky has swallowed up the sun in a hurry, only to burp out intermittent dark grey clouds of indigestion.  We spent the morning reprovisioning at…

Isn't it funny how you think you're so different from your siblings, until you play a board game together?  My sister, Bonnie, took three planes and a taxi to meet up with us in Slano, Croatia, and that was just…

You know what’s lovely?  The sound of soft rain drops on Gerty’s deck.  Not a torrential lightning storm like the one we had to deal with that terrifying night, but a ballet slipper pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat.  The rhythm makes me…

At 0900 this morning, a military helicopter dropped an Italian marine, equipped in full diving gear, into the Brindisi harbor, about 250 meters from Gerty.  It wasn’t until a floating tank exploded a smoke screen that Michael shouted from where…

Saying goodbye to Spain was nothing compared to bidding Zachary adieu.  I will miss this shoe-centric, lottery crazed, tapas driven, football loving, sandstone sculpted country.  I will miss the sundress wearing people and the people who forget to put their…

There is nothing quite like a downwind sail through the Strait of Gibraltar to make you feel like selling everything and buying a boat was a good idea.  A strong current pushing us along in a 20 knot Poniente wind…

Our ship's log is filled with tired handwriting in the first week of June: June 1 Michael’s watch03:40 Gusting to 29K, put two reefs in main05:00 Wind died, 11K, shook out reefs06:20 Reef one back in, TWS 22K on beam06:45 Reef…

The Azores deserve their movie star name.  The Portuguese archipelago is a place where the dramatic natural environment demands immediate respect, but the unique culture of each isle feels playfully hidden, begging to be discovered.  We have spent three weeks…

On our first full day on Faial Island, the Azores High put the ocean to sleep and woke up the earth. We hiked 22 kilometers, up, down, and around ten volcanoes, not because we planned to, but because the Caldeira…