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…

Dear Future Michael, About this time last year we lay in our bed in Irvington, New York talking about what it would be like to cross an ocean in our sailboat, Gerty. “There will be more stars than sky,” you…

Our plan is to chase the sun.  As we travel north, each change in latitude will bring us a longer day on our first trans-Atlantic passage.   When Michael and I got engaged, we couldn’t wait to be married.  When we…

Estamos esperando nuestro avión en el aeropuerto de Tampa, Florida para regresar a Puerto Rico y Gerty.  Estoy pensando en la última vez que estuvimos allá.  Una noche especial, fuimos a un restaurante- La Cueva Del Mar en Puerto Del…

The acapella version of Redemption Song by Bob Marley & The Wailers, as sung by the staff at The Fig Tree Restaurant on Bequia Island played in my head throughout our passage to Culebra.  I couldn’t have asked for a…

Six weeks in the Grenadines have passed in a hot minute.  Looking back, it has to be the kiting that made the time go by so fast.  We have been courted by those oversized colorful sails in the sky.  They…

Sailing away from Union Island towards Tobago Cays in twenty plus knots of ENE wind, I am shocked that we were kiting this morning in this monstrous breeze.  Gerty is heeled over and bouncing around on the waves, so how…

The moon was just shy of full and that burnt island smell was in the air when the siren interrupted the sound of lapping water against Gerty’s hull.  It’s not often we hear a police boat anywhere, let alone in…

This lifestyle is going to take some getting used to.  You would think the major adjustment for us would have been the no house, no car, no 9 to 5 job thing.  However, it’s not that.  It was, and remains…