Taming The Wimp Within

by John January 1, 2005
The Wimp in his natural habitat

I  have never thought of myself as adventuresome or brave. I don’t like gales offshore and I raise worry to an art form. So when a friend exclaimed, “John, I didn’t think you were afraid of anything,” as I admitted to being a white-knuckle flier, I was stunned.

Fear

by Phyllis May 1, 2007
high endevours

When people, predominately non-sailors, find out that John and I live on our sailboat and cross oceans (well, one ocean—seems we just can’t shake ourselves loose from the North Atlantic), the thing they most often ask is, “Aren’t you afraid out there?”

Discomfort

by Phyllis June 1, 2007

Discomfort is a bad word in our society. Our houses, our cars and our public buildings shelter us so totally from the environment that we rarely feel cold or hot or wet or windblown and, unless it’s a hurricane or tsunami, the weather very seldom stops us from doing what we want when we want.

Badger Sunscreen

by Phyllis January 1, 2009
Badger Sunscreen 30 SPF

So, after years of slathering on sunscreen in order to avoid getting skin cancer, we’re now being told that a number of the chemicals used in these very sunscreens are themselves carcinogens. It just makes me crazy!

Radio Fear

by John February 1, 2009

Morgan’s Cloud was anchored in a snug cove in Maine. We had tied everything down on deck and stripped the headsails from the furlers. Hurricane Kyle was bearing down on the coast with forecast 60 knot winds, gusting higher; no worse than we have ridden out many times before in high latitude anchorages, so we [...]

Antiseasickness Product Hurl-off, Introduction

by John June 1, 2009
ReliefBand and Wrist Point Pressure Bands used to battle seasickness on aluminum expedition sailboat Morgan's Cloud.

Despite my somewhat opinionated tone in many of the articles on this site, there are very few things I feel that I’m really the absolute ultimate authority on. The exception is seasickness. Thirty-five years of blowing my dinner during the first 24 hours of almost every offshore passage gives me the right, I feel, to [...]

Antiseasickness Product Hurl-off, Survey Winner

by John July 1, 2009
A beautiful evening on passage to Bermuda on aluminum expedition sailboat Morgan's Cloud.

In our informal survey our readers overwhelmingly voted for Stugeron as their remedy of choice for seasickness. The following comment from Attainable Adventure Cruising correspondent, Colin Speedie, is representative and especially useful in that he has had a lot of victims…err crew, to experiment on:

Antiseasickness Product Hurl-off, Our Drug Of Choice

by John August 1, 2009
Various seasick medications carried on aluminum expedition sailboat Morgan's Cloud.

Despite the solid win for Stugeron in our informal survey, I have had better luck with Gravol, which is available over the counter in most countries including Bermuda, Canada and the UK, but not the USA. I suspect that this exception is more to do with drug company marketing issues rather than regulatory ones since [...]

Warm Feet, Please

by Phyllis February 1, 2010
Guy Cotten rubber boot

Question: Four of us sailed my 36-ft Moody Halberdier from Buffalo, New York to Rimouski, Quebec in Oct./Nov. last year. The biggest problem was cold feet. Sailing boots with extra socks did not do the trick in -5°C weather. Rubber boots with liners were OK. I’m planning a trip to Northern Labrador next summer. Any [...]

Quality Custom Linens

by Phyllis April 3, 2010
Quality Custom Linens Example

I don’t know about the rest of you, but figuring out how to get bedding to fit the odd size and shape of boat bunks has been an ongoing battle for me.

Medical Kit For The Long Haul

by Colin April 22, 2010
Our medical kit awaiting stowage

As our planned departure date looms we’re as busy as ever finishing off the final touches, and putting aboard the last of the kit for the long haul. And one of the things we have left until the very last minute has been our medical pack, largely because we want all of our medicines and [...]

Warm Hands, Please

by Phyllis January 3, 2011
JHH5-13178_thumb.jpg

A while ago I wrote about how we keep our feet warm when sailing in colder climes. In this post I will address the issue of keeping our hands warm, which aren’t, unfortunately, as easy to please.

The Perfect Seaberth

by Phyllis March 20, 2011
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One of the most important factors in making safe seamanlike passages is getting as much rest as possible. And one of the most important factors in getting enough rest is having a proper seaberth.

We Need Our Sleep

by Colin June 22, 2011
Woman on bow of sailboat at sunset

It’s a funny thing, sleep, isn’t it—too much of it can make us sluggish, not enough and we can come close to collapse. Preparing for a passage, it’s vital to get enough rest in advance, but we find that’s one of the most difficult things to achieve. Resting well in the days before departure should [...]

Don’t Pass The Bucket, Please!

by Colin October 24, 2011
IMG_0464

We’ve discussed the thorny question of seasickness before here at Attainable Adventure Cruising, and all correspondents agreed that it is one of the most debilitating things that can happen to anyone at sea. As they say of seasickness sufferers, ‘first you don’t want to die, then you think you might die, then finally you want [...]

What You Can’t Hear Won’t Hurt You!

by Phyllis November 22, 2011
JHH5II-13906_thumb.jpg

I read an interesting book this summer called In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise by George Prochnik. One thing that I got out of the book is that noise in and of itself increases our vigilance response (a leftover from the days when we were prey). For example, when [...]

Provisioning For Remote Voyaging—Part I

by Phyllis November 29, 2011
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A big part of preparing for an extensive northern trip such as the one we undertook this summer is provisioning. In this case, I had to provision for six months. Yikes! A number of people have asked me how I go about doing this, so here goes.

Provisioning For Remote Voyaging—Part II

by Phyllis December 5, 2011
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In Part I of this two-part series I discussed how I determine what and how much of what to buy. After reading that post I’m sure most of you are shaking your heads at how much time and energy John and I put into food (not to mention writing this much about it!). However, having [...]