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.

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 [...]

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
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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 [...]

What You Can’t Hear Won’t Hurt You!

by Phyllis November 22, 2011
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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 [...]