Health/Comfort

Family happiness and crew morale are vital for a successful voyage. During the last three years, while living aboard and sailing 36,000 miles on "Sila", a Boréal 47, Molly Barnes and her family have come up with "The Three Keys To Cruising Happiness". Complimentary Post

For cold weather sailing we figure we have foul weather gear, the clothes to go under it, as well as boots and hats, pretty much sorted out, but gloves have remained a challenge...until now.

A little tip that can make a big positive change to your quality of life when voyaging in cold climates.

Phyllis shares tips about the gear we use that makes hiking such an enjoyable activity for us, from woodland trails in Nova Scotia to wilderness scrambles in Greenland to non-technical (small) mountain climbs in Norway.

One thing we have a ban on aboard Pèlerin is going around the decks with no shoes. Stubbed toes can easily be badly damaged, as I found out one night in a pitch-dark harbour when another yacht announced that they were coming alongside by the simple expedient of slamming straight into the side of us. Leaping [...]

A while ago I wrote about how we keep our hands warm when sailing and a number of commentors mentioned they really like Sealskinz gloves. Well, when something gets that much good press, who are we to argue? So we went ahead and bought ourselves a pair of Chillblocker Sealskinz gloves. And yes, you all [...]

Okay, you have your medical kit, but what about medical insurance? Colin discusses options in light of an injury he suffered when working on their boat.

In our Warm Feet, Please post of several years ago, we mentioned that we had purchased Dubarry Ultima boots and, after several years, were impressed. At that time, however, we weren't ready to commit to anything until we had given them a thorough testing. Well, we’ve used them now for 5 years and we’re still in love [...]

Question [edited for brevity]: I did a quick search on your site, but didn't find anything discussing foul weather gear. I’ve researched all lines and all levels of gear—West Marine, Gill, Henri Lloyd. I'd like to think this stuff may last me 10 to 15 years with proper care and avoiding snags anywhere on the [...]

John and I have been ardent fans of Maui Jim sunglasses for many years and many pairs. Their glasses get ever lighter in weight and more comfortable and their lenses get ever better at cutting glare on the water (we prefer their super-thin polarized glass lenses in gray). However, John’s last pair had a problem: [...]

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 [...]

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. Before I get into that, though, I have [...]

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 the wind [...]

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 [...]