the blog

  • Tual and Ngurbloat beach

    Tual and Ngurbloat beach

    This is the view of Tual from where we tied up our dinghy to the back of a coast guard boat. Then we climbed over two other boats and had to jump down onto a huge black fender and step up again to get to shore. After we cleared in on Wednesday and said goodbye… Read more

  • Passage to Indonesia

    Passage to Indonesia

    Our autopilot died about an hour after we left Thursday Island. Riki put the spare one in, and it worked, but it was super loud. It sounded like a pinball machine, and we nicknamed it Pinball Wizard (sure plays mean pinball!). We used the wind pilot when we were sailing, but often there was no… Read more

  • Reflections after (almost) one year living aboard

    Reflections after (almost) one year living aboard

    Luz (6) During the past year we flew to New Zealand, and then we sailed to Fiji, and then we sailed to Vanuatu, and we came to Australia on our longest passage, which was 9 days. We saw lots of cool animals. We saw a mama orca and a baby orca in NZ. We also… Read more

  • On the Eve of Indonesia

    On the Eve of Indonesia

    We have been in Horn Island, across from Thursday Island for 5 days now, preparing for the voyage to Indonesia. I’ve been provisioning and pre-cooking meals. Riki fixed our starboard winch and the manual bilge pump. We have been across to Thursday Island 3 times on the ferry: we took Jade to the doctor for… Read more

  • Cairns to Thursday Island

    Cairns to Thursday Island

    Riki met David & Millie on SV Penny Oyster, a British couple in their early 30’s, on the dock in Cairns. They left the same day we did, and we both overnighted to Lizard Island. We ended up buddy boating with them all the way to Cape York, the northernmost point of the Australian continent.… Read more

  • Whitsunday Island to Cairns

    Whitsunday Island to Cairns

    We sailed from Airlie Beach, a lovely town where we re-provisioned, to Whitehaven Beach. We ended up motoring in a narrow channel right through a race for Hamilton Island race week. I was steering while Riki told me where to go. So many boats in a small space! It was stressful! We spent 2 days… Read more