“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.” Paulo Coelho We…
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There and Back
“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen…yourself,…
An Evening in Donaghadee – Part II
“Man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world…” Ralph Waldo Emerson The first half of our evening in Donaghadee was a pleasant surprise. We were introduced to the quaint town, its unique beauty, and to the kind people who live there. The second half of…
An Evening in Donaghadee
“The Moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” Ashley Montagu Daniel is performing a ‘Yeoman’s Job’ fixing the systems on our boat that must be in good working order to continue our journey next spring. For hours every day, he…
Navigating Scotland’s Crinan Canal – Part 1
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” C.S. Lewis We knew we were sailing on borrowed time in the Scottish Islands. When you venture up north of the Irish Sea toward the end of September, the weather is bound to be cold; storm systems can become more prevalent….
Sailing Scotland in 2020 – Part II
“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.” Lord Byron It seemed the Irish Sea was making sure we were worthy to travel through her beautiful string of Scottish Isles. Our first two weeks were fraught with howling…
Sailing Scotland in 2020
“The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths, it has its pearls too.” Vincent Van Gogh Finally. The doors to our sailing lives reopened. For 11 months, our boat sat in the harbor in Bangor, Ireland. The surrounding countries had…
Sailing Interrupted – Living in a Foreign Country During Covid – 19
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this…
The Magic of Ireland
The Prediction Two years ago, my sister-in-law and I were strolling along the streets of Portland, Maine. Dan and I had sailed Equus up the East Coast to Maine. We had the great fortune of arriving in Portland the same two weeks my family was there on vacation. Kathleen and I may have popped…
Trapped in Portugal by Covid-19
Two years into our ten-year circumnavigation, we have learned that future plans are about as solid as the shifting sand of an hourglass. We do our best to research and plot our travel based on weather, seasons, tides, and advice from more experienced sailors. We understand the best-charted plans of sailors can be…