Interview on Books and Travel Podcast

A Speck in the Ocean

I'm a big fan of the Books and Travel podcast and was honored to recently appear there as a guest. Listen in as we discuss the joys and challenges of sailing across the Pacific as well why I chose Panama as the setting for my Novel, The Silver Spider.

Happy listening!

What’s the Rush?

One reason we went cruising was to escape the ticking clock. And we succeeded: looking back on our 7000 mile Pacific crossing, I can count the number of times we’ve had to hurry on one hand. So what were we rushing off to in Suwarrow, an uninhabited atoll 2,000 miles west of nowhere? Read more here…

Trash or Treasure? The Sailor’s Book Swap

I was prepared for South Pacific cruising in every way: not only was my sloop low in the water with weeks of supplies, but my electronic reader was filled to its two gigabyte brim. Yet I still found myself inexplicably drawn to book exchanges – serendipitous treasure troves of dusty reading for those long, tropical evenings under a thousand and one stars. Read more here…

Drive-by Surfing

In the shadow of Bora Bora’s spectacular Otemanu peak, I piloted our 35 foot sloop in slow circles. Around and around, around and around the mooring field. Eventually, a catamaran joined us in long, lazy loops off Mai Tai Yacht Club. It was our own aquatic merry-go-round, with cruising yachts instead of horses. Read more here…

A Delicious Diversion

“Area F” is the official waiting area for small boats scheduled to transit the Panama Canal from the Caribbean Sea to the Pcific Ocean. It’s a forlorn little corner marked by one sad wreck, a jumble of forest, and a skyline of cranes in the adjacent port area of Cristobal. Read more here…

The Floor of Heaven

I spotted a lighthouse that looked as if it reached all the way to the floor of heaven…

That’s just one of many great lines in Jimmy Buffett’s romp of a sailing yarn, A Salty Piece of Land. And it’s absolutely accurate, as we discovered upon sailing to the Amédée lighthouse in New Caledonia’s magnificent lagoon. Read more here...

Of Sharks and Shadows

At first, we thought those shadows around our son in New Caledonia’s spectacular lagoon were rocks. Then we saw that some had fins! Read more here…

Happy and Wise

We’ve all heard the poem: I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. The romance of that vision is part of what inspired us to leave the familiar behind and head out to sea. But once we settled into the cruising life, we realized there was another side of it all that appealed as much as those grander things. Read more here…

Canal Ho!

Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three. My finger tapped the horizon. Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six. What had started as a few hulking forms on the horizon became a dozen, and the dozen multiplied… Read more here…

My German Engineer

Lucky me: I have my very own German Engineer husband. He’s very sweet. He never barks orders. He’s the man on hand for anything that goes kaputt – or doesn’t, thanks to his diligent preventative measures. Just what you need for cruising! Read more here…