While cruising, there are moments of absolute joy and splendor where we can’t believe how lucky we are to be out here in our floating home in these amazing places… And then there’s those times when we think, what did we get ourselves into, and the saying, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” seems […]
The summer heat is in full-force here in Baja Mexico. Highs are regularly in the high 90’s F (about 37° C), with the humidity and dew point making the “feels like” temps reach between 105-110°+ F (40-43+° C). Those temps, combined with the very, very still air, make for some pretty brutal conditions. So how […]
“Stop! The boat just broke!” Those were the words that I yelled out to Ty from the bow of Varuna at about 10:30 PM this past Saturday night… Not the way we had expected our night to turn out. We had just said goodbye to life near shore after a week or so in Santa […]
Hey guys! Since we are getting very close to setting sail and leaving our familiar, everyday world behind for the open ocean, and new landscapes, I thought I would share with you a bit about how we are preparing. We are hoping to be as self sufficient as possible, so that we can truly relax and enjoy […]
Hey guys! As promised, here’s an in-depth look at how we replaced our halyard, and more importantly, figured out how to splice line! We had a really tough time trying to put an eye splice in the low-stretch sta-set line. We tried multiple kinds of fids and struggled and struggled! Eventually we found the Splicing […]
Out of all of our preparations for cruising, deciding how to get our weather and stay in touch when offshore was one of our biggest debates. There are multiple options for this, with a wide range of price tags attached. The options we have been debating between are: SSB (Single Side Band Radio) Initial Cost: $5000-$6000 Recurring […]
Safety… How to get the right gear, and not go overboard… Literally, and figuratively. That’s what we’ve been struggling with lately… Well, the figuratively part at least. In this day and age, technology has come so far, and there are so many options for safety equipment – EPIRBs, to PLBs, MOB beacons, and satellite communications are […]
We are starting to work on Varuna to get her all ready to sail South! Join us as we start to get our hands dirty and get our first taste of boat projects! We start small, with some easy and fun projects… Giving Varuna a good wash down, getting our dinghy and measuring our anchor […]
Hi All! We have been working hard and staying busy these past few weeks, spending all of our energy and time working on boat projects, selling the condo and preparing the boat and ourselves for the journey ahead. In the mist of all this, we finally got a chance to get the video update out! In this episode, […]
It’s that time of year… boat show season! We kicked off the season visiting the Portland Boat Show on opening day in mid-January. Since Portland isn’t a huge sailing mecca, the show was strongly geared towards powerboats and fishing boats. We wandered up and down all of the aisles, staring at the shiny motor boats wondering what […]