We spent our first 6 days in Tonga acclimating ourselves back to boat life, cleaning the bottom, and starting the myriad of small projects we brought the parts for. When we sailed from New Zealand to Tonga, we discovered a few issues that would require us to haul out in Tonga. Thankfully, there’s one boatyard…
A good anchoring system is crucial for a cruising sailboat. We rely on our anchor system to keep our boat, our possessions, and our lives safe. It also has to be convenient. While a chain counter is not essential, it makes our lives a little bit easier by ensuring that we have the proper scope…
The last bottom job we had was at Nanny Cay in the BVIs in November 2015. As that was our first bottom job, everything was just given a soft cleaning and then paint was applied over the existing stuff. We were launched in Nanny Cay on November 27th, 2015. When we hauled SH out at…
Our first issue with our cockpit fridge was that it wouldn’t turn off. Despite the fact that the switch was turned to off, we could still hear the compressor switching on to cool down the fridge. Our solution was to pull out the fuse so the fridge stopped receiving power. We didn’t realize it at…
Most boats cruising the South Pacific Islands come down to New Zealand to hide out from cyclone season. With easy access to the international airport in Auckland and plenty of marine services, it’s no wonder most cruisers haul out in Whangarei. Why We Chose Norsand Boatyard There are several boatyard choices in Whangarei. We did…
After about a year of sailing our boat, we noticed that the top two battens on our square-top mainsail were not popping to the right curvature of the sail. What are Battens? Battens are long thin strips of a hard material – in our case, fiberglass – that are designed to help the mainsail keep…
We’ve been really putting the pedal to the metal in Grenada. Our visit to the main island of Grenada has only been two stops: Grenada Marine and St. George’s, and we know we are missing out on plenty of interesting things to do in Grenada. Knowing that we have major miles to go in the…
Even straight from the factory, one of our deck hatches leaked. That meant that early into our cruising life, I learned how to pull out the hatch and re-bed it. Remove the screws in the frame. You might notice that the screws are not all the same. Be sure to keep track of what screws…