All articles by Miranda
The Pashouwers meet Tayrona
Author: Miranda Location: Auckland and The Hauraki Gulf When Pete proposed that we set out on an off-shore sailing expedition, I really didn’t know what to expect. I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin- pretty much as far from any ocean as one can get. My previous boating experience consisted of being pulled...
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Home for a Midwest Wedding
Author: Miranda Location: Michigan and Wisconsin I’ve been living overseas for more than eight years now. I can always feel the distance between myself and home. Sometimes the feeling is just there. A benign annoyance that behaves only if fed properly with visits back and Skype dates. But, sometimes it pulls. And nags. And...
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Panama City- prepping for the big push!
Author: Miranda After relaxing in Las Perlas for a few days, it was time to head back to the long to-do list that awaited us in civilization. We jumped back into readying the boat, provisioning, and finishing up all those important items that you just must do before you even think about crossing the world’s...
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Watch us in the Panama Canal!
Author: Miranda Today, is a big day for us as we are scheduled to transit the Panama Canal starting this afternoon. We are currently in Colon, Panama on the Caribbean side. We will meet up with our transit advisor this afternoon and begin the first portion of the canal, going through the Gatun Locks...
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Colon, Panama
Author: Miranda Remember that saying that all Moms teach their kids? “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all?” Well, therefore my feelings on Colon as travel destination will stay pretty short and sweet. We’ve done our best to save money by steering clear of nightly stays docked up at a marina,...
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Crooked and Acklins Islands, The Bahamas
Author: Miranda The anchorage at Clarence Town left a great deal to be desired, so when we heard that we’d be getting only south-east wind for several days (the exact direction we’d need to sail to), we picked the flattest of those days, and shamelessly motored the entire crossing from Long Island to Crooked....
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Following the Wind
Author: Miranda Location: Clarence Town, Long Island So, we may have been slightly ambitious. And probably stupid for even drawing up a route in the first place. But, one has to have goals and a general structure for where to be when on a cruising route, especially when there are hurricane seasons involved....
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George Town, Great Exuma
Author: Miranda Setting sail for George Town means you have to leave the protective leeward shadow of the Exuma island chain, and head out on the big ocean. The Exumas certainly spoil all the hordes of sailors that flock there by offering endless protected anchorages along their western side, all with plenty of beautiful...
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From Bimini to Staniel Cay
Author: Miranda Location: Northern Bahamas We’ve been having ourselves quite a good time tooling around the northern Bahamian islands, and it’s about time we fill you all in on our adventures. After spending a week in Bimini with strong winds, we were excited to shake out the sails and get moving again. And, as...
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Bimini, the Bahamas- our first foreign port!
Author: Miranda So, here we are! In the Bahamas! After making a short, but tenacious, trip across the Gulf Stream to North Bimini Island. We have been anchored here for almost a week, as the winds are blowing like a banshee, socking us in. Let’s start with the trip over- not exactly the smoothest...
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Glow Baby, Glow! (and other tales from the engine room)
Author: Miranda Location: Miami, FL Glow plugs, exhaust elbows, high pressure fuel pumps, injectors, feed pump, throttle cables… all of this has somehow worked it’s way into our daily vocabulary and into my working understanding of how a diesel engine performs. Now, you don’t grow up the daughter of a diesel mechanic and never...
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The Refit: All work and no play…
Author: Miranda Well, there has been some play. But mostly work… It’s fun to get yourself all worked up into some good melodrama sometimes, but let’s be honest. Yes, we’ve been working our tails off lately, but we also took a few days off to entertain our first visitors aboard, and the respite was...
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Fort Lauderdale to Miami
Author: Miranda Our first passage took two attempts, but we are safe and sound in Miami at the moment, so life is good. At about 10:00 am, when the current was at it’s least pain-in-the-arse stage for the day, we backed out of our berth at the marina, which was stressful, but Pete did a great...
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Moving Aboard
Author: Miranda After many struggles, long days of research, tough decision making, and money spent during the process of purchasing our catamaran, the actual closing date was unexpectedly quite anticlimactic. An email from our brokers around midday to say, “All paperwork has been processed. You may now proceed to hand off the keys.” and...
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Bye-Bye Bubu
Author: Miranda Location: Black Creek, WI We really thought we had her! We put in our offer. We bit off our fingernails to stubs- well, Pete did anyway. I just drank too much coffee and talked in short, blurting sentences to anyone I knew about “our offer.” I couldn’t get Pete on...
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Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 3
Author: Miranda Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida [26°8′N 80°9′W] After a quick hotel breakfast (man, having real coffee everywhere is fabulous! I love you Chile, but I will never, ever miss Nescafe), we headed out to meet up with Steve again from the Catamaran company. Steve had three boats to show us, and he never disappoints in finding...
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Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 2
Author: Miranda Location: Jacksonville, Florida [26°8′N 80°9′W] Slept like the dead. What a glorious feeling to be able to sleep horizontally after spending a night scrunched up in a pseudo-inclined airline seat. Went to bed early so we could wake up early and get on the road. We decided to do a long push to...
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Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 1
Author: Miranda Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida [26°8′N 80°9′W] Arrived in Miami from Santiago at 3:50 am and staggered our way back into our homeland. Being in South Florida is the perfect way to slowly transition from South America back to the United States. Sometimes it’s hard to tell that we actually left, as we often find...
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An Introduction to Boat Brokers
Author: Miranda Location: Santiago, Chile His name is Scott, and I desperately want him to be my new friend. He is our broker. Our “buyer’s broker,” to be exact. This is one of those ways in which the boat buying process is actually similar to that of buying a house. Now for those of, you...
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Tied the Knot
Author: Miranda On February 1st of 2014, Pete and I, along with seventy of our gringo friends and family, were part of the greatest party that I have yet seen. We got hitched in Cartagena, Colombia. We actually argued for many months on the location of our wedding. Being what I’d like to think of...
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Why Now?
Author: Miranda I’m sure years from now we will certainly ask ourselves what in god’s name prompted us to quit our jobs, plan our wedding, get married, and leave for a sailing trip set on circumnavigation all in the same 12 month span. Hell, who needs “years from now…” ? I’m already convinced that we are certifiably nut-so....
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Sailing Lessons
Author: Miranda I really had no idea what to expect when we signed up for a package of sailing lessons at a fairly small man-made lake in the next canyon from where we live in Santiago. I think “fairly small” is a generous description as well. When we told our boss that we wouldn’t be...
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