Challenges of living off the grid

A lot of times, watching cruisers talk about their lifestyle, whether it be on Youtube, blogs or Instagram, it is easy to believe that theirs is a happy, perfect life of luxury, full of sunset cocktails, jumping dolphins and warm turquoise water. But to be honest, would you be in the mood to take a […]

Humanitarian work aboard Southern Cross 4

This month, we were delighted to talk to Australian cruisers Merv and Sharon Stevenson aboard Southern Cross 4 about house church humanitarian work that they have done over the course of their lives. We met them in San Diego where they are advocating for homeless people to get off the streets. There are many factors […]

A tour of the Sea Shepherd vessel M/V Farley Mowat

On the San Diego Embarcadero, we had the opportunity to tour the Sea Shepherd vessel M/V Farley Mowat while it was in transit to the northern Sea of Cortez to participate in Operation Milagro 4, a campaign to protect the endemic vaquita from poaching operations. Vaquita are a species of porpoise that as of 2018 […]

A month of boatwork

It is September, and Monsoon has been at anchor in San Diego for the past month and a half, both of us hard at work making upgrades to and maintaining our boat. We haven’t given ourselves the opportunity to sightsee yet, and the daily obligation of boat work is starting to burn us out. So […]

Boat work, week 1

The weather has been swelteringly hot in San Diego. The cockpit cover has been up, the hatches have been open and our fingers have been crossed in hopes of a cooling breeze flowing through Monsoon. We can see the Coronado Islands of Mexico from here, and we know that the time is coming for us […]

Catalina Part 3: Avalon

Truth be told, we were not looking forward to Avalon. True, it is the main town on Catalina Island, but we also heard that it is overcrowded, expensive, and without any good anchorages; all the viable spots have been filled with mooring balls. So with that in mind, we planned to stop by to see […]

Catalina Part 2: Little Harbor

“Ahoy Monsoon! You might want to have a look at this!”, the captain of our neighboring boat; Pearl called out to us in a measured way one afternoon. We were still anchored in Catalina Harbor, procrastinating on sailing off to our next destination since we had been enjoying this comfortable anchorage so much. Travis popped […]