Cruise of the Ladybug

As promised, I have uploaded a video to YouTube. Lots of wind noise, but it gives you an idea of what our last day out was like!

We are comfortably anchored off a mussel farm in Orchard Bay, Forsyth Island. Here are a few pictures from the delivery cruise. Brian, the ...

Following on from the Day 5 post. we continued to sail under 3 reefed main until lunch time when I struck the main as the wind built to 25 k...

We had a placid day yesterday, with a mix of motoring with no wind and close reaching in light airs. A line of rain squalls gave us a scare ...

Yesterday we sailed for much of the morning and afternoon but the wind disappeared around mid afternoon and only made a brief and tenuous re...

Brian asked me to mention some of our nature sightings so far. On the way up from Opua we found ourselves in a current with hundreds of b...

Rani wrote this morning to say that she was sleeping only 3 hours at a time. I told her that Brian and I could handle the watch schedule out...

It is dawn on day 2 and we are are beating into a very short period swell, dropping into the shallow sharp wave troughs every few seconds. N...

Brian, the new owner, and I departed Whangaroa this morning around 10, clearing the harbour under motor and hoisting all sail for a light a...

Brian, the new owner is on board and we are currently anchored in Whangaroa awaiting a suitable weather window for the voyage up around the...

First let me wish you a very happy and prosperous new year in 2015! It is hard to believe that this is the third Christmas season I have ...

I returned to New Zealand late in November to prepare Ladybug for sale. She had swung around a mooring for 8 months under the watchful eyes...

Sorry to say that we will be taking a break from cruising for a while. We need to go back to work and want to spend more time with our pare...

Just received an email from friends, Jos and Logan, who have a boat moored next to Ladybug in McLeod Bay. They attached this picture of the...

I am now back in Canada, leaving Ladybug in the capable hands of my friends Jo and Rob in McLeod Bay. Preparing her for her extended stay ...

Limestone Island is well named - for it is almost entirely made of Limestone. Once the site of a quarry, it is now managed by the municipal...

Living on board an ocean going sailboat at a mooring and going to 'work' every morning is loses some of its novelty after the first...

We have had two days of rainy weather - the first very windy also and the second very wet. I managed a quick walk ashore on the first day, ...