Author: Victoria Bradford

  • ConvivEVA: the crew of Convivia is going sailing on EVA

    ConvivEVA: the crew of Convivia is going sailing on EVA

    You may have seen this hint of a story, this boatyard photo of Tucker and I, Ruby, and Miles in front of EVA, everyone’s dreamboat. We have spent much of the last year and a half with Claude and Jules and their three kids, Noah, Lilo, and Finn. We met the kids the moment we […]

  • Not My Favorite Ocean

    Not My Favorite Ocean

    The Indian Ocean is not my favorite ocean!Perhaps there has been another blog post of the same name; this is not a fun blog post; or a feelings story. This is just a tally; an acknowledgment that our exhaustion after a year and a half of travel is well earned, and a shoutout to the […]

  • All Is Well

    All Is Well

    I’m tucked into the corner of the settee, wedged in with seven pillows so I don’t move and I don’t have to support my own body. The bucket is next to me but I’ve taken my seasick pill and I hope to sleep instead of vomit. The dorade vent that goes under water only drains […]

  • Days to Remember

    Days to Remember

    A few days ago I was told that my dorades were dusty. The next day another person mentioned how dirty my decks were. And yet another person asked me why I had so much crap in my cockpit. All of these criticisms hit me deeply and personally and brought back every single boat insult ever […]

  • Thaispusam in Penang

    We had an Uber driver recently that asked us if we would be in Penang for Thaipusam.  He was part way through forty days of  preparation, fasting, celibacy and not shaving in advance of this important Tamil Hindu holiday commentating the God Murugan,  representing goodness over evil. Because our stay in Penang was much longer […]

  • I Want to See Dragons for My Birthday

    We take birthday wishes seriously in Convivia. We keep presents small and homemade, as the real celebration is in the cake. Cakes are dreamed up layer by layer, often years in advance. Miles wishes for his eighth birthday were a stuffed mouse, a watch, pizza for dinner, and a caramel, chocolate, marshmallow and chocolate ganache […]

  • Can’t Get Home Without Leaving

    We are sailing off the beaten path a bit in Indonesia. We skipped joining a rally and are making it up as we go along. Our pursuit is for language and connection, fresh food, day to day life, green coffee beans, handmade fabric, some snorkeling, and volcanoes. I don’t remember when I first saw a […]

  • Kupang Traditional Market

    “Where are you from?” they ask us. “Where is your home in America?” “How long was your flight?”  It is difficult to answer and it is hard to explain in our few basic phrases. Our home has been only the boat for more than five years and  San Francisco, California is written on the transom, […]

  • BOS -> AKL -> PPT -> BNE -> PPT -> BNE -> PPT -> VAV -> TBU -> NAN -> BNE

    BOS -> AKL -> PPT -> BNE -> PPT -> BNE -> PPT -> VAV -> TBU -> NAN -> BNE

    We were all excited to get to Tahiti of course. The excitement was partially because it was Tahiti and partly because it was one of the few places in the South Pacific that we were pretty certain we could receive birthday presents for Tucker and Ruby.  We anchored by Marina Tahina for a bit and […]

  • A Laundry Tour of the South Pacific

    A reader on a women’s sailing group I’m part of asked if it was possible to sail the South Pacific without washing laundry in a bucket. Laundry was much harder for me than being on a boat for 24 days straight, cooking underway, or  seasickness, and something I stressed out about far more than the […]