A lot of things went right this year too. Here’s a list of things that continued to perform through the (okay fine… second) meanest ocean in the world. Love RK Drums/CBQ Frankenstein Coffee Roaster Kleen Kanteen water bottles Japan Porlex & Zassenhausen - Coffee Grinders (quality) Engel Refrigerators (all three) One of two Keep Cups (may the other rest in peace) Vitamix Convivia We have also added a few things to make Conviv stronger, safer, or more comfortable. ...

Our dear friends have come to the conclusion that it is time to sell the boat that they spent years pouring their love, sweat, & tears into. We were introduced to this marvelous boat as we motored into the V&A Marina in Cape Town. Everybody that I spoke to about it wanted to know more, and lucky for us, our kids made fast friends and we got a tour. We have sailed beside Eva for roughly 10,000 nautical miles and everywhere we went, people referred to her as “their dream boat.” We had the pleasure of spending a year aboard her, cruising from Maine to Grenada and I can attest that Eva is a boat that I will indeed dream about long after she’s found her new owners. ...

This week we follow the kids on their Aquatic Adventure, and witness another one of the crew entering their teenaged years! Ordinary Extraordinary - S01E02 Crêptastic Birthday from Tucker Bradford on (https://vimeo.com). I’m eager for your feedback. What would you like to see more of, less of? Are there aspects of the production that are harder to watch? What did you love? Comment below!

I have been increasingly interested in video and multimedia storytelling lately. I enjoy the new challenges, and hope that the visual experience can expose different dimensions of this unconventional life. This video is a test case for a concept that Vick and I have been discussing for at least 6 years now. Our hope is that it brings to the foreground elements of our life that are ordinary (at least to us) and contrasts those against events and experiences which, though occasionally common, are extraordinary still. ...

Some might say that it is the very definition of madness to winter over in Maine and leave for the tropics as summer begins to burst onto the scene. Those people would be absolutely correct. Nevertheless, that is just what we have done. The trip from Portland to Grenada took us within shouting distance of Bermuda, was entirely upwind, and graced us with a Gulf Stream crossing that was a low scale version of the worst conditions we could have hoped against (wind against current). The first few days had much of the crew horizontal and green. ...

You may have seen this hint of a story, this boatyard photo of Tucker and I, Ruby, and Olive 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 tied our dock lines in Cape Town; our kids were off in a flash to see the kids playing with sticks on another dock. “This is the tiniest boat I’ve ever seen in my life,” said five year old Finn when she first stepped aboard Convivia. It turns out that her boat, built in her backyard, and launched only a few months before was quite a bit bigger. Claude and Jules still had many projects on EVA’s checklists during our time at the V and A Waterfront but still we managed to grab their kids for plenty of fun in Cape Town, shared a bunch of dinners together, and got out on a few excursions with everyone. ...

My Indian SIM card article is still the best performing on the site. So I’m going to go ahead and impart a bit of my hard earned knowledge about SIM cards in Oz, in hopes of a) saving you some time, and b) bumping my pathetically stagnant stats :) Here’s the deal. Telstra has a virtual monopoly here in Australia. If you want tier 1 service, it’s Telstra. They resell capacity to other providers, but they have poor rural coverage and can be oversubscribed (slow data). If you are only going to be in the big smoke, you’ve got some choices, otherwise… you’ve got it, Telstra. ...

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The months in Brisbane have been flying by, and while we have been busy busy busy, it doesn’t seem like much to write about. Our daily schedule has settled into a routine of sorts. The kids started letting us sleep in a bit (8am). We start our day with coffee, and read books to the kids, or catch up on blogs. Somewhere around 11 we get off the boat and after the essentials are taken care of the kids and Vick head to a museum, a park, the pool, or errands and I go off to The Edge to program and look for work. ...

 Unschooling has been getting a fair amount of press lately and, as a result, has become not quite fringy enough for my tastes. In thinking about this mainstreaming of Unschooling and what it means to our families elite fringe status, I have decided that it is time to introduce the world to my long loved and nurtured brain child. World meet UnJobbing. UnJobbing is a way of working that doesn’t mandate or prefer benefits, salaries, desks, meetings or artificial deadlines(amongst other things). UnJobbing focuses on process and passion, but does not supplicate itself to protocol. UnJobbing is about transcending the 9-5 grind. It aims to alleviate the artificial and detrimental effects of grubbing for a raise or promotion, office politics, and the back room deals that errode our actual productivity. ...