Sept. 2, 2022. If you click the “Where are we?” tab on the BioTrek-sailing website, you will notice that the GLY World Odyssey  rally boats have left French Polynesia, but we are still in Tahiti. Yes, we have changed our plans and will not move on the with the rally for a New Zealand winter but instead will remain in French Polynesia until next spring. We are not European Union citizens, so this change required planning and applying for a long-stay visa. Since this is our second around-the-world, we decided that we did not want to pass through this beautiful area so quickly. We will explo ..read more

May 5, 2022. Everyone has heard of Tahiti and Bora Bora, but French Polynesia’s Gambier Archipelago is far less known. According to a Polynesia tourism guide, just 40 boats per year stop in the Gambier region. Four GLYWO500 Rally boats sailed directly from Panama (Saga, Pom III, Impossible, and BioTrek). We were among the first boats to arrive since the pandemic closed Polynesia in 2020. There are a few other boats at the anchorage near the town of Rikitea; some stayed here when the pandemic hit, and others are liveaboards, whose owners work on the island. Alert to BioTrek-Sailing YouTube foll ..read more

March 14, 2022. When Pierre and I sailed around the world on BioTrek 1, a Catana 474, we visited the Panama tropical rain forest at Burbayar Lodge. Burbayar is a rustic eco-lodge nestled in the hills of the San Blas region of Panama adjacent to the remote Darien region that extend towards Colombia. It is near where the Pan-American road ends, leaving Panama and Columbia unconnected by land travel. As before, we were picked up at Flamenco marina  for the 2 hour drive to the reserve.  This time our  naturalist guide was Roberto of Ancon Tours who has been doing eco-tourism tours f ..read more

Note to subscribers: Click on the title to read from your email to see picture and video. The final moment as the Mirafloras lock opens to welcome us to the Pacific Ocean is an emotional moment. Especially after the 45 miles of the Panama canal, and three sets of locks done after 2 days.  So interesting but so exhausting! The history, swirling currents, proximity of large ships, the sheer size of the lock  – this is not like the locks on the St. Laurence river that we are used to! Each boat needs four line handlers, the Captain to drive the boat, and an Advisor on board. Pleasure cra ..read more

Panama, March 9, 2022: The final moment as the Mirafloras lock opens to welcome us to the Pacific Ocean is an emotional moment. Especially after the 45 miles of the Panama canal, and three sets of locks done after 2 days.  So interesting but so exhausting! The history, swirling currents, proximity of large ships, the sheer size of the lock  – this is not like the locks on the St. Laurence river that we are used to! Each boat needs four line handlers, the Captain to drive the boat, and an Advisor on board. Pleasure craft, such as BioTrek are rafted together in nests, and stay nested f ..read more

T’was the night before Christmas, but Covid was here,  So we all had to stay extra cautious this year. Our masks were all hung by the chimney with care, In case Santa forgot his and needed a spare. With Covid we couldn’t leave cookies or cake,  So we left Santa hand sanitizer to take. The children were sleeping, the brave little tots, The ones over 5 had just had their first shots. And mom in her kerchief and me in my cap, Had just settled in for a long winter’s nap. But we tossed and we turned all night in our beds, As visions of variants danced in our heads. Gamma and Delta and now ..read more

Nov. 25, 2021. With the end of hurricane season, BioTrek is  now in Martinique and we are ready to  join the Grande Large Yachting Round the World Rally (GLYWO 500) when they arrive in the Caribbean next month. This is where the fleet is now. Our 2022 plan is to sail to Panama, cross the canal to the Pacific side, and head off towards the South Pacific. We hope to spend lots of time in remote locations. We spent the summer hurricane season getting BioTrek in top shape, and we are ready to go! Boats do require lots of preventative maintenance, as anyone with a boat knows. The more pre ..read more

Oct. 31,2021. Oct 29 was our first cool evening in Marigot Bay St Lucia.  We spent the evening at Doolittle’s Restaurant for seafood  dinner and pool (billiards). Surprise! It  was cool on the boat ride back. Not cool enough to need a sweater, but a noticeable change. The cool breeze persisted and it was still cool next morning rather than – well —  not cool (ie less hot than mid-day). It reminded me why we might someday need light sweaters again.  The evening and morning weather has been decidedly  refreshing this week providing a sign that the stronger winter tr ..read more

September, 202, 2021.  Wow – time has gone by so quickly since we sailed to the Caribbean in May!  If you want to catch up with what we did all summer, see our videos on YouTube. Our latest video is about our plans for next year and the Grande Large Yachting World Odyssey, a rally that we joined  (YouTube link is on the home page). Between boat work,  business, volunteer work, YouTube, and more boat work, there never seems to be enough time each day. Pierre is continuously working on BioTrek to do the ongoing maintenance, adjust and repair systems  and make sure is all ..read more

We have all said it: 2020 was a difficult year. It has been difficult for BioTrek too.  BioTrek had to be winterized, something Pierre and I said we would never do.  We followed the rule of three — when three things or more go wrong, change plans. One week before our departure to Antigua with the Salty Dawg rally we decided not to sail to the Caribbean because of  Pierre’s injury,  Covid,  and my father’s declining health.  We travelled back to Canada and the year ended with my father passing away peacefully on December 31, 2020. In some ways 2020 was a year of re ..read more