Pacific, 2010. Indian, 2015. 2016 is the year our little crew points across the Atlantic, and we couldn’t be more excited about it!
Yesterday morning we left Namibia, bound for the island St. Helena – about 1,200 miles mostly to the west, and thankfully a little to the north as well (we’re ready to shed our fleece and get closer to the equator again!)…no, this isn’t being posted from our Iridium, I’m writing as we prepare to raise the anchor and will schedule with the last bit of our internet service. Ahead of these mostly-offline-miles, there’s a refresh of look and content on SailingTotem.com.
Most immediately obvious: the banner image at the top of each page was refreshed; the new image of our kids playing with friends on the beach in Comoros captures grabbed me. It captures so much of the spirit and beauty of the way we live! No, not my photo… I was kicking back at the bonfire nearby when this was taken. Credit goes to our then-visitor Armand Dayde (see more of his work at Armandibulle).
There are content updates beyond blog posts as well. Two new areas, Sailmaker SAYS! and Voyaging With Kids are on the main menu at the top of the page. Sailmaker SAYS! Has information about Jamie’s work as a sailmaker: his background, what he does today, and links to some of his popular articles about sails for cruisers. This also describes the process for working with him, for anyone considering working with Jamie on sails. On a testimonials page, quotes and photos are shared from boats Jamie’s worked with all over the world – including links to their sites or blogs, if available.
There second content area expands under Voyaging With Kids. There’s information about the book, of course, with reviews and a couple of peeks inside. But what I’m really excited about is a new page that shares updates from blogging families afloat. There’s a continuously refreshing feed of the latest updates from cruising families (and a few liveaboards) that write about their life on the water, along with a list of those blogs. There are 79 total. SEVENTY NINE! Who says cruising with kids is for a fringe minority?! There are some great stories shared here and I’m happy to help get more people dialed into the breadth of experiences afloat. I sure wish we’d had that kind of input way back in our dreaming/planning days!
Other new content:
Coaching Service. Jamie and I truly enjoy supporting people who want to go cruising. To better focus our time and provide better guidance, personal coaching services are available. Registrations are closed for the next copule of months because we simply can’t deliver good service on the Iridium alone, but we are scheduling now for May and beyond.
Where is Totem? We’ve always had a map to our latest position on Farkwar on the blog. Under the About menu heading, this new location page includes details and links to a variety of methods for finding our position, some close to real time.
Values statement. I want to be crystal clear about how we present information here…for anyone who wonders about “sponsors” (we don’t do that) or advertorials, answers are in the Values Statement, also under the About menu.
We’ll be relatively disconnected for a while – probably until we reach the Caribbean, which should be sometime in late April. We really don’t know! Until then, the Iridium will power our posts: less image oriented, but lots of good stories to share from our adventures afloat. Questions? Get in touch! Messages from the blog will reach us at sea.