About Priscilla
I've been sailing on yachts over 30 feet since 1977, logging some 110,000 sea miles, with 5,500 miles so far as solo skipper. During ten summers and a 15-month cruise between academic years I cruised in a 33-foot Dutch-built steel sloop, Nomad, along the U.S. east coast, from the Bahamas to Nova Scotia. With my new Nomad, a 42-foot steel and aluminum cutter designed by Ted Brewer and commissioned in 1990, I spent 11 summers mostly in the waters of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Labrador. In 2003 Nomad took me and three friends on a high latitude transatlantic voyage from Newfoundland to Ireland and on to Scotland. Since then, I cruised five months each summer in northwest European waters, enjoying a leisurely, mostly-solo circumnavigation of the British Isles (including the Channel Islands and the Isles of Scilly), four trips along the west coast of Norway between Bergen and the Lofoten Islands, two circumnavigations of Ireland, a trip to the remote Faeroe Islands, many cruises on the Scottish west coast, including the Orkney and Shetland Isles. Nomad wintered on the hard at the Clyde Marina in Scotland, and in 2015 she returned to U.S. waters after 23 wonderful summers of cruising abroad.
I'm a retired college Communication professor and have a U.S. Coast Guard 100-ton Master’s license, first issued in 1986. When not enjoying the cruising lifestyle or maintaining Nomad in exotic places, I live on Kent Island in Maryland, occasionally teach sailing to adults, take continuing education courses and workshops for professional mariners, and enjoy land travel. In my rapidly-diminishing spare time, I maintain this website and work my way through an eclectic reading list. I'm a member of the Ocean Cruising Club (www.oceancruisingclub.org), the Seven Seas Cruising Association (www.ssca.org), the Chesapeake Area Professional Captains Association (www.capca.net), and Boating Writers International (www.bwi.org).
I'm a retired college Communication professor and have a U.S. Coast Guard 100-ton Master’s license, first issued in 1986. When not enjoying the cruising lifestyle or maintaining Nomad in exotic places, I live on Kent Island in Maryland, occasionally teach sailing to adults, take continuing education courses and workshops for professional mariners, and enjoy land travel. In my rapidly-diminishing spare time, I maintain this website and work my way through an eclectic reading list. I'm a member of the Ocean Cruising Club (www.oceancruisingclub.org), the Seven Seas Cruising Association (www.ssca.org), the Chesapeake Area Professional Captains Association (www.capca.net), and Boating Writers International (www.bwi.org).
FAVORITE THINGS: ships' cats, sunrises at sea, learning something new and interesting. I like classical music, Celtic roots-traditional music (the annual Shetland Folk Festival is fabulous!), and sharing good times afloat and ashore with old and new friends.
CRUISING PHILOSOPHY: spend more time doing fewer things and get to know the people and places you visit. Allow enough time to enjoy unexpected delights and to wait for a good weather window. Tight land schedules interfere with pleasure and safety afloat. Perhaps some boaters enjoy ticking off a "been there, done that" list, but to my mind they're missing many of the reasons people cruise in slow vessels, rather than fly and drive. Make a list of the things you want to do in the time you have and then cut it in half - do less, enjoy more.
Header photo: Priscilla's current sailboat: © P. Travis
Author photo by David Anderson, Annapolis, MD (www.daphoto.com)
Cat photo: my ship's cat, Mrs Chippy, Shackleton's ship's cat. (no, not the original cat): © P. Travis
CRUISING PHILOSOPHY: spend more time doing fewer things and get to know the people and places you visit. Allow enough time to enjoy unexpected delights and to wait for a good weather window. Tight land schedules interfere with pleasure and safety afloat. Perhaps some boaters enjoy ticking off a "been there, done that" list, but to my mind they're missing many of the reasons people cruise in slow vessels, rather than fly and drive. Make a list of the things you want to do in the time you have and then cut it in half - do less, enjoy more.
Header photo: Priscilla's current sailboat: © P. Travis
Author photo by David Anderson, Annapolis, MD (www.daphoto.com)
Cat photo: my ship's cat, Mrs Chippy, Shackleton's ship's cat. (no, not the original cat): © P. Travis