Welcome! I am John Banfield, and with my wife, Alison Banfield, I hope to give you a glimpse of what life on a blue water cruising boat is like. We live in Sydney, Australia, and are the proud owners of True Blue Voyager, a classic 32ft cruising yacht. She is a 1976 Allied Seawind II.

After living in the US for a number of years we left Florida in 2002 for Australia. Our trip took us around the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and across the South Pacific. (Read more about our trip here.)
When we arrived in Australia we were glad to get off the boat. Guilt eventually set in though, and it was time to start getting her up to scratch. We were immediately struck by how much more oriented towards racing Sydney was. Boats are lighter and faster. Perhaps the dream is different from the USA- there everyone dreams of the South Pacific, whereas here it seems to be the Sydney to Hobart.

So we have spent the last year or two trying to locate cruising boat resources- from springs for a manual windlass to cruiser friendly marinas, getting a waterways mooring and some water tanks made. We hope this site will help others who find themselves in the same situation.

We also hope to pass on anything we learnt after sailing a long way, what worked and what didn’t, our impressions of the cruising life and something of the places we visited along the way. People we have met and the friends we have made since have all asked about the trip, and it is hard to find a place to start. We hope this site helps.

There is an enormous amount of information on the web, and some of it is incredibly useful to anyone who is contemplating a blue-water cruise. This site will cover both those we find essential, useful or just interesting or fun. Some of our friends have amazing web sites, and we will include these too.

We also hope this site might become a forum for the exchange of ideas, information and stories. We would love to hear from you, and hope you will contribute.

One day we intend to take off again, this time around the world. We are leaving it quite a while. Our plan on arriving in Australia two years ago was to swallow the hook for ten years, and we will probably stick to that. In the meantime there is plenty of cruising in Australia.

We hope you enjoy the site!

Cheers,

John and Alison