Welcome to My New Travel Newsletter!

about the ocean, travel, books, and boats

Welcome to my Sailingwriter newsletter on this new platform called Substack where I plan to write about my waterborne travels as a nomad novelist.

Many of you have been following me as I published my Seychelle Sullivan books, then the Riley and Cole books, or blogged on SailingWriter, or became a solo sailor in my own boat writing about my love of navigation, boat tech, and simplicity. I am very grateful for all your support and interest. You’ve subscribed to my newsletter for a multitude of reasons, even if only to get my free short story collection, Inklings. Since I haven’t written you in ages, you may have forgotten all about me. Well, that’s about to change. I will be publishing new stories once every week or two now as we start cruising around the waters of the Mediterranean.

I get it if you decide you don’t have time to look at one more email. I’m going to do my best to earn your interest, to make these stories ones that will bring more light and joy into your life, but if you don’t want to stick around, I’ll understand. I’ll miss you, but feel free to make your way to the bottom of this email and click on the unsubscribe link.

During the last five years, my husband Wayne and I have worked with Artnautica Yacht Design and Naval Yachts to design and build our new extreme expedition vessel, Möbius.

XPM-78 Möbius is our full-time home, an all-aluminum Extreme Expedition Passage Maker launched in 2021.

Yes, the Sailingwriter is now aboard a powerboat. That topic deserves an entire email of its own!

During these past years, I have written only 2-3 blogs and sent out 7 newsletters. The folks in the publishing world insisted that a marketing newsletter was necessary to be a successful writer, but I hate writing self-promotional stuff. So I simply grew quiet. We have a blog a Möbius World where very thoroughly document the years of building the new boat and I played a bit with making videos. We even got a drone. While this boatbuilding project was all consuming, and we were living in Turkey, strangers in a strange land on the far side of the world, there was something else going on. I lost my voice, my writer’s voice.

One day recently, a Canadian friend wrote me a brief note about a friend of his whose son, Chris, had launched this new writing platform called Substack. My friend thought I might be interested in it and sent me a link. When I read that the idea behind this was to get away from purely promotional newsletters, “content farms, clickbait, listicles, inane but viral debates over optical illusions, and a ‘fake news’ epidemic,” I was hooked. Substack will let me share music, video and podcasts, too. I’m so excited about exploring all these media for storytelling.

I want, no actually I need to find my voice again. I know many authors say “they can’t not write.” I’m not one of them. But I do know that I can’t be truly happy if I’m not writing. I see the world differently when I know I want to share it. This platform should make it easier to comment and have conversations, to grow a community. I hope you will be willing to come along for the ride.

Here are a few postcards from our stay here in Turkey.

We travelled to Kas at Christmas along with our dogs Ruby, the princess poodle, and Barney, the Yorkshire Terror.

In Göcek, we stayed in a small boutique hotel where we awoke on this cold winter morning with a view of that gorgeous blue minaret.

Finike Marina on the south coast of Turkey has been our winter berth, but even the darkest days have had their moments.

Here in southeastern Turkey, the Taurus Mountains are very close to the coast. I love seeing the snow-capped peaks after days of coastal rain.

Two of the best things about Turkey are the friendliness of the people and the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables in the open-air markets.

Next week I am headed to Istanbul for a few days. I can’t wait to share that grand city with you all. Here’s the song I’ve been singing ever since I booked my flight.

Fair winds!

Christine