Mark Schrader's Blog Posts

-c1300 hrs, 276nm west of Peru-Chile border A Point in Time Off watch, sometime between napping and sleeping an unfamiliar alarm went off. A few moments wasted to make sure it wasn’t just in my head, and then more alarms. Something important was happening, urgency required. Nap done, now I’m very

This morning I've muttered (mostly to myself) a dozen times that it's time to leave Peru and head south. I woke up wanting to be on the move rather than tied to a buoy a hundred yards or so from the Yacht Club Peruano. Part of my impatience to get going is purely from looking at the time and

S/V One Ocean Anatomy of a knockdown North Atlantic Passage Halifax/Lockport to Bermuda 0930 hrs, October 17, 2025 37d31m N/66d44m W Seas 15 - 30' Barometer 1002 falling Wind 25 - 35kts Main triple reef, mizzen down, jib 1/4 Apparent wind angle 160 - 180d Boat speed 5.5 - 8+ (all good, seas/swell

Moments and stories: Around the Americas I hope it is normal for someone of a certain age to vividly remember titles of books or headers in a drawer full of files and then notice some details, backstories and descriptions are a little fuzzy, or missing altogether. It could be the case that after

Full disclaimer - may not be worth taking your TIME to read this bit of musing. The concept of time takes on many different meanings in all of our lives, literally all of the time. On a boat it is ever-present. Schedules and routines are regulated and occur based on some measure of time. Directions

Featured Image by David Thoreson "Sailing vessels have destinations, not schedules," an oft repeated adage spoken by experienced sailors of a certain age. One Ocean has now been home to a team of enthusiastic sailing educators of varying ages for over 135 days, covering 7,000+ nautical miles, and

In 1675 King Charles II commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to build an observatory in Greenwich, England to “improve marine navigation and find the so-much desired longitude at sea for perfecting the art of navigation," this according to an excellent book by Dava Sobel, Longitude, which dives deep

Last evening we motored into one of the only available decent anchorages offering shelter from westerly winds before the 240+ nm run to Cambridge Bay. Weather apps were showing us a low pressure system to our north with predicted wind of 30+, gusts to 45+ for the next 24-36 hours. One Ocean is now

On the days when ice allows us to move forward, time travel comes the closest to expressing what we are really feeling. The passages we are traversing have been used by hardy souls for hundreds – maybe thousands -of years. Most of what we see has spent eons under ice. As the ice slowly shifted or

Our plan to stay a few more days at Herschel Island in Pauline Cove changed quickly this morning. The predicted calm weather will end in less than 24 hours, about as much time as it will take One Ocean and crew to sail to Tuktoyaktuk, a very safe and secure port from wind and ice. We weighed anchor

Dave Logan, friend/sailor/thinker and accomplished tinkerer recently joined the crew of the good ship One Ocean, currently tied to a dock in Nome, Alaska. Many of you will remember that Dave was instrumental in preparing Ocean Watch for our circumnavigation of the Americas in 2009/10, as well as

We are at the midway point of our first ‘ocean’ crossing. Elfin Cove, situated on the northwest corner of Chichagof Island, to Dutch Harbor, Unalaska Island, one of the Aleutian Islands on the outer end of the Alaska Peninsula. Just for scale - 1022 nautical miles – roughly the distance from Seattle