Carolyn Shearlock & The Boat Galley

I’m Carolyn Shearlock. What can I say? I love cruising – living literally on the water, enjoying nature, going new places and meeting new people and yes, even working on the boat.

While I’ve boated – sail and power – all my life, twenty years ago was my first liveaboard experience. My husband Dave and I – along with our friends David and Jan Irons – chartered a bareboat in the British Virgin Islands. All four of us were instantly hooked.

A few more charter trips convinced Dave and me to go all in – we bought a Tayana 37 and sold pretty much everything else in 2002. We had the time of our lives, exploring the Sea of Cortez, Pacific Mexico and Central America.

Seven thousand miles and a little over six years later, we returned to land life to deal with some medical issues. . . but couldn’t bear to leave the cruising community we’d come to love. I began writing a cookbook for cruisers with Jan – they’d also gotten a cruising boat – and sharing tips for cooking on a boat, calling my blog The Boat Galley.

We dreamed of getting a boat again . . . and took friends up on their invitations to cruise with them. We sailed in Florida and the US Virgin Islands and spent 10 days on a trawler in the Sea of Cortez.

In 2014, the medical issues behind us, we bought our second boat – a Gemini catamaran – with the idea of spending winters in the Florida Keys and summers at our house on a small lake in Illinois. That idea lasted exactly one winter and then we sold the house to be full-time cruisers again.

The Boat Galley

The Boat Galley has expanded to include our work on the boat, selling up and moving aboard (again!), living aboard, cruising and gear. There have been some offshoots, too:

• The Boat Galley Cookbook was published in 2012.
• The Boat Galley Podcast began in 2016, first on Boat Radio and then going independent in 2018, helping those with cruising dreams turn them into reality.
• The Boat Galley Guide to Storing Food without Refrigeration, an ebook, was published in 2017. The second edition with almost 60% more information was published in 2019 and is available in print as well as ebook.
• The Boat Galley Amazon Store began in 2018 — find all my recommended gear in one place, divided into categories.
• The Boat Galley Resource Center also began in 2018 with a variety of FREE and paid courses.
• In 2020, we began developing and selling references and resources for boaters on Amazon — basically, things that we wanted, couldn’t find and so created. See them all here!
• And in 2022, we opened up our own online store! And now there as six of us as a team — Pam Douglas, Nica Waters, John Herlig, Julie TIjerina, and Larry Webber are all current or former cruisers, too.

I love cruising. But more than that, I love sharing what I’ve learned with others. The Boat Galley gives me the chance to do just that . . . with the bonus that I learn just as much from readers, their experiences and questions. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to “Like” The Boat Galley’s page and take part in the conversations there (click on the Facebook icon at left to go right there).

Thanks for being part of The Boat Galley!