Meet our Presenters 
Paul and Sheryl Shard
Paul and Sheryl Shard
Bestselling authors and award-winning filmmakers, Paul and Sheryl Shard, are known to Travel Channel audiences as the fun-loving and adventurous presenters of Distant Shores.
Both Canadians, the Shards grew up on the shores of the Great Lakes in Mississauga, Canada, and as schoolmates shared a love of the water and boats, outdoor adventure, photography and drama. Paul's first ever photography assignment was to document the high school play in which Sheryl played the lead role of Antigone. The rest is history.
In 1982, they both graduated from York University in Toronto, Sheryl with a Fine Arts degree in Theatre and Paul with a B.A. in Computer Science. Before their marriage in 1986, they worked in their respective fields gradually building their stage, film and camera credits while stashing their savings to fulfil a shared dream of building a boat and documenting their adventures sailing to foreign lands.
After 16,000 hours of combined work the couple built their first boat, a Classic 37 sailboat which they named “Two-Step”(the Shards love to dance). They launched her in Lake Ontario in 1988 and in 1989 set sail on their first international voyage travelling south to the Bahamas, across the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean, then on to Madeira, Canary Islands and Brazil, returning home via the Caribbean. The experiences of this epic voyage, which included underwater encounters with sperm whales and sharks, became a one-hour documentary, Call of the Ocean, which aired on Discovery Channel in 1994 and launched their television careers.
Following that, the Shards co-produced the 17-episode series, Exploring Under Sail, with Peter Rowe Productions. Their latest series, Distant Shores, now 78 episodes and still growing, brought them back across the Atlantic Ocean to further explore countries of the Mediterranean aboard Two-Step. In 2007 “Two-Step” went into retirement and Paul and Sheryl moved aboard a new Southerly 42 sailboat which they named “Distant Shores”. The boat was built in England and the Shards sailed from their to Madeira and the Canary Islands, then made a transatlantic crossing (their 4th) from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean where they filmed season 5 and 6 of the series exploring the islands of the Caribbean, Bahamas, the eastern coast of the USA and the Great Lakes of Canada.
The Shards have won two WorldFest Film and Video Production Awards for Best Sailing and Water Sport Documentary and the Distant Shores series now airs weekly in over 200 countries in 18 languages on Travel Channel, WealthTV, Sailing Channel and Canadian Learning Television.
The Shards also inform and entertain travellers through writing. They are the authors of the best-selling book, Sail Away! A Guide to Outfitting and Provisioning for Cruising, currently being updated to a third edition; they have an award-winning web site and blog on www.distantshores.ca, and are contributing writers for Cruising World, Sailing, Canadian Yachting, Latitudes and Attitudes, DIY Boat Owner, Practical Boat Owner and Blue Water Sailing magazines.
Paul and Sheryl have now travelled to over 50 countries and colonies around the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, have sailed over 76,000 nautical miles, and have crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times.
This summer 2010, Paul and Sheryl will be documenting a voyage to the Baltic Sea aboard their latest boat, a new Southerly 49 sailboat also called “Distant Shores”. The boat was on display at the 2010 London Boat Show and Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal came aboard for a visit. They'll set sail from England in the spring, make a visit to the Channel Islands, then sail to Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and other countries bordering the Baltic Sea.
