October 20, 2023
100 columns later…
October brings a nice little milestone in that the October issue of Sailing Today magazine has my 100th column for them in it! Whoop whoop!...
January 18, 2022
A lot can happen at sea
Happy New Year! I know that hasn't been that much by way of news visible here, but without covering too many miles we're simply cracking on and getting ahead with boat jobs, keeping our girl happy. But, in the meantime, I've made a [...]
December 18, 2020
Yes we ARE still Sailing Today!
After a looooooooooong overdue update (please remember I'm working on a book here folks!!) I've finally caught up with all the Sailing Today columns that I should have been posting up here each month. Head on over to [...]
June 18, 2020
Lockdown stories
Sailing Today magazine asked me and a number of other sailors and cruisers for some input on our experiences during the Covid-19 [...]
June 14, 2020
Anniversary and updates
Time flies when you're having fun... It's already 5 years since I started writing the "Blue Note" column for Sailing Today Magazine in the UK and I'm so happy that they have been [...]
June 7, 2020
Hooray for dolphins
It doesn’t matter how many years I have lived at sea, what oceans I’ve sailed or the lands I’ve visited, I will never, ever tire of seeing dolphins. I’ve encountered them in flat calms, when the very [...]
May 10, 2020
It looks like rain
Sometimes the life of a liveaboard sailor seems completely at odds with that of a landlubber: things that may seem simple in our boat lives may be infinitely more complex in a house. Likewise, there are subjects that appear trivial when you live on…
April 30, 2020
The scenic route
You’re going sailing? Fantastic! Where to? I hear Hawaii might be nice, or how about the Azores? Will you simply follow the [...]
March 19, 2020
Out of control
There is nothing quite so daunting as suddenly being at the helm of your own boat for the first time. When it came to the 44 footers that I had first sailed on I was comfortable that my steering was effective, that my understanding of wind…
December 24, 2019
The hospital ship
The first lesson of parenting is really to expect the unexpected. Funnily enough, the same can be said of liveaboard sailing. Often our travels see us going from one extreme to the other in terms of available supplies as we’ve sailed both to big,…
December 9, 2019
On bravery
I suppose it must be true that sometimes it takes seeing yourself and your life through another person’s eyes to admit and accept certain facts. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly [...]
November 25, 2019
Peek-a-boat
We all imagine that we are alone on our boats. Gently swaying at anchor, with the sun shining down, lulls us into a false sense of [...]
October 30, 2019
A bunch of updates
Just to let you know that I've just got through a backlog of updates to the site, mainly in the form of a whole host of articles that you may not yet have seen. We were featured in [...]
September 30, 2019
Return to the South Pacific
No, you didn't read that wrong but it doesn't quite mean that we're setting a course back eastwards either. A number of [...]
September 3, 2019
New money for old rope
I simply adore swap meets. The traditional car boot sale or antiques market in land-lubber life has always had a certain appeal but they are always plagued with the business of having to root through all the junk to uncover something useful. By…
August 5, 2019
Uncommon courtesy
We sailors love our special bits of rules and etiquette don’t we? From COLREGs to radio speak, the yachting world is littered with hints and tips of best practice that help the novice adjust to this whole new language of sailing. But whilst [...]
July 1, 2019
Climate change
Cruising full-time has moments where you seem to go from one extreme to the other. It’s a feeling that I tend to associate with the weather; acclimatising to one set of conditions only to be [...]