diesel – Water-log

June 13, 2013

To Motor or not to Motor, that is the question

You are off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. The moon is setting. It’s five in the morning the wind is 9 knots from the North West and you have plotted your latest position on the paper chart on the nav-table. You have travelled only seven miles…

March 22, 2013

The Pleasures of Passage Making

A frigate bird wheels overhead as the hazy dawn light is mirrored back by the water. The sea is absolutely still, more like a lake than an ocean, blurring the horizon so that the sky bleeds into the water. Slowly, gently, a large, old leatherback…

December 1, 2011

James and the Art of Adamastor Maintenance

We had always planned that our time in Gibraltar would be a time of prepping the boat for the big Atlantic crossing. Much though we would love to fill our days tripping merrily up to the rock to commune with the monkeys we have some serious work to…

November 22, 2011

Pedra Amareta, Punta Umbria, Chipiona and Puerto de Conil

The trip upriver was lovely but we had an ulterior motive in going. We had lost the wind. Our experience of this side of Portugal and Spain (the Algarve and the Costa de la Luz) has been very all or nothing in terms of wind and weather. Normally, if…

October 16, 2011

The Big Bad Bay of Biscuit (as it is it fondly known)

So, an update was promised and here it is. After the shaky false start of Friday the 7th we were finally able to set off from Mylor the next day with a repaired alternator and a bruised wallet. We had a great sail across the Channel (no fog this…

We left England in 2011 aboard Adamastor, an Angelo Lavranos Crossbow, intending to circumnavigate in a couple of years.

After crossing the Atlantic and enjoying several months in the Caribbean we reached Panama, where we decided to start a family. Now we combine our cruising with being full-time parents to our daughter, Rocket, who was born en route in Mexico. We crossed the Pacific ocean with her, from Mexico to New Zealand, exploring all the South Pacific islands in between.

Our crew expanded with our son, Indigo, who was born in New Zealand. Our journey then took us back out to the South Pacific and onward into South East Asia. We spent some time sailing in Indonesia and then welcomed a baby girl, Autumn, born on a flying visit back to the UK. After returning to the boat we continued to cruise the Indonesian islands and, due to Covid-19, spent 8 months in Labuan Bajo in the Komodo islands. We then headed north, hoping to sail towards Malaysia and Thailand, and landed in Singapore at the end of 2020.

Once borders finally reopened we headed up to West coast Malaysia, spending some time at a yard to re-rig, re-antifoul and also raise some kittens! With the boat spruced up and the cats adopted we are now cruising between the Langkawi archipelago and the Thai islands, where there is an anchorage for every wind direction and plenty to explore!

It’s been 12 years, 38 countries, 2 oceans, 3 babies en route and 30,000 miles since we set off and you can follow our progress here.