Multi-tasking

As I mentioned a little while back I'm currently working on [...]

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 [...]

Maiden voyage

One thing that I’ve learned is that sailors are suckers for ritual celebrations. Crossing the Equator, cutting over the International Date Line, transiting the Panama canal and “closing the circle” upon circumnavigation are all [...]

V-berth vacations

The in-laws are coming to visit. Having friends or relatives coming to stay is always an interesting exercise. Visitors to a boat, however, have a completely different set of challenges to meet [...]

Reputation is everything

2013 began for me by considering the two big milestones we would need to get past in order to get up to Banderas Bay for hurricane season: the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Tehuantepec. With the first of those being easily achieved, drama-free in…

Reflections on a year in the Caribbean

From our first landfall in St Lucia on January 6th 2012 to our Panama Canal transit on January 26th 2013 we have had an incredibly varied sailing experience in the Caribbean Sea. Our twelve month tour of this area took us to 15 different countries…

The Panama Canal

So we talked about it, planned it and worried about it for so long that the actual Canal transit seemed like an absolute doddle (does this remind anyone of all our talk of the Bay of Biscay?). We had decided to use a canal agent as our month in the…

Adamastor Admeasured

Yes – we’re finally doing it. The path between the seas beckons, we have our transit date for the Panama canal. We returned from the San Blas islands to Portobelo and were greeted by a mountain of admin back in the UK that had accumulated from a…