dolphins – Water-log

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 [...]

August 9, 2017

More Vanuatu voyages

We’ve been continuing our passages northwards through the islands, sailing from Port Vila to Mele Bay and then Havannah Harbour on Efate island, then onwards to Emae, Epi, the Maskelynes and Malekula, with a little side trip to Ambrym. We're now…

December 4, 2016

Back to reality

I wake to find that we are the only boat at anchor in this spot. Our yacht hangs in a mere 3 metres of clear turquoise water, nicely enclosed by an island to either side of us. There’s sand, pebble and shell, which appear [...]

August 19, 2015

Un-capturing the magic

Sailing is no longer an isolated venture. Every cruiser seems to have a blog, a Facebook page or an Instagram account that can broadcast their breath-taking images of picturesque settings, sending them worldwide in a second. And why do we [...]

December 15, 2014

Aotearoa – land of the long white cloud

Our arrival in New Zealand saw us making landfall at Opua, the port of entry in the Bay of Islands. This was a great jumping off point for exploring these spectacular waters en route to Whangarei, where we planned to be based for a little while. The…

March 23, 2013

On Phosphorescence

The Americans we’ve met call it bio-luminescence. When we crossed the Atlantic we talked about it as nightly green fireworks. Without doubt, one of the biggest changes we’ve felt since going from one ocean to the next is that the Pacific is brim…

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…

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.