log

I thought that it was important to write something about our passage-making these days. Moving up the islands in the East Caribbean has been quite a varied experience. First of all because each island itself is a distinct, individual country of it’s…

We sailed from Portsmouth, Dominica, to Terre d’en Haut on the Îles des Saintes on February 6th. This is where we parted ways with Lisanna and Paul, our crewmates since December 1st, who are flying onto Cuba before heading back to real life. This…

Approaching Dominica we understood instantly why we were given a warning about tricky anchoring there. It looks like something prehistoric. The island is so mountainous and steep-to that the coastal waters are mostly too deep to drop the hook…

Martinique, our playground for the last week or so was a strange beast. Imagine everything that you have pictured in your mind about a tropical Caribbean island; then add the rastas, resplendent with their dreadlocks and spliffs; include the…

This is a long overdue post all about St Lucia. Overdue largely because we needed a break after crossing our first ocean. We were straining our eyes, scanning the horizon for that first glimpse of land, all over-excited. But, we’re sailing, so, once…

We are now fifteen weeks into our trip and I thought that it was high time to elaborate on a term that I’ve thrown around rather a lot: nightwatch. Contrary to what my father may think, when you are on a long passage such as our Morocco to Canaries…

The crossing of the Atlantic ocean from East to West is known among sailors everywhere as the ‘milk run’ primarily because it is supposedly straightforward and simple if approached at the right time of year. The instructions for sailing from the…

In the previous post I mentioned that we have 4 fantastic cooks on board. Surprisingly, the question that we all got asked the most often before setting off on our circumnavigation was "what will you do about food?". Well, there are two kinds of…

So we left Queensway Quay Gibraltar and Lis and Paul, our friends who joined us there, waved goodbye to what used to be their home. Next stop, Smir in Morocco to do a quick lesson in power handling, courtesy of Paul. We wanted to make sure that…

The strait of Gibraltar separates mainland Spain from Morocco and mainland Africa. At its narrowest point it is only 7.7 nautical miles. Crossing the strait or going through the strait requires an understanding of how that narrow stretch of ocean is…

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…

So, we continue to slowly wend our sleepy way towards Gibraltar. Now that we are into November the weather is not as consistently good (so still good enough for all you English lot to be jealous) so we've been doing a fair amount of wind dodging.…