This season at hotel Adamastor…

Visitors visitors visitors... We've been very lucky in Bocas del Toro as the enforced staying put (i.e. mainsail explosion) means that our friends and family have manged to pin us down long enough to come and visit. And visit they have in droves,…

The Mouths of the Bull

Sod’s law that after covering nearly 8,000 miles in the last 8 months we would have our worst ever weather just 5 miles from our last major Caribbean destination: Bocas del Toro, Panama. I don’t think our families were particularly concerned about…

‘Tis the season to get moving

It’s May 27th and we’re still in Isla Mujeres, Mexico (see, when I said a few posts back that we needed a break I really meant it!). Trouble is, the earliest that hurricane season has been known to start is May 29th. What with the dragging incident,…

Just a quick note…

So, in the previous post I mentioned meeting all the lovely people in the Isla Mujeres anchorage; firm friends that we hope to stay in touch with and who helped us so much. However, I should point out that it was only after a week and a half that we…

Mexican sojourn

The crossing from Cienfuegos, Cuba, to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, took us 3 and a half days and was a fairly straightforward and non-eventful passage. Since our trip from the BVI’s to Cuba, James and I are a lot more comfortable doing longer passages…

The kindness of cruising strangers

In order to separate the flesh of a fresh conch from its bone it is important to make a hole in its shell one ring in from the outside at an angle the same as 2 o’clock on a clock’s face – Valois taught us that. Similarly, when laying a second…

Clandestine mangos in the mangroves

Now that it is April we can relish the fact that its mango season. However, we don’t get our mangos from the shop or the market… no, now we get them in darkness in the bushes. Welcome to Cuba, communist land where no man owns what he works for. Here…

The slobbering explosives dog, the drugs bust, the salsa-dancing thieves and other notes on Cuban bureaucracy…

I’d just nodded off and am jolted awake by the incessant thumping of the officer’s fingers pounding the computer keys as he continues to write up our statement. It’s 5am and James and I are still at the police station, having escaped the drugs…

One night in Statia

St Eustatius, also known as Statia, is a tiny island, only about 3 miles wide, with around 3,000 inhabitants, lots of wild screeching red parrots, roaming donkeys and small flocks of wandering goats. Although so very small it is a country in its own…

Escapees and explorers

We have sailed up the Rio Guadiana, a river which acts as part of the border between Portugal and Spain. It's a lovely spot and we've been here for a couple of days. It was recommended to us by Tom Meyer, who we met when anchoring at Alvor. He said…