Cruising

Brittany (France) and Sada (Spain)

The weather in Cherbourg was rather unsettled: frequent rain and a string of depressions marching up the Channel and over England. So when we got a weather window with relatively little wind, but from a direction that …

Cadzand, Ostend and Cherbourg

We set off from Harlingen last Tuesday with a lovely NW wind. Around eight o’clock we reached the start of the Schulpengat, the channel between Den Helder and the North Sea. Oops, there was more of a sea running …

Lisbon, here we come!

Right, we (Arnold, Ella and Kees) are off on our summer holiday and/or leg one of the round-the-world voyage! Marion is looking after Miep, Arnold’s cat, but may well pop by at some point too. This morning, out of …

The Big Departure

Right, finally half an hour to spare to post a quick update. The last few months have been hectic, working on the boat, first at KM in Makkum and then the last 3 weeks at home. The time has flown by. Steering …

The last bit of Scotland

I hadn’t realised it was such a long drive from Peterhead to Lossiemouth. Mark had to be in Aberdeen anyway, but it was still quite a trek. We took the lovely quiet roads along the north-east coast of Scotland, …

Third time lucky

Since we would have had to wait almost 8 hours for the bridge in Whitby, we decided to carry on up the coast. Depending on the weather and the crew, we’d see how far we got. Once we reached the River Tyne, the …

Out and about with Pelagia

This year’s sea miles kick off with a short passage to Scotland. I’m sailing as crew on Pelagia, a Contest 46 of the good old-fashioned kind. Loyal readers may remember that last year I bumped into my very …

Southern England and home again

Phew, it’s December already and we still haven’t updated the website. Better do it now, if only so that in 10 years’ time we can read back what on earth we got up to this year. The view from Tresco Back …

The south (and a bit of the west) coast of Ireland

On the way from Crookhaven to Durrus Blair’s Cove After Crookhaven the forecast was for a few days of reasonably good weather, so we nipped round the corner into the first “ria” of the west coast and …

Off to Ireland Together

The last few weeks in Ponta Delgada flew by, mainly because it turned into a real revolving door. I’d barely waved one lot of friends off before the next lot turned up. The funniest encounter was completely …

Alone? Whatever gave you that idea!

I know it’s time to update this blog again when friends start messaging me to ask how things are going. So here’s a little update. Sailing-wise not much has happened: I’m still in Ponta Delgada, and …

São Miguel

In the end, the passage from Harlingen to the first island went very smoothly and was pretty much uneventful. Once again we could stand our watches inside, and there was remarkably little shipping after we turned SSW off …