One of the few disadvantages of getting off the beaten path in Lanzarotte and Fuertaventurta is that every so often you come face to face with a large scary person staring at you over an enormous pair of pendulous hooters - or worse. What makes it even more scary is that the owners of said [...]

Its the same each time. If we tie up for more than 24 hours we start to put roots down. The boat turns into a caravan that couldnt possibly float and the wind in the rigging of neighbouring boats howls like a banshee even though in reality its quite moderate. So after 3 [...]

Arricife is I think the spanish word for reef, and we are anchored at the entrance to a complex and shallow passage between several reefs that eventually leads into a lagoon in the middle of the town . There is an old castle , built on the breakwater on one of the reefs, which saw [...]

We have now been anchored off Playa Francesca at the SW corner of Graciosa for 3 days. The bay is overshadowed by a volcanic hill ( mountain would be too grand  a term although it is definatly a volcano) of extraordinary colour. The SW face is deep orange and deeply honeycombed rather like an enormous  crunchy [...]

There is an awful lot of night down in these parts - a little over 12 hours of it - but as long as the sailing isnt too challenging we each get a good 6 hours , which with a snooze in the day leaves us fairly relaxed about passage making. Dribbling along at 2.5 [...]

Last nights plan sounded good . The forecast was for light and variable winds, becoming light to moderate NE after about 12 hours. We would poke our nose out of the harbour and if there was no wind, anchor just around the corner for 8 hours or so. If there was wind we would have
a [...]

We left Gibraltar on Thursday morning . I expected to see an Armada of  ARC Migrants coming with us , but apart from a Cat who joined us at Tarifa - we were alone. Perhaps they were put off by the possibility of strong Southerlies on Monday . We talked of “slipping over to Madeira” [...]

Unlike the song there was no gale and our stormy timbers are not rent - yet! In fact we had a delightful crossing and scarcely touched a sheet for the first 24 hours.
The plan formulated last saturday worked to perfection -  a NW to get across the Channel - a Southerly to move to [...]

5/8/09 0900 - passing through Ch du Four in no wind -Spent yesterday anchored off Carentec (of Oppie course fame) in the Bay of Morlaix. Wriggled in there at midnight though trillions of rocks and had a day off cos it was blowing hard from the SW. Jaap and Fre and the boys were holidaying [...]