Personalities on board
14:15UTC 03/08/07 50’11.7N 003’43.7W Many long distance solo sailors report visitations by characters on board, often appearing during a storm. We’ve not quite got to such ‘altered’ levels of consciousness, but there are still plenty of personalities on board. Ty Dewi is the main one, of course. She and I are jointly charged with looking […]
Dartmouth
We’ve arrived in Dartmouth after a mixed day of motoring and rain, which cleared to bring some good sunshine, and finally a couple of hours of glorious sailing to bring us into the beautiful River Dart, with Dartmouth and Kingswear Castles guarding the entrance to this gorgeous river. IT’s a bit of a homecoming too, […]
Pottering down the Solent
After yesterday’s epic voyage, we slept in, started late and have had a pleasent gentle day with the tide sweeping us down the solent. We took the opportunity to mess about, hoisting the ‘drifter’, a very light headsail, and then using the new poles to put the jibs out either side, as we will do […]
Not carbon neutral
09:50UTC 01/08/07 50’48.5N 000’52.8W Here we are in the delightful Chichester harbour with the sun blazing down on another almost windless day. We’ve had a biut of a lie in as we got here at 1am this morning after motoring for 14 hours from Dover. The weather was so calm, and the night so beautiful […]
Drove ‘er to Dover
06:35 UTC, 31/07/07 51’07.8N, 001’19.5E Here we sit in the quaint and quiet little port of Dover. A cross channel ferry leaves or arrives every 15 minutes, and the anchorage is very rocky – ‘get me out of this rock and roll hell…..’. But it is a beautiful morning, and we’ve made very good progress […]
Prepared and ready (as we’ll ever be)
20:55 UTC, 29/7/07. 52’00N 001’11.5E And suddenly the time has come to head off. Gesa and the kids have just left and waved goodbye – we’ve never been apart for as long as we will be this time – and I’ll miss them. The boat is packed, secured and ready to go. I’m doing some […]
Getting ready to go
It’s all a bit crazy right now, as immense quantities of food are bought and loaded on board, last minute tasks are done or scratched from the list, and we shuttle back and forward trying to remember everything and keep the kids fed and amused at the same time. Nick sails from Ipswich on Monday […]
More pictures from the boat party weekend
We dressed Ty Dewi overall in the signal flags, a traditional symbol for a celebration Fishing for crabs from the end of the pontoon – many were caught although Issie is eating cornflakes for breakfast, not fresh crab! Finding jellyfish washed up on the beach Dinghy rides on the river
An honoured guest
We had a party this weekend, inviting our friends over to the boat (more pictures later), and we were honoured to be visited by Margaret, who has known Nick since he was born and is a very long time friend of the family. She is partially responsible for me getting into sailing, having put Dad […]
English yachting weather
It’s June, it’s summer, it’s raining. Gesa’s mum (mama) is visiting, and she has never seen the boat, so we took her over to Woolvestone. Hoping to go for a sail, but the lack of wind and presence of large amounts of rain soon changed our plans. Here we are waiting for the water taxi. […]