Being hit by the boom is not unusual, but headbutting it is. It was the second morning of our Ionian cruise and we were about to manoeuvre out of Episcopi,…
Cruising life
Old Man Sailing heads to France to sell his new book by hand
Sailing alone brings out a certain mastery of life which no other activity can provide. All sailors plan to eradicate obstacles, but out on the ocean they still arise and…
Exploring the Pembrokeshire Islands by boat
Setting off from our swinging mooring at Rudders boatyard, Burton, in Pembrokeshire, we have to travel the length of the Cleddau estuary to reach open water. With the wind and…
A disastrous trip saw this sailor shipwrecked for the second time on the same islands… 50 years later
During the afternoon of Christmas Eve 2019, I was steering a tubby old steel ketch called Cristina on a delivery passage slowly westward along the south coast of Isla Las…
‘Spectacular thunderstorms should not be on the meteorological menu at this time’
There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats – as Ratty said in The Wind in the Willows, and with…
Sailing to the Shiant Isles
Sitting at anchor was a pattern we were becoming accustomed to – waiting out one or more low pressure systems before having an all too brief respite in which to…
How this novice couple sailed to the Scilly Isles and back
They say ‘do something that scares you a little bit every day’, and while we weren’t looking for fear, we did seek new challenges. Late to the sailing life, we…
Discovering Easter Island and Pitcairn by boat
Easter Island (or Rapa Nui) is the most remote inhabited island in the world. Sailing there confirmed it for us. True, we took a detour, sailing north for a few…
Exploring the Stockholm archipelago on an electric yacht
Are we now able to rely on an electric drive as an auxiliary engine for a sailing cruiser? Having mused over this for a few years, my husband Niall and…
Cruising in the beautiful Baltic
When I was a young boy, barely having learnt how to swim, I would stand by the sea in my speedos with goggles tightly strapped around my head and I…