Yearly Archives: 2011

“It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.”  –  Hunter S. ThompsonHoliday from our holiday – week at anchor near Almería 🙂

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“Once freedom has exploded in the soul of a man,
the gods have no more power over him”  –  Jean-Paul Sartre 

The Portuguese postal service was taking its time, but pretty Ayamonte turned out to be rather enjoyable, especially after we’d activated some local couchsurfers. The plutocrats on a neighbouring motor yacht kindly gave us some tuna and what may have been bonito, which promptly resulted in a long-overdue sushi orgy.

We were soon joined by Maria “Norwegian person” J, who turned out to be an excellent addition to the crew. We finally set off for Cadiz, sailing most of the way, anxious to make it for the Friday night outing. On our way in, one of the drive belts failed, and I spent an hour swearing and sweating in the engine room. We finally landed at 0400, but were all too knackered for the disco.

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The journey towards Gibraltar a few days […]

“Live well. It is the greatest revenge.”  –  The Talmud 

Many moons have passed since the last update, I hear some people were even wondering if we were still going. Well, reports of my death are an exaggeration, as Mark Twain said – I was simply too involved with the project.

But let’s start from the beginning. The last crew of Walde, Elin, and finally Kenny departed from Figueira da Foz, leaving me to my own devices. I crammed all the gymming and relaxing into the first week of my stay until Marco “el subcommandante” G turned up, who very kindly lent me a few days of his time to install a few beds on the boat. He brought with him Italian cuisine, taught me a few phrases in his native language, and generally turned out to be excellent company. Thanks Marco!

Later that week, we were joined by charming Jo G. I bought a moribund […]

“But I forsee that if my wants should be much increased, the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons & afternoons to society, neglecting my peculiar calling, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birth-right for a mess of pottage.”  –  Henry David Thoreau 

 

We successfully escaped pretty A Coruña following 3 weeks of partying while waiting for the hydraulics and autopilot to be fixed. Tobi departed around this time, so we were down to two crew. We had hugely ambitious plans of sailing around Fistera into one of the Rias, but soon realised that we were actually far too knackered from all the goodbyeing. We pulled into a tiny fishing village. The single pontoon marina indicated by my otherwise fabulous Reeds guide turned out to be mere fantasy so we anchored out in the harbour on a perfectly calm night, rowed ashore […]

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”  –  Helen Keller
Having set off from Cherbourg sometime around the 18th of April (I should really be taking that logbook business more seriously!) we reached Guernsey after 8 hours of motoring through a dead-calm version of the feared Audierne race with numerous filter changes. We spent a few days on Guernsey, a weird tax oasis under direct control of the crown; here, we cleaned and emptied the much-troubled contaminated fuel tank and got some super cheap diesel.

This was followed by a big leg around the end of Brittany towards Brest. The strong high pressure at the time meant delightful weather and zero wind, so we were once again motoring along. The French customs decided to board around midnight. I love them, I really do. They arrived on an unlit cutter on my watch, and the first sign of them was a huge searchlight in my face and noise on the radio. Eventually […]