Satellite communications
In addition to 3 EPIRBs and the Yellowbrick transmitter, Tainui has an HF transceiver (Icom M802) which, using a Pactor modem and Sailmail, has been our main method of long distance communication at sea. But…
In addition to 3 EPIRBs and the Yellowbrick transmitter, Tainui has an HF transceiver (Icom M802) which, using a Pactor modem and Sailmail, has been our main method of long distance communication at sea. But…
Between the Canaries and Cabo Verde, Yellowbrick tracker, our little GPS transmitter, started sending out collision reports to our friends and family. We didn’t know about any of this at the time. It turns out…
Sao Anton is a 90 minute ferry ride west from Mindelo. If you find yourself in Cabo Verde, a visit to this lovely island should not be missed. The south of Sao Anton is a…
The islands slowly revealed themselves as unprepossessing hard grey lines in the soft grey skies. Only close in did the jagged, rocky profiles become apparent. A couple of timid terns welcomed us and the wind…
Without celebration we passed 23 deg 26.14 min this morning. It is sunny but wet on deck as we lope south under Yankee alone. The wind is cool, fresh and a remarkably constant 30 knots…
It is 2 pm and we’re about 60 miles off Cape Bojador on the coast of Western Sahara. You wouldn’t know it though – there’s no red dust and the sea is deepest lazuli blue. We could be…
After a splendid farewell meal last night we waltzed back to Tainui in good spirits. Moored bow in, the boat presents a mildly challenging hurdle when boarding, even though the thoughtful skipper has rigged a…
Here my will to live has been hijacked by Ian, off sightseeing Gran Canarias Island, and Maxine who has bolted for the hairdresser and manicurist. They left together this morning and I stayed behind to…
It is only a short ferry trip across the channel from Graciosa to the big island. The trip is well worth it. Half of Lanzarote is covered with vast fields of sharp lava and eery…
…the etymology of the name Canaries, that is. Our Canaries landfall was Isla Graciosa, a lazy, quiet island to the north of Lanzarote. White stucco dwellings with blue trim sit lonely on the sand and…
…except for us, roaring west in bags of wind. We left Gibraltar at 2 pm in a levanter, the moist easterly wind which cloaks the Rock with a plume of cloud and funnels west through…
Back in Gibraltar I had 5 days to get the antifouling on, grease the MaxProp, install new anodes and refloat Tainui before Maxine and Ian arrived. This re-commissioning business always depresses me. I look around…
Funny how these things happen. This year, Xmas saw 7 of Tainui’s past and present crew in Berlin for various reasons – me en route Gibraltar; Chris visiting Jasper who is studying script-writing there; Lucy…
It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of dear old Mike. He died peacefully last Sunday after a long struggle with metastatic carcinoma of the colon. He fought his illness with characteristic…
In rain and fresh winds I managed to back the old girl into the Travelift pen. To my surprise, given her wilful and difficult behaviour when being driven in reverse. I was lucky to have…
I have talked about this before. Discovering that in Tromso the yard manager’s father had built and owned Norbu (the ship in which I first went to sea in 1966); learning that 3 friends of…
…is its strategic location. I’m not talking about military strategy but the wonderful range of destinations within a 2 hour drive or ferry trip from the place – Morroco and most of Andalucia, to begin…
With brute strength, Hercules forced his way through the mountains at the western edge of the Mediterranean, creating the Straits of Gibraltar. The Pillars of Hercules on each side bore the notice “ne plus…
Overnight we lurched and rolled west across the Ibiza Channel, with no wind and a lumpy beam swell from the north. Not un-tedious. But it was a gorgeous night and with, for me, an unusual…
It was a relief to leave San Antoni, even without a telephone. Not far to the south is the quiet island of Formentera, where we found anchorage in a snug little bay on Isla Espalmador.…
In San Antoni I dropped my iPhone into the water. Vale Navionics, iSailor, Wikipedia offline and all manner of accumulated electronic goodies. The last straw for this poor old fart. (It might be the last…
We had a splendid sail south to Ibiza, anchoring in one of the many rocky coves along the northern coast to swim and catch up on sleep. Ibiza has a very pretty coast – high…
The marina at Palma is big (1,000 yachts), hot and very expensive (120 euros per night). Little Miss Perfect arrived like a breath of fresh air. She immediately armed herself with scouring pads, and threatened…
The 200 mile leg from Sardinia to Mallorca is almost due west, just perfect in the fresh northerly wind which blew for 36 hours. With reefed main (another novelty) and the yankee sheet-blocked well forward,…
Tainui’s 250 mile passage from Cefalu north to Sardinia was noteworthy for 2 reasons. First, she had a fresh tailwind. Incredible, I know, but true! For the first time since the Sea of Marmara the…
The Straits of Messina are now tame. Especially if Corryvreckan, Lemaire or the Merry Men of Hoy are your yardsticks. Still noteworthy however, are the current which alternates between 4 knots with and 2 knots…
Scylla and Charybdis guarded Homer’s Strait of Messina. Charybdis was a beautiful daughter of Poseidon, changed by Zeus into a monstrous , floppy bladder with flipper limbs and a vast maw. She sucked in huge…
Crossing the southern approach to the Strait of Messina the moon was setting over Sicily. I had seen the huge lump of Mt Etna at dusk and the lights of Riposto were clear on the…
Tainui and I romped west from Corfu in a fresh northerly breeze, with a sparkling azure sea and dancing whitecaps. Destination Riposto, 260 miles away in Sicily. It was a novel, wonderful feeling, to be…
Messing around on the water you always have a weather eye out for boats. In 3 days I saw these three examples of the best and the worst of them. The stately gentleman’s motor yacht…
It is a long overnighter from Montenegro south to Corfu. The Albanian coast seems to go on and on, with limited opportunities to stop along the way. On our trip north we had had northerlies,…
After two expensive (EUR 160 per day!) but luxuriously worthwhile nights at Dubrovnik marina we motored 35 miles down to Montenegro over calm seas. In Kotor, The Pheromonals climbed to the top of the splendid…
We have been dawdling south among the hundreds of islands in the Kornati group. Low, rocky and often uninhabited, they offer a lifetime’s exploring. The cold rain and headwinds have given way to warm, gentle…
…me and Tainui both. With much difficulty, Lucy has managed to convince me that the Bloody Mary, combined with poached eggs on toast, is a perfectly respectable breakfast. Even in this most abstemious of vessels.…
After a long drive up from Split, Lucy and her fiance Dan arrived last night. Jet-lagged to buggery, they said. I showed them the way to the playpen (our aft cabin) but first, they said,…
After a fine sail down from Venice, Tainui is again tied up in Pula. Lucky I didn’t dely my departure – last night a vicious series of storms passed through with spectacular lightning displays, strong…
After a hearty Tainui breakfast (coffee, a cigarette, Metamucil, fluoxetine and paracetamol) I let go our lines at dawn and Tainui slipped out of Venice on the last of the ebb. A grey morning with…
I had two jobs on today’s list – visits to Grand Scuola and the church of San Rocco and the inevitable SIM card nonsense at a Vodaphone shop. In San Pietro I was waylaid. I…
I ought to be able to report that provisioning today was a tedious business. It was not. I wandered through San Pietro and found myself at a cafe watching the Italy-Uruguay match. With the aid…
Last night I sat in the cockpit with a glass of red, marveling at the spectacular light show as a line of black thunderstorms approached from the northeast. Continuous sheet lightning with little thunder, reminding…
After the chaos of Venice with its milling tourist throngs, Ravenna came as a delightful surprise. Here are some images which highlight the difference. Hardly a noteworthy post topic, I know, but the contrast came…
For many years I have wanted to make a pilgrimage to Ravenna. Here in Venice I had contemplated sailing 75 miles down the coast to Porto Corsini, from where it is a short bus ride…
At noon, central Venice is unbearably crowded. Morbidly obese Amercans named Chuck and Darlene with Very Loud Voices; bewildered and tired backpackers with dangling sneakers; Japanese parties with matching cameras and all making V signs;…
Before she left Venice Maxine insisted that we get up at 5 am and take Tainui out for a photo shoot in front of the Doge’s Palace, before the waterway got too busy. It was…
Jasper is a keen soccer player and after much effort he managed to infect us with a modicum of interest in the game. Sadly he has had to fly home to Sydney, back to his…
This can no longer be ignored. Her favoured drug, of course, has always been the iPhone. In our previous post there is a picture of Miss Perfect seated in the dinghy with her eyes glued…
Tourism and Venice go hand in hand. With a shrinking resident population (currently 56,000) Venice receives more than 22 million tourists annually. Locals here say that the parlous future of this city is defined by…
Venetian customs and immigration formalities are easy, once you find out how to do it. In most countries there is a designated anchorage where vessels must stop, displaying a Q flag (“my vessel is healthy and…
I had not appreciated that all transportation in Venice is by water. Beautifully varnished water taxis, service barges, ambulances, fire fighting vessels, vaporetti, cruise ships and garbage boats bring whole new meaning to the concept…
We didn’t join the tourist queue for a ride in a gondola, but sitting in the shade with a campari spritz I could watch these boatmen all day. Gondolas look so ungainly, but in the…