Sailing south Spain and Portugal

After crossing the Bay of Biscay in our first ever ‘Oh my God! We can’t see land!’ experience, we deserved a bit of a rest, some nice food and a few cold beers.  A Coruña (or La Coruña) in Northern Spain turned out to be a lovely town with atmospheric streets brimming with chilled, Read More

Sailing across the Bay of Biscay

After a week of sailing along the English south coast in pretty rubbish weather with the wind constantly in the wrong direction, we picked up Uncle Adam in Falmouth, filled the cupboards with baked beans and Angel Delight and we were off!  We slipped the lines at 6am as the sun rose over the, Read More

The British ensign

On Monday 13th August 2018, we sailed out of Port Solent Marina in Portsmouth, UK, on our biggest adventure yet.  An adventure to explore the world using a sailing boat as our base and home.  

New mast

“Of course you don’t need a new mast.  Nobody has ever replaced a mast on an Oyster!” That’s what we were told over and over again, by rigger after rigger and surveyor after surveyor.  But here we are, many months later, with our brand new mast gleaming in the sunlight.  Over in Sweden, a, Read More

Renaming a boat is something that seems to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious sailors everywhere. Apparently it’s really bad luck to change the name of a boat, even if the current name is a bit rubbish. If you are brave enough to anger the gods by changing a boat name, then there, Read More

Must have boat gadgets for sailors and backpackers

What are our must have boat gadgets for living aboard and travelling on our sailing boat??  After travelling overland around the world, we were pretty good at knowing what travel gear worked in our backpacks, and what didn’t.  We had our favourite travel accessories that are invaluable to us while on the road.  Since, Read More

Sailing boat ashore

I’d been looking forward to “hauling out day” for about a month. It marked the official end of our first sailing season and would be the start of a new chapter in the book that I’m going to write about all of this when I get around to it (although I said that about, Read More

Wins and fails of a first time boat owner

The learning curve of an inexperienced, new boat owner has been a lot steeper than I expected.  Owning and fixing up an older sailing boat for cruising the world has been much more of an emotional roller coaster ride that I was prepared for.  During the first five months, we have had many boat, Read More

RYA Diesel Engine Course review

The RYA Diesel Engine Course doesn’t sound like the most exciting way to spend a Sunday, does it?  Well, it isn’t.  But if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to learn all about that diesel engine on your boat and save loads of money in the long term, this is it!  Read this, Read More

Sailing

I’ve now got just over seven months of early morning train action under my belt, commuting from Portsmouth on the 06:34 to London, it’s high time for a bit of reflective writing.  I’m looking back on the highs and lows of the commute, boat ownership and our first summer of sailing.  Things have definitely, Read More