Perfect Vision

It’s a new year and a new decade. With 20/20 foresight here are our top 10 predictions: Psychiatrists will define a pathological fear of St. Nicholas as Claustrophobia. Orbiting NASA scientists working on zero gravity experiments will accidentally wipe out …

Olives, Granada & Alhambra

Position: 37° 10′ 35”N 3° 35′ 23”W Olives! Cresting the southern coastal mountains and heading north, olive groves blanket the dry, dusty, and otherwise barren landscape. From a distance, olive trees have all the hallmarks of a cash crop. First, …

Navidad en Cartagena

Position: 37° 35′ 49″N 0° 58′ 48″W Today marks our third Christmas on Aleta. In 2017 we awoke in Swansboro, Carolina del Norte (as we say here), anchored in a river on the Intra-Coastal Waterway. Later in the day we …

Córdoba’s Finest

Position: 37° 52′ 45” N 4° 46′ 47” W My instinctual response upon entering Córdoba’s stunning mosque-cathedral was an overwhelming sense of peace. It is late November and the tourists have thinned out to where I easily found a modicum …

Thanksgiving

Position: 36° 48′ 51″N 2° 33′ 40″ W The origin of modern Thanksgiving in America is probably apocryphal. As schoolchildren Americans are taught that the Pilgrims celebrated their deliverance to the New World in harmony with an indigenous people. A …

By Hook or By Crook

Position: 36° 59′ 4″N 7° 50′ 46″W Over the last year we got pretty good at gunkholing around the Caribbean. Finding anchorages out of the way of local fishing boats, in the lee of impending weather, we’d hang off our …

Photos: Lisbon

Position: 38° 43′ 20” N 9° 8′ 21” W Just as Dr. Pangloss is about to prove à priori the Bay of Lisbon was purpose-made for drowning James the Anabaptist, the ship he and his ward Candide are sailing on …