Position: 45°37’34″N 122°39’25″W Note: No albatrosses were harmed in the making of this blog. The ocean is salty and that salt gets everywhere on board. It gets into the rigging, the sails, the stores, and even the language. On a …
Don’t Stay Too Long Travelling around Europe on a British passport is no easier than travelling on a Samoan one these days. Overstaying your visa risks a fine, or a ban, or both. For Brits especially, EU immigration authorities have …
Position: 39°06’48″N 8°22’14″E No matter how many nautical miles you’ve got under your keel, or how many oceans you’ve crossed, you still have to find your sea legs when you reboard your ship. Every sailor gets queasy at some point. …
Position: 37°48’27″N 1°47’15″E Three days out of Sardinia, 75 miles from any shore, the weather finally turned nasty. It was dark, an hour from first light. For the previous three hours the weather had hung off in the distance. Miles …
Position: 51°31’0″N 0°02’32″W Back in the early 1980s, when I lived in London, each neighbourhood still had the distinctive feel of villages. There were greens surrounded by shops and a church. Local pubs were full of locals who had lived …
Position: 57°58’53″N 3°56’41″W The Sutherlands seem like a bloodthirsty lot. Or at least they were. At the turn of the 19th century they were also the wealthiest landowners in Britain. Eclipsing even Queen Victoria. One of the better-known Scottish clans, …
Position: 57°26’54″N 6°35’22″W The invention of the North Coast 500 (NC500) led to an inundation of tourists in the Scottish Highlands. Tourists in the sense of literally touring with a self-driven vehicle while pausing and snapping photos every 10 minutes …
Position: 57°28’39″N 4°06’01″W Criss-crossing Scotland on our way up to and back from the Orkneys gave us a good feel for my ancestorial homeland. My last major trip to the UK’s north was back in 1977 during a year that …
Position: 58°58’17″N 3°02’52″W We’re going to return to all the stuff we did before we reached the Orkneys shortly. My daughter’s wedding photos aren’t back yet and tales of bloodthirsty lairds and epic Jacobite battles will take a little more …
