Rascally Rabat
Position: 34°01’33.7″N 6°50’15.3″W Truth be told I’ve never been big into discos. Sure after a few Rusty Nails and a plate of pasta at the ski lodge I might make my way downstairs in some forgettable nearby Italian hotel and …
Category: Underway
Tangiers
Position: 35°47’07.7″N 5°48’38.9″W Morocco’s ancient port of Tangiers is changing. Since Carol’s last visit 11 years ago, the city has expanded significantly. Hotels and a brand-new international marina now line the bay to the east, while apartment blocks and wholly …
Blue Hilly Streets
Position: 35°10’07.2″N 5°15’56.1″W Every tourist town needs a draw. Chicago is the Windy City and the home of Al Capone. New York is the city that never sleeps. London is the home of queens and Pearly Kings. Chefchaouen, Morocco, is …
Into the Orca’s Kitchen
Position: 35°57’06.4″N 5°50’56.4″W Orcas are wild animals. No amount of anthropomorphising changes that. For the past five years Iberia’s orcas have been ‘interacting’ with boats up and down the Spanish-Portuguese coast. Interacting means physical contact. Anything from a bump to …
Sailing into the Orca’s Kitchen: Prelude
Position: 36°45’04.4″N 6°25’18.5″W Rather than overwhelm you, dear reader, with another vital instalment of our excruciating linear narrative of sailing down the coast of Portugal, let’s skip ahead a couple of months and talk about the lead up to sailing …
Man (soon to be) Overboard
Position: 37°02’27.7″N 8°53’37.7″W Sometime remakes are better than the original. Sometimes things should be left just as they were. Our early misadventure with Nell’s towline on the Great Bahama Bank seven-and-a-half years ago (seems like yesterday, doesn’t it? – ed.) …
Douro Valley Daze
Position: 41°09’16.7″N 7°46’57.1″W Another four days of Atlantic churn meant we could tick off a barrel-sized item on our bucket list: wine tasting in the heart of the Douro Valley. But first we had a hoped-for date with monster waves …
Any Porto in a Storm
Position: 41°11’39.5″N 7°48’09.0″W By morning, the winds of Viando do Castelo had dropped to nearly nothing. Slipping our mooring and heading out on the downstream tide, we nonetheless raised the main in hopes of a breath of wind. The dominant …
Viana do Castelo
Position: 41°41’36.3″N 8°49’20.4″W As soon as Aleta reached the mouth of the Vigo River, and after we agreed that Baiona was too short of a sail, the wind died. Shame on the forecast! Perhaps we were too close to shore …