IRL
Position: 52°00’41.5″N 4°42’38.8″E For the past eight years or so, I’ve been meeting weekly with three other chaps to solve all of the world’s problems. Our online chats last about an hour and long predated Covid copycat meetups. We have …
The Staande Mastroute
Position: 52°22’40.4″N 4°38’18.0″E Negotiating the English Channel and the northwestern edges of France and Belgium required us to pay more attention to the depth sounder than we had anticipated. The Channel is shallow. Between Guernsey and the Straits of Dover …
Places You’ve Probably Never Been
But if you have, these photos will be a happy reminder of how nice these three places are. Cascais, Position: 38°41’52.9″N 9°25’11.9″W Perched out on the western corner of Lisbon’s wide Tagus River estuary, Cascais is where Lisbonistas go to …
Current Events
Position: 49°43’07″N 2°00’14″W Time and tide wait for no one. Nor do currents. Our navigation skills grew fat and lazy in the Mediterranean, at least metaphorically, and the vigorous waters around Brittany put them back on the treadmill for some …
Brest
Position: 48°22’36″N 4°29’34″W Tonnerre de Brest! Twenty miles offshore and heading for Brest in the thick of a thunderstorm, Captain Haddock’s expletive, Tonnerre de Brest! (Thunder of Brest) became reality. Rain lashed the dodger and our radar circled colourfully, highlighting …
Happiness
Position: 42°16’36.7″N 8°49’20.9″W Carol’s dad, Bob, asked us if we were going to see anyone on our journey north to the Baltic? It was a reasonable question. Our contact list is, after all, long. We thought about it during our …
Balloons: or Why Up is a Downer
Public Service Trigger Announcement Nowadays it doesn’t take much to raise the hackles of my inner misanthrope. If clumps of oil were all we saw, then life on the high seas might not be quite as ecologically depressing. The one …
Movie Night – Circa 1972
THX George My parents sent me to boarding school to learn the value of parental rejection at an early age. The lessons were profound, but one of the fun things we did there was periodically watch recently released movies. This …
Sintra
Position: 38°47’14.6″N 9°23’27.7″W The Palácio Nacional da Pena is a shining “jewel in the crown” of Portuguese royalty. That Portuguese royalty, like Britain’s, were Germans is neither here nor there. The where, since you asked, is in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, …