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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
Position: 38°24’50.5″N 9°13’23.9″W “Aleta, Aleta, Aleta, Billaroo, Billaroo, Billaroo.” The VHF awoke with an unmistakably Australian accent. Twenty-four hours into our passage, we approached our final leg to Lisbon by rounding Cape Espichel and crossing the depths of the Lisbon …
Pop Quiz! You have ten minutes to complete this quiz. Good luck! You are motoring late at night towards the lights of Málaga. A vessel appears off your port side, but not on your Automated Identification System. Is it: A …
Position: 36°31’47″N 3°52’08″W As the sun rose over Aleta’s stern and Carol arose from her slumbers, it was time to change watches. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a dolphin and called down to my first mate. …
POSITION: Leaning In Life planning. A thing that life planners advocate, and few people bother doing. Perhaps that accounts for the vast numbers of life planners with second jobs waiting tables or mowing lawns. Well, I don’t know if that’s …
