Jill started sailing at the age of three weeks and spent her formative years messing about in racing dinghies in Chichester Harbour. She made her first blue-water passage at the age of 18 but it was to be a further ten years before she was shanghaied by the skipper and started her career as an ocean-going hobo.
Jill has written a handful of books and has many more in the pipeline, but her true vocation is as an artist.
The tide is low. The sun having scarcely hauled itself up over the rim of the world, the sand is still damp; damp, and noisy, too. Perhaps the continual high-pitched popping is the sound of the water ebbing amongst the individual grains which make up the beach. Perhaps… but I like to think that it is made by some of the millions of tiny creatures for whom this shoal is the known world. Down there, under my feet, is another…
Having spent quite bit of time in Spain, amongst people who live to party and who love noise, colour, and razamatazz, we’ve seen plenty of firework displays. Indeed, we used to say that we’d seen enough pyrotechnic extravaganzas to last a lifetime. One of the country’s most spectacular demonstrations is the week-long Fiesta de San Juan, celebrated annually in Alicante. Essentially, it consists of around 80 huge bonfires, built in the streets, plus a week-long competition between the nation’s fireworks…
Amigos, Gringos, e Muito Mais! Besides providing a snug, safe anchorage and access to a great sailing playground, Itaparica also boasts various other facilities of relevance to the visiting yachtsmen, and not the least of these is the bar which, effectively, functions as an international yacht club. Amigos BBQ was founded some three or four years ago by Willem and Robyn der Merwe, a South African couple who arrived here in their yacht and liked the place too much to want…
With a coastline 5,000 miles long reaching from the equator right down to the Tropic of Capricorn and beyond, Brazil ought to offer almost unrivalled opportunities for yotties – and so it does. Here, in this one country, we can sail past palm fringed beaches one month and pine covered mountains the next. We can swelter in temperatures of over 100°F (38°C) while friends, cruising further to the south, shiver on a frosty morning and wish they had fitted the…
Roughly circular in shape, the island of Boa Vista lies about 20 miles south of Sal. On a clear day one can look across from Santa Maria and see the barren hills of Boa Vista’s north coast; but clear days are few and far between in the Cape Verdes. Paradise Island The first time we visited Boa Vista we fell in love with the place. We spent a month anchored in the big bay which eats into the island’s west…
The Rio Paraíba, already a popular point of entry for visitors to Brazil, now boasts a new mooring facility intended expressly for low-budget yotties. Situated five miles from the river’s entrance and the port of Cabedelo, the Ribeira Adventure Club lies opposite the well-known cruising venue of Jacaré. Although the channel leading up to this mini-marina is not sufficiently deep to admit the average deep draught cruising yacht, centreboarders, catamarans, and smaller yachts can get through. Once a quiet fishing…
For some time now we’ve been considering the pros and cons of an e-book reader. We yotties never seem to have enough room in the boat for all the books that we want to carry, and so a device which promises to house a thousand or more in one tiny space has obvious appeal. An e-book reader also seems to offer easy access to the hundreds of freebie books which can be downloaded from the internet. Of course, one can…
Anchorage v Marina So far as visiting yachtsmen are concerned the biggest change to Mindelo, in the past few years, is the construction of a marina. This affair completely dominates the waterfront. Once there was a quay here, and the packet boats used to berth on the far end and disgorge their passengers. More recently the quay had fallen into disrepair and the area was used by the fishermen, passing to and from the beach. The area immediately to west…
Mindelo, capital of São Vicente, is the second largest town in the Cape Verdes and the busiest port. Nestled in the north-eastern corner of a huge enclosed bay known as Porto Grande, it offers better shelter than any other harbour in the entire archipelago – but if you arrive here in the winter months then you may not appreciate this fact. Throughout January, February, and March the Porto Grande is blasted by a wind which hurtles down off the mountains…
Our friends have been writing to us lately asking whether we’re okay. At first it was just the folks back home in England. Then people as far away as Fiji and South Africa started commenting on our situation and suggesting that we might be in some kind of danger. To be honest, we were a little bit worried ourselves before we crossed the river from Uruguay. Surely, it’s not a good idea to go and visit a country when that…