If we had happened to bump into Phoenicia while she was on the high seas then I would probably have put it down to too much red wine. Not that we drink a lot of that sort of thing on passage, but the only other explanation must surely be that we had travelled through a time warp. As it is, however, we were safely tucked up in the harbour of Lajes, in the Azores, when Phoenicia rocked up. And since…
His namesake dreamt of ruling the world, but never even glimpsed the lands on the far side of the Western Ocean. Our own Caesar has travelled to countries that the old Roman despot could never have even imagined, but far from becoming a megalomaniac he just wants to do his bit to help. In the summer of 2011 he wants to spend time in Central America, working with Raleigh International. Raleigh is a charity which combines the youth-development aims of…
With additional text, in italics, by Jill Once again we are in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for November. This is the island’s busiest month. WOMAD, a free four-day world-music festival, starts on November the 11th and people from all over the Canary Islands get on the ferries and come to see it. The anchorage fills up with almost 60 boats, instead the usual two or three. But most of the yachtsmen have not actually come to listen to the…
As his wife, Catalina would tell you, Marius Albu is a very special man. Born and bred in the mountains of Romania, his burning ambition was to escape from the oppressive regime which ruled his country and sail around the world. “We all thought that it was a great joke,” says Catalina. Besides the fact that he would never be given permission to leave the country, he had no boat. “And even supposing that he managed to build a boat,…
Eighteen years ago, when the dot-com officer was still wearing nappies and the Ship’s Scholar was barely a bulge in the Admiral’s waistline, the good ship Maamari (predecessor to Mollymawk) was lying at anchor in the island of Antigua. To be precise, Maamari was lying in English Harbour, and in the absolute poll position at the head of the harbour; fifty-odd yards from the dockyard and fifty from the Slipway. The Antigua Slipway boatyard was where the Captain of our…
Hillsborough, Carriacou Bill Patterson was sitting with his friends in the front of his high street shop. From the wooden ceiling above his head two dozen T shirts, in assorted sizes and colours, hung down like curtains of weed in a grotto, but the shelves which lined the walls of the little den were stocked with tins of peas and milk powder and suchlike. Meanwhile, the tired old counter at the back of the store carried a display of batteries,…
Back in ye olde days His Majesty’s Royal Navy used to experience a little bit of difficulty in recruiting sailors. Small wonder since the food was awful, the discipline was unbelievably severe, and the accommodation smelly, dirty and very cramped. There being few volunteers to live a life more dire than that of a convict, the navy took to grabbing men out of the fields and inns and even out of their homes. Needless to say, this workforce was not…
To celebrate the Christmas season and greet our friends and readers Roxanne has made a watercolour painting of an Iberian lynx padding through the snow.
Well, it’s that time of the year again – and we’re still little nearer than we were last Christmas to our Southern Ocean goal. As you can no doubt imagine, we spend a lot of time dreaming of the journey ahead. The admiral’s latest painting brings this dream to life; it shows Mollymawk flying along amongst a flock of assorted seabirds, through a sea filled with fish and other animals. No, it isn’t really quite like this, out there on…
Twenty years ago one hardly ever came across a yacht which had livestock aboard, but now seadogs and ship’s cats are a common sight. Sailing chickens are still a rarity, as are toads and snakes, and we have yet to come across a parrot – although we did once meet a chap who had just lost his parrot overboard…