It is just over a week since our arrival in Porto Santo, just northeast of Madeira, but it has seemed so much longer as we explore these islands of many contrasts. Having dropped anchor and slept soundly, we pumped up the dinghy and ventured ashore. The island is only 11km long but 9km of the …
29th August 2024: Day 0 If all goes to plan, we set sail tomorrow! In a couple of hours our good friend John joins us. He is a veteran of sailing trips on Merryn – sailing with us for a trip to France from the UK, and for our big Biscay crossing in 2021. His …
Another two weeks have passed and, looking at the map, we don’t seem to have travelled very far! We waited another few days at Motril for the winds to turn from strong Westerlies to more favourable Easterlies, enjoying another evening with Frank and Rosi, our fellow Vikings. We headed off west along the Costa Del …
For the past few weeks the sun has shone and we’ve been out walking almost every day, spending every evening on our terrace and having plenty of barbeques. Down in the valley it has hit 30 degrees but it’s pleasantly cooler up in the mountains. Jonathan has taken the opportunity to develop his skills with …
We departed Santa Pola on the last leg of our trip from Sardinia to Almerimar. Thankfully the winds and swell had calmed and we had a great sail to our next port of Les Salines. This is an interesting little port with a big fishing fleet so we were greeted with strong fishy smells as …
I returned to Palma after a fantastic weekend in London, having visited my mum and then joined friends for Sally and Sarah’s special birthday celebration at Sam’s on the river. Fabulous food, brilliant company and a surprise visit by Anita who had flown over from Australia. Lunch carried on well into the evening and the …
We departed Isola Maddalena and had a night at a beautiful anchorage, waiting for the swell to abate, before heading across the Bonifacio Strait to Corsica. The old walled city of Bonifacio clings to high, eroded cliffs and is an incredible sight. We then rounded a small headland that leads into the narrow Cala of …
We’ve had a house full of lively guests and some beautiful sunshine, interspersed with overnight snowfalls, resulting in a fantastic few weeks. Ray and his daughter Lily arrived a fortnight ago and we headed off to Ste Foy. We had sunshine and empty runs making for a great first day before spending the rest of …
Hmm. That doesn’t look much like a ski resort! Since Gary departed two weeks ago we haven’t really had any big snowfalls and the weather has mainly been sunny with unusually high temperatures. With this in mind we decided to go cycling around beautiful Lac d’Annecy. We headed off down the mountain on a glorious …
Ten days ago we returned to Greece but we were unaware that we were flying in to Storm Daniel too! We touched down at Preveza airport in high humidity, and storm clouds built overnight, bringing torrential rain, strong winds, thunder and lightning. Our boat was due to be relaunched the next day and we watched …