Please help get this book published

Here's quite a moving video of a bunch of guys saving a whale from certain death in the Sea of Cortez. The poor whale became intangled in gil nets.

Some inspiration for you!  You're never too old!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8771085/Worlds-oldest-sailor-arrives-home-in-Japan-after-solo-journey-around-globe.html

My Flicka Caraway came with four Brookes and Gatehouse instruments. Wind, Depth, GPS and Speed. There are two transducers in the hull, one for depth situated under the sink and the speed one in the forward locker on the starboard side.

At night the instruments have lovely warm red backlights. They don’t upset night vision and give comfort when it’s rough.



These instruments were fitted...

Well, it’s a nice idea isn’t it?   The idea that you don’t have to conform to the complexity, responsibility, enslavement and tedium of modern life. That instead you can simplify your life, go sailing and search for happiness instead of climbing the career and property ladders and trying to fulfil yourself in material terms.

I came across this interesting series of videos by a guy who built his own dinghy and sailed and rowed it across from mainland Spain to Ibiza and along the coast of Spain.   When the wind failed to blow which was most of the time he was forced to row. An experience which is clearly exhausting in the summer heat.





Passage making in a small sail boat.



Although I had an engine I know how he felt being out a sea in the parching heat often wallowing in the swell.  I was always forced to start the engine. But this guy having no engine didn’t have that luxury!

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I had been meaning to upgrade the module that drives the blogging on this site. I was a bit wary because last time I upgraded the blog module the blog posts were lost. This time I made sure to back up the site before installing the module. The upgrade seemed to run smoothly. I need to make some changes to the style of the blog list at the top because the customisations I made were overwritten with the upgrade.

Please let me know if you notice any strange behaviour.

thanks

Gus

I finally found the time to write up my account of the last single handed passage I did from Minorca to France in October 2008.  You can download it direct here or you can find it under the menu Articles/Flicka Cruising Tales.  Hope you enjoy it.

In September and October every year my partner and I go to Minorca where she creates a brochure for a sailing holiday company; Minorca Sailing. She is given an apartment and I am invited to tag along with my laptop where I can work using the local wifi.  In the past we’d arrived by Flicka but last autumn I put Caraway on a trailer and sent her home to the UK. So this time we arrived by plane.

The other day, while drinking coffee in Fornells (a small town at the head of a bay on Minorca’s rugged north coast), I was lucky enough to be invited to crew on an Elan 434 which was making it’s way back to Barcelona for the winter.  I don’t have much work on and it was easy to spare the time.

The owners, an Irish couple were delighted to have an extra experienced hand on board for the 120 mile trip and promised to pay my air fare from Barcelona back to Minorca. I met them on the Friday and they planned to sail on the following Wednesday. I wasn’t prepared...

Caraway has always had a fixed VHF radio mounted on the port side to the left of the galley and above the entrance to the quarter berth. It was properly installed and has never let me down. The antenna is a Metz Manta 6 and has remained firmly attached to the very top of the mast in all weathers for at least 17 years!  The antenna is not particularly expensive to replace and thus since I had noticed the plastic top cover had disintegrated and the bolt that fixes it to the bracket had rusted solid I decided it was a good idea to take it off and have it serviced or replaced.

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