Well, more accurately, I hvae been playing with Picassa. Google's online album thing. I have put together an album with a load of photos of our cruise to La Linea.
The link is here.
I'll try and get around to putting captions on all the pictures in due course.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
A Couple of Small Changes
The more eagle eyed amongst the legions of followers here will have noticed I have been tinkering round with things a bit. Crucially there is now a list of a few links and a chance to follow by email.
Look out, I may enable ad clicking next and become an overnight millionaire from all the click throughs you will bring here!
Look out, I may enable ad clicking next and become an overnight millionaire from all the click throughs you will bring here!
The Cruising Wiki
It had to come! I had been toying with the idea of using the Mediawiki software to deliver a cruising guide and someone has of course beaten me to it. Although wikis are fraught with problems as witnessed by the shenanigans experienced by Wikipedia it is a very useful way of collaboratively delivering factual content and is, in many ways, ideally suited to cruising guides.
The real problem is going to be getting the content when out of range of internet providers. We do not intend to carry oodles of sattelite technology such as is carried by the round the world racing fraternity who are able to update their blogs and all sorts from the depths of the southern ocean. Anyway, this project deserves as much support as possible.
The real problem is going to be getting the content when out of range of internet providers. We do not intend to carry oodles of sattelite technology such as is carried by the round the world racing fraternity who are able to update their blogs and all sorts from the depths of the southern ocean. Anyway, this project deserves as much support as possible.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Visited Sarah G
Well, we have just got back from a visit and a generally enjoyable time though coming back was just as difficult as last October. We didn't achieve much at all in terms of works on the boat but we had a nice relaxing time and did some more planning.
The view of "The Rock" is particularly impressive at night from the boat.
This year's cruising is now taking shape in a more definite way. We have shied away from trying to make it to Sardinnia and Corsica. Instead, we are going to head back west to Portugal and revisit much more slowly the south coast of Portugal (the bits we liked) and Spain. This will involve about a month of river crawling mainly as we intend to explore up the Guadiana and Guadalquivir. We will then head on into the Mediteranean and work swiftly past the Costa del Sol with a view to finishing up in Cartagena or Alicante.
Whether we return to England or stay aboard is another interesting question still to be decided. It would apparently be quite easy for me to get work in Gibraltar and I would imagine that Audrey would find the same. Of course, we would not be able to live aboard if the boat were in Alicante. Plans are though still quite nebulous in that area anyway.
This trip we first visited Gibraltar to allow Audrey to experience the strangeness of one of Britain's last colonies. We then hired a car and I showed Audrey both Barbate and Cadiz (albeit briefly) It was while visiting Cadiz that confirmed us in our view that we wanted to revisit the Atlantic ports again before making the final jump into the Med out of the Atlantic.
The views over the Straits from the Tarifa Algeciras road are typically spectacular and made a nice picture of Audrey as well.
Congratulations to Marco Nanini still holding second place in the Global Ocean Race and facing a huge storm in Drakes Passage while rounding Cape Horn
Also a huge thanks to Sitting Kitty who looked after Schrodinger excellently while we were away.
The view of "The Rock" is particularly impressive at night from the boat.
This year's cruising is now taking shape in a more definite way. We have shied away from trying to make it to Sardinnia and Corsica. Instead, we are going to head back west to Portugal and revisit much more slowly the south coast of Portugal (the bits we liked) and Spain. This will involve about a month of river crawling mainly as we intend to explore up the Guadiana and Guadalquivir. We will then head on into the Mediteranean and work swiftly past the Costa del Sol with a view to finishing up in Cartagena or Alicante.
Whether we return to England or stay aboard is another interesting question still to be decided. It would apparently be quite easy for me to get work in Gibraltar and I would imagine that Audrey would find the same. Of course, we would not be able to live aboard if the boat were in Alicante. Plans are though still quite nebulous in that area anyway.
This trip we first visited Gibraltar to allow Audrey to experience the strangeness of one of Britain's last colonies. We then hired a car and I showed Audrey both Barbate and Cadiz (albeit briefly) It was while visiting Cadiz that confirmed us in our view that we wanted to revisit the Atlantic ports again before making the final jump into the Med out of the Atlantic.
The views over the Straits from the Tarifa Algeciras road are typically spectacular and made a nice picture of Audrey as well.
Congratulations to Marco Nanini still holding second place in the Global Ocean Race and facing a huge storm in Drakes Passage while rounding Cape Horn
Also a huge thanks to Sitting Kitty who looked after Schrodinger excellently while we were away.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Off to Spain soon
At last, we are going down there for a few days. An unearthly start and easyjet from Gatwick but at least we will arrive in the middle of the day. It should be a fairly easy time though. We will mostly look around and hope to start planning the next stage of our cruise. Audrey will also get a chance to do the Gibraltar thing. We have also hired a car so we can do a bit of sightseeing.
On another note, I organised that the monthly charity dress down collection should be for the RNLI. It went quite well and I was happy to drop off around £200 to the RNLI London office. It felt nice to manage to get that much though it is only a drop in the ocean of their £150,000,000 annual budget. For all the myriad followers here, please see if you can give them a bit yourself. They can be found at:
The RNLI
I'll update while we are down there as well.
Happy Sailing for those lucky sods who are already cruising!
On another note, I organised that the monthly charity dress down collection should be for the RNLI. It went quite well and I was happy to drop off around £200 to the RNLI London office. It felt nice to manage to get that much though it is only a drop in the ocean of their £150,000,000 annual budget. For all the myriad followers here, please see if you can give them a bit yourself. They can be found at:
The RNLI
I'll update while we are down there as well.
Happy Sailing for those lucky sods who are already cruising!
Monday, 16 January 2012
First Trip Down Planned
We have booked a five day weekend starting on 18 February and coming back the following Wednesday. It seems ages since I have been there and Audrey of course, hasn't been to Gibraltar at all. We'll do a bit of work on the boat but also do some sightseeing stuff. Who knows, we may even go for a sail.
Last Friday we attended a very disappointing boat show at Excel. We don't imagine that we will be going back there again. There were very few sailing boats and none that we liked except for the Cornish Crabbers and their prices are simply eye watering. The power boats were predictably revolting and there were even fewer equipment exhibitors than before which rendered the show more or less a complete waste of time for us. Sadly, we are unlikely to be in the country for the Southampton show either.
One bit we did like was a stand where Owners Associations could push their particular boat. I felt that it would have been a good thing to have the ROA there, not least since the Contessa 32 Association was there.
The evening was a much more satisfying affair with the ROA AGM. We still find it a bit odd going to the East India Club but it is always a good evening.
Now we just have to work out how to get our windmill shipped down to Gibraltar. I wonder if Easyjet would let us take it on - for a fee of course.
Last Friday we attended a very disappointing boat show at Excel. We don't imagine that we will be going back there again. There were very few sailing boats and none that we liked except for the Cornish Crabbers and their prices are simply eye watering. The power boats were predictably revolting and there were even fewer equipment exhibitors than before which rendered the show more or less a complete waste of time for us. Sadly, we are unlikely to be in the country for the Southampton show either.
One bit we did like was a stand where Owners Associations could push their particular boat. I felt that it would have been a good thing to have the ROA there, not least since the Contessa 32 Association was there.
The evening was a much more satisfying affair with the ROA AGM. We still find it a bit odd going to the East India Club but it is always a good evening.
Now we just have to work out how to get our windmill shipped down to Gibraltar. I wonder if Easyjet would let us take it on - for a fee of course.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Big Decisions
Well, we have bowed to the inevitable and worked out we will not be ready to go in April. Various things such as getting the house ready for renting, jacking in the job and doing some necessary work on Sarah G are not going to happen in the next three months which means we can't realisticly chuck up the jobs and hope to be able to fund a six month cruise through Sardinnia, Corsica and the Med coasts of Spain and France.
We are now looking at staying in work for the summer with a series of long weekends down in La Linea to both work on the boat and do some sailing in the sun with a plan to finish in August. We could then have two months to reexplore the Costa de Luz and get up to Sevilla before spending a winter in Gibraltar.
It is a bit sad that we can't take the plunge fully this spring but I think that we will have a good time. I can help my Brother with his plans to sail Kemara round Britain and Audrey can do some belly dancing this summer.
Plans will, of course, be evolving more but we actually quite like this one. We just need a way of escaping London for the Olympics now!
We are now looking at staying in work for the summer with a series of long weekends down in La Linea to both work on the boat and do some sailing in the sun with a plan to finish in August. We could then have two months to reexplore the Costa de Luz and get up to Sevilla before spending a winter in Gibraltar.
It is a bit sad that we can't take the plunge fully this spring but I think that we will have a good time. I can help my Brother with his plans to sail Kemara round Britain and Audrey can do some belly dancing this summer.
Plans will, of course, be evolving more but we actually quite like this one. We just need a way of escaping London for the Olympics now!
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