Court Short

The first night home alone I entertained Vicky and Elliot and acted as their chauffeur too - Elliot was not at all phased by the accoustic landing alongside Swallow.   My parking at the quay is improving and I have my little friend to help me!   He must have eyes in the back of his […]

This is definitely ‘Out of Africa’.   What we lack in facilities (I think the word ‘Port’ had conjured up a place with fuel, water, shops and some modern buildings – which is definitely not the case) is made up in spades by the absolutely delightful and helpful people.   The town is a mass of bars […]

If you’ve been following our progress on the ‘Where we are now’ tab you may have noted that our mission statement on that website is ‘Never a dull moment!’.    This strapline has certainly been true for this passage.   We have been challenged by lack of wind, very occasionally too much wind and wind in the […]

We arrived in La Gomera last night after a great sail to find ourselves moored just below the quay where the Atlantic Rowers are preparing their boats.    If anyone thought we were mad, they should take a look at this lot.   Their stowage plan makes mine look positively amateurish.   Hannah Lawton and Lauren Morten, representing […]

We met up with the Volvo engineer, David, yesterday.   He arrived with a couple of helpers as he speaks no English and has a broken leg!   He managed to get on board, sniffed the air and said ‘fuel injector’!   He returned, as promised, today with the parts and duly fixed Victor but much later […]

Yesterday afternoon, on returning from a gastronomic meal with Claire’s parents, we were invited by Hans and Katrin to carry on the party on board ‘Roomtop’.    Jo and Hannah from Smiles also joined them and we discovered over the proverbial glass that Hans is a professional diver and Jo loves engines!    No sooner had we […]

The success or failure of this adventure was hanging in the balance.   We were down to our last box of Shreddies and, despite hunting in all stores within bicycling range en route from La Coruna to Lanzarote, had been unable to locate even a small box.   The timely arrival of parents in Tenerife armed with […]

What a slow and bumpy start we had!   After leaving Arrecife, we flew Red Passion for a short while, but in between Fuerteventura and Lanzarote we lost the wind and motored for an hour and a half. Then the winds picked up and we started to travel – not in quite the right direction though!   […]

We have been really spoilt by having Jimmy Cornell at the marina and being able to attend the seminars he has put on for his inaugural Atlantic Odyssey Rally.   We now have loads of information we just need time to digest it!   We recovered from our information overload with a  lively evening on board Ocean […]

Well you know the saying!   This mouse went out to play!   I've finally met up with Izzy and Colin from Endorphin (they're sailing friends of Jon on Hecla and we first heard about them when we arrived in La Coruna all those months ago).  They have a car hire for the week and very […]