Category: Expeditions
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Kungsleden – a mini Arctic Adventure
March 2014 Sweden Last week we returned from Sweden having spent a week tackling a grand section of the Kungsleden in Arctic Sweden. We managed to miss our flight northwards from Stockholm due to fog delays in London so we arrived to meet Charlotte after a night sitting up on a train from Stockholm to…
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Russian charts at the CA
6th December 2013 During our Russian Meeting No 1 at Kentish Town Graham kindly suggested that he may be able to arrange a viewing of the Cruising Associations collection of Russian Charts. On Friday evening Grit and I arrived at the CA to take up the offer.Graham and Fay had found the folio of charts, maps…
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Russian Meeting No2
1st November 2013 Davy’s Wine Bar – Greenwich Maxine and Dirk had kindly agreed to meet us for a chat over dinner. By amazing coincidence we found out about Maxine’s amazing exploits early this year when we saw a car with Russian number plates parked in Greenwich. Asking if Dirk was Russian he replied that he wasn’t…
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Russian Meeting No 1
30th October 2013 Charlotte had organised everything! The team met up at the Pineapple Pub in Kentish town. I didn’t make it to the pub having had to bail out of the overcrowded tube and run half way across London. I joined the meeting at Ashcombe Street where Charlotte was staying whilst in London. I burst in…
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Russia and all that
27th July 2013 I had been worried that I had missed my chance to join Charlotte’s adventure through the canal from St Petersburg to the White Sea. John had already set off for Norway and arranged winter berthing. My only chance of joining the trip would be if the whole thing was delayed by a year.…
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Earthquake hits Jan Mayen
It looks like Jan Mayen has been hit by a very large 6.6 magnitude earthquake but no damage has been reported. I wonder if that makes Beerenberg closer to errupting (although Gudrun assures me Katla in Iceland is the next to blow – and it could be soon!). Apparently is was very big, bigger than…
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A Rather Un-seamanlike Decision
Position Dunstaffnage Marina Gudrun and I decided to spend Monday in Tobermory and to get up very early Tuesday morning to sail the final leg down the Sound of Mull to Dunstaffnage. I had looked roughly at the weather on a grib file and it didn’t seem too bad. The weather on the harbour office…
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“I think that I shall never see,………..
Position N56,37 x W006,03 Wind: Who cares, we are snugged up in Tobermory! ….a poem as lovely as a tree”.Paul Robeson We arrived safely in Tobermory Harbour yesterday afternoon after a really fast down wind sail through the Sea of the Hebrides. Once we were safely tied to the visitors buoy we rowed ashore for…
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“Land Ahoy”
Position N56,41 x W006,41 Wind F4 Westerly rather unstable. Now we are sailing downwind through the Sea of theHebrides with Coll on our starboard bow. We hit some rough seas as the depth dropped from 1000m to about 100m but it is more peaceful now except for the occasional viscous squall which drives through with…
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Stretched Limos
Position N57,26 x W010,02 Wind force 6 southerly. Now we are under reefed staysail and two reefs in the main. She is in the groove banking a bit of south which may be useful if the wind veers at all. It is getting rather rough. Now I need to pump the bilge. It takes about…