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A little sail to the beautiful Isle of Canna
Log 10699 29th August 2021 Dom and I arrived at Dunstaffnage at 19:30 on Sunday evening. Strangely it doesn’t really matter when I leave London or Dunstaffnage I always arrive at the other end at 19:30 which makes life simple. There was just enough time to transfer a couple of trolley loads of gear from…
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A Road Trip to the River Fal!
Jo, Sim and their daughter Lotte had been living on board their Inchcape Motor Sailer in South Dock Marina, London, for a year or so when they decided it was time for a change. While they were there we became good friends, with Jo and Lotte often helping helping out in Arthur Beale’s chandlery when…
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Open Water Swimming
18th August 2021 My friend Jannicke has become a very keen, and rather skilful, open water swimmer and she foolishly invited me to join her for a swim in the London Docks. Even more foolishly, I accepted. It meant that I had to join various outfits with long acronyms which became rather stressful to organise,…
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I went into the chandlers to buy a toothbrush and…
…I ended up with an Avon Dinghy! It wasn’t totally spontaneous because I had been looking for one for about three years but my eBay searches only led to a few leads and then we were outbid. Such is the demand for simple old fashioned quality. So when I saw this little beast leaning up…
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New Vertue Spotted – Tom Thumb V111
August 2021 This is cheating because I haven’t actually seen Tom Thumb – yet. However, I did ask Kevin if he could look out for her as he was sailing from Craobh Marina on an enlarged circumnavigation of Mull. He kindly sent me these photos. Kevin, by the way, looks after the Shackleton Museum in…
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Choosing Camera Equipment for the Boat
2nd August 2021 It is not as easy as it sounds, in fact it rapidly becomes quite complicated. I’m not in any way a professional photographer but I do have the slight advantage in that this is my second time around at purchasing boat camera equipment. Eleven years ago, I selected the equipment to take…
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St Kilda 2021 Part Two – Barra to St Kilda and back to Dunstaffnage
Log 10452 I had randomly decided that the Sound of Barra was the route to go, despite it being described as “tortuous” in the pilot books. I then succeeded in muddling up the incoming tide with the outgoing one which I luckily picked up on when John showed me some fancy app on his iPad.…
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St Kilda 2021 Part One – Oban to Barra
Log 10360 My friend Ray applied to work on the remote island of St Kilda when he was just 17 year old. He never got a reply, and although he still holds a slight grudge, it didn’t mean his interest in the islands would wane. He has watched all the old film clips and read…
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Fruit Hammocks
I know some people think fruit hammocks are rubbish but I find them really useful onboard Sumara. They are very gentle on soft fruits and everything can be inspected. I use one to store little evil snacks, one for healthy veg and one for fruit. They normally collect a couple of mobile phones, sunglasses and…
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Kettles!
In the campervan we aim to keep all the cooking paraphernalia in one storage box under the famous back shelf. However, the kettle that we owned simply swallowed up all the space. I’ve been watching Rodger Barnes’ excellent videos about dinghy cruising. If you haven’t watched them, then I can highly recommend trying a few…