John Passmore July 18th 2018 This calm has lasted for 18 hours – so far. It is 1145 and I am sure it started before 1800 yesterday. I’ve decided that I like calms. There is absolutely no point in getting worked up about them. I cannot make the wind blow and there is no point whatsoever in … Read more
July 16th 2018 The little black box is indeed about the size of a pack of cigarettes – a little bigger, maybe – but a marvel, nevertheless. Bernard Moitessier dreamed about this. In his book: The Long Way, he mused, deep in the Southern Ocean: “Some day we will have tiny walkie-talkies no bigger than … Read more
Monday July 9th 2018 Start putting together the perfect day and sunshine has to come high on the list. Yes, the sun is shining – just a few high clouds but they’re mostly on the horizon. In this patch of the Atlantic it is a day of blue skies. Blue skies and blue seas – … Read more
August 2nd 2018 I am sitting in a bar in Ponta Delgada, in the Azores waiting for Tamsin to arrive with the youngest two children. They have landed, apparently and will be arriving at our Airbnb apartment whenever the charming Portugese bureaucracy has finished with them (it is charming, very good for the patience and … Read more
27th June 2018 After the gales of the Fair Isle Channel, the passage down the west coast of the Hebrides was marked by calms. And then this happened,,,
28th June 2018 I can tell you two things about St Kilda. All the people left 1930, unable to cope any longer with the hard life on this desolate piece of granite 60 miles out in the Atlantic. Secondly, part of the reason was because the island’s gene pool wasn’t what it was: For hundreds … Read more
3rd July 2018 This was a must: The pilot book describes Vatersay Bay as “the finest Sandy Beach on the East side of the Outer Hebrides” and it is fabulous – white sand and crystal clear water that would not be out of place in the Caribbean – and, as you see, not a soul on … Read more
4th July 2018 Remember when people used to like to “get away from the telephone”. What ever happened to that? I have just spent three weeks trying to find a mobile signal. Obviously, sailing long distances, there are going to be times when you are out of sight of land and we all know the … Read more
