Yachtie Doomster
Yachtie Doomster Fixing things, catching fish and battery volts, we work beaches burning rubbish and comb back odd things to compensate for what we lose overboard from time to time. Progressively we believe in survival on one’s own and the lack of our ability to develop anything in the west anym...
Making Time off the North East of Soop
Making Time off the North East of Soop 11m with good holding on sand and coral rubble. The bottom flat for the tidal swing. I look out of my office to sea all around. The beach and its reef to west; An Italian yacht on hook close east. Captain Frederico, Alice, Raphael, expresso and all. The bay ext...
Roger the regular catch
We are grounded in Porter marina just outside Cebu by a windlass gearbox failure. Our marina is great. We have two fishponds with a great restaurant in the middle 50 m inland from the boat: 2 menus, one Philippino, one Korean! Pond 3 is catch and release. Pond 2 is catch and eat. Pond 1 doesnt exist...
The day I nearly lost my foot
Today I nearly had my foot, ankle or lower leg crushed. The decision was mine. I arrived with morning dope at the marina dock. We had anchored outside. As I was tying up the dinghy my foot got slotted in between the adjacent concrete pontoons while a swell from outside traffic was washing in. I saw...
Gales in the Sulu sea
We left Tagauyan Bay, a good south wind shelter, and some ten Bankas and a dozen large trawlers at 5 am once the first trawlers started to move. We left on strong breeze with a a forecast for the same for the rest of the day. The weather was due to deteriorate over the coming week so there was a nee...
Dogs in the Philippines
There are many dogs living on the streets and free in the Philippines. When you inquire you can generally find out that somebody is their guardian but they are often left to feed themselves. A bit like in Turkey. What is surprising in the Philippines is that in general these dogs are not aggressive...
House For Sale
Vic worked for 20 years in Manila in an electroplating shop as a foreman. He met his wife Rose in Manilla. They have they had three children. Manilla was tough and he was often ill there so he retired early at 60 and set up on Cullion Island in Halsey Harbour. At the time Marcos was distributing l...
Port Barton
We really fell for this place... The main road into town is unpaved for the last 20 km adding nearly an hour to the three hour journey time to the Palawan capital Puerta Princessa. The town is set on a large beach. Offseason the town was quietly ticking with thirty something packers looking for some...
Loosing our Mooring
Viviane is going to write her version but my version of this story is that I was in bed and heard a commotion on deck. I rise to find my father and Viviane in deep discussion as to the what was wrong with the mooring line which seemed to be trailing along side us too much. It is true it took me a...
The Passage
It took us three weeks to pick our timing. In the end the window was probably going to be a week but could be shorter so we left before the swell had died down. As foretold by the wise in Hong Kong we had a bumpy and confused sea with the swell and wind wave working 2-3 m until we came off the shelf...
Plan B
Our round the world Sailing Plan was to winter for three to four months in Marmaris, spending that time back in the UK and then rejoin the boat to cruise the Mediterranean for six months before making our transatlantic trip the following November. However the devil is in the detail and to stop over...
Migration
Winter was coming in but the migration continued undettered. We read of winter discounts being provided by the boat men taking paying passengers across from mainland Turkey to the great European Union if they dared a storm. We saw lifejackets, and for the less well off, truck inner tubes on sale in...
Welcoming Strangers
Bozcada architecturally looks like a Greek Island but its Turkish. We arrive at 8 at night, well after dark and go in search for something to eat and some engine oil. The place is dead, off season and shut up, however the owners of a cute B&B are having some drinks and invite us out of the rain and...
Ancient Cities
Stopping off in Cesme we got onshore and hired a car to visit the ancient ruins of Ephesus. Again we were lucky to be off season as it was clearly set up for tourists. We found the place pretty well to ourselves and a multitude of cats. Unlike the rest of Turkey, the cats have taken over this place....
Marble Land
With the winter closing in we were pressed for time so after a couple of test sails we left Istanbul stopping off in Marmara Adasi for our trip south to Marmaris. Half of this island is set for production of marble and it is the only time we have arrived at a break water made completely from massiv...
Bosphorus Bay
Viviane joined in November once we had the boat back on the water and we spent a couple of weeks in Istanbul anchored in a small bay off the side of the Bosporus. Our neighbour was Francis, an English lady from Manchester who had spent most of her working life aboard in Africa and the latter 20 year...
Refit
We joined the boat much later than planned. By the time we had closed up the Abu Dhabi house, packed our remaining 5m3 of personal effects into storage and completed our work commitments we were into October 2015. Viviane had gone ahead to the UK to help out family and get her Day Skipper training...