The traditional advice for sailing east to the Azores is to take loads of extra diesel as you are likely to experience long periods of dead calm and flat sea. As I write, we are 4 days into the passage, broad reaching in 23 knots of wind with a lively sea having hardly used the... Continue Reading →

Well, it seems the Watermaker membrane is buggered. We ran the unit through the night and in the morning; the quality of the water was just as bad, if not worse. Email exchanges with the ever helpful Jim at Mactra confirmed the diagnosis and so Peter has another piece of equipment to add to his... Continue Reading →

Something over 25 years ago, I went through the sequence of RYA shore-based courses which culminated in Yachtmaster Ocean. This is way back when Morse was still part of the Yachtmaster Offshore syllabus! I completed them with the practical on all but the Ocean qualification. The Ocean practical is largely about celestial navigation and with... Continue Reading →

Extracting Hejira from her cosy berth was tight with only a foot or so to spare as we turned to leave the harbour, but we managed it with aplomb, grateful that we had squeezed in and spent 3 relatively calm nights inside. The start within the harbour was curious as the course was dead to... Continue Reading →

The second half of our 24 hour scooter hire enabled us to access the town for some chores more easily than on foot. We paid the whopping $375 docking fee for our 4 night stay and we managed to do a final shop. Making the most of the scooters, we explored St.George’s island, swam in... Continue Reading →

What a good decision it was to hire scooters for 24 hours. They were booked for 8.30 in the morning but torrential rain prompted a phone call and a delay in their collection until lunch time by which time the weather had brightened and we set off to explore the islands. Early caution gave way... Continue Reading →

Barry and I ‘took a turn into town’ and it is quite clear that Bermuda is a really lovely, organised destination – or so it would seem from our current experience of St. George’s island. The town of St. George was originally the capital before it was transferred to Hamilton and it dates back to... Continue Reading →

Dawn prompted a flurry of activity to prepare for our arrival. The mast top burgee had to be hoisted before we could deploy our RVYC defaced red ensign. The Bermuda courtesy flag and the yellow ‘Q’ (quarantine) flag had to be flown at the starboard and port crosstrees and the ARC people like their flag... Continue Reading →

We continue to motor across a glassy sea and expect to arrive in Bermuda around 1300 today. Soon after leaving the BVI, we witnessed a spectacular patch of ‘boiling’ water as the surface briefly erupted with quite sizeable jumping fish. It has been notable since then that we have not seen much in the way... Continue Reading →

Hejira being a heavy solid cruising yacht, needs a ‘bit of a blow’ to get her going. The light sailing conditions experienced since the period of squalls has provided good relaxed sailing but it has also meant that the lightweight production yachts have ‘got away’ and we have slipped back down the fleet. As we... Continue Reading →