Our route - 2008, revised

This is the revised route through the French canals:


Still subject to confirmation and possible argument. We have to confirm that Calais is our end destination before we leave Port St Louis, as our mast will be shipped to the destination port separately. It would have been possible to take the mast down and lay it on the deck, but because it's quite tall we'd have a fair bit of overhang at the front and back of the boat. It only takes one lock where the end of the mast gets stuck in something... and the water is rising... to cost considerably more than the price of shipping the mast by truck (about £800).

We now expect to bypass Paris and to finish at Calais instead of at St Valery sur Somme - the latter rather regretfully, as we keep hoping to get to St Valery, but transport home (for us) is so much easier from Calais, if we have to leave the boat there.

See our 2007 and 2006 routes.

For archive purposes, here is the original plan:

Drifting away

With the boat so far away, sailing seems very remote at the moment. I'm not reading the yachting magazines very avidly or even logging on to www.ybw.com very often. Not sure if my enthusiasm is waning or just that it's a while since we had any really good sailing - apart from part of the passage from Menorca back to Majorca, probably the last really good sail was almost a year ago, last Easter in the Algarve and Andalucia. Our first sail in the Med, from Europa Point to La Duquesa, was truly magic (that's Ben below, helming at 7.5 knots with one reef in).


Sam, Ben and I will be going out to Badalona this Easter. Because Easter is so early this year we decided not to move the boat up to France, but we must get the sails on and go sailing, otherwise I think we'll lose courage and never sail again.

The other evening we were discussing things we wanted to do before we die. I'd like to sing in the Messiah and also sail on a tall ship. Sam surprisingly said he would like to sail the Atlantic. I don't think I'd want to do it in Kalessin, but perhaps we could follow the example of Kate and Davey from Roamer and crew in something large and luxurious? Darren Cornish's Aviva blog pointed me towards www.my50.com which is a great place to log all the things you vaguely think would be nice but never get around to. Wonder if I could get the boys to use it too?

Merry Christmas from just me

Video of photos made for Sam's funeral    Dear friends and family As I hope you all know, this year has been a difficult one for me. On ...