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Friends in the right places

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Aleria heading out the Ria Vigo toward Baiona. Photo by Alberto Lagos.  Nice photo of Aleria by Alberto Lagos. After we got all the canvas in place, we took off from Vigo as the afternoon wind was filling in. We hoisted the sails and quickly realized the sheet had been incorrectly led from the staysail. First fix. We were lazy and decided to sail along slowly without the yankee as it was not very far from Vigo to Baiona. We dodged several ferries and a powerboat came straight at us. We soon realized it was Alberto coming out to take pictures of us sailing out. He took some great shots though we felt bad we hadn't raise the full complement of sails. When we arrived in Baiona, we were assigned a berth right next to the President's yacht about as close to the clubhouse as we could be. Easy to get in, too. Someone had made a welcome sign that was secured to the dock in our slip. Oscar Calero, the manager of the club, was there in a flash with a bottle of wine and gre

Life underway

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Adios Punta Lagoa. We packed up, put the house in order, got a friend to house sit, voted in the referendum, got a train to a Dublin, spent the night in a hotel watching the results come in full view of hideous posters while waiting to get up at the crack of dawn to get a Ryanair flight to Vigo.

Sargassum warnings

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Seaweed, Sargassum, sargasso, Heterokontophyta ... different names for the same thing - more than a nagging nuisance, a potentially serious health hazard. It has been clogging beaches in the Caribbean, causing distress to locals and loss of tourism. The boats in the Volvo Ocean Race struggled in the Sargasso Sea this year. VOR even compiled the best  video footage  of the sailors struggling to stay free of the weed.

Down to the wire

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Vineyard looking good. Well, we had some work done on Aleria in Vigo over the winter.  Now we are in the final throes of getting ready to sail the next leg of our slow circumnavigation of the Mediterranean Sea. It's a sea, not an ocean. I've never known the difference, until now. My sense is that a sea has places to stop all along, whereas an ocean requires a crossing -- but who knows. Like the Caribbean Sea, you can sail from island to island to get across it.

New movie - Adrift

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Stranded and fighting for survival, Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin star in #AdriftMovie , in cinemas June 28. Watch the official trailer here.  As the two avid sailors set out on a journey across the ocean, Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp couldn't anticipate they would be sailing directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history. In the aftermath of the storm, Tami awakens to find Richard badly injured and their boat in ruins. With no hope for rescue, Tami must find the strength and determination to save herself and the man she loves.

The Camino Voyage – An Epic 2,500 km Modern Day Celtic Odyssey

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The Camino Voyage , a full length feature film by Dónal Ó Céilleachair (pronounced O’Kelleher) of Dónal Ó Céilleachair, left us wishing it wouldn’t end.   We saw it in a special screening as part of the Celtic Camino Festival in Westport, County Mayo. The theatre was packed with Celtic Camino Society members from many countries, including visitors from as far away as Vancouver, Canada, the US, Holland, Spain, UK and all over Ireland.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is Growing Exponentially

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Plastics floating on the ocean surface Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters almost indefinitely, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. A scientific study has determined that the plastic patch between California and Hawaii is now three times the size of France and accumulating plastics at an astonishing rate. Researchers at The Ocean Cleanup, an NGO dedicated to cleaning up the earth’s seas, recently published ( Nature , 22 Mar 2018 ) the results of a three-year study to determine the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). The results are alarming.

How many boats are out there at any given time?

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It's a question we are asked often. How many boats are circumnavigating or sailing the oceans at any given time? It's not an easy one to answer, because some go for a year and do an Atlantic circuit, others continue around Cape Horn or through the Panama Canal. They pass through various ports and are counted multiple times, but no one that we are aware of provides a count at a given point in time like a census. As the seasons are different north and south, you'd have to count a date in the summer in the Northern hemisphere and another in the Southern hemisphere.

Reviving the Voyage for Madmen

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Robin Knox-Johnston on his return to Falmouth in 1969 on board Suhaili Last week, we saw The Mercy , a movie about Donald Crowhurst, the amateur sailor who lost his mind and his life in the first Golden Globe single-handed non-stop race around the world in 1968/69. The story of the nine men who took part was first told in an excellent book by Peter Nichols titled A Voyage for Madmen .

Arctic air, ice and temps: a sea change?

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Ice receding in the Arctic regions Yesterday I wrote about sea levels rising faster than predicted. Today, I'm going to summarize the latest in climate change anomalies . Scientists have recorded a warm air intrusion through the central Arctic this winter. In the area north of 80 degrees latitude, average temperatures were 36 degrees above normal. Whereas there were only four such intrusions between 1980 and 2010, there have been four occurrences in the past five years.

Sea level rise is accelerating

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A new study by NASA's Sea Level Change team published February 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that sea levels are rising at accelerating rates rather than a steady increase as previously thought. That means that by 2100, the levels will be twice as high as previously predicted, causing serious problems for many coastal cities. If the rate of ice melt continues at this pace, sea levels will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100. That's a lot more than shown in the graphic above.

The Mercy of the Golden Globe Race

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With the advent of the resurrection of the  Golden Globe Race  in 2018 comes the release of the movie called The Mercy , telling the extraordinary tale of Donald Crowhurst's bid for fame and fortune in the first Golden Globe single-handed non-stop, around-the-world race. Starring Colin Firth and Rachelle Weisz, it's a disturbing journey through the deteriorating state of mind of a man who set out to win everything and realizes he is about to lose everything instead.

Sailing emojis

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Someone sent me this and I thought it was perfect. 

Managing heavy weather at sea

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Yesterday, we addressed a conference of about 100 cruisers at the Irish Sailing Cruising Conference. In 2008, on a crossing of the north Atlantic, we encountered six gales and managed to avoid one strong storm. What we learned then, we were here to share about our experience with storm management. The conference was summarized overall in Afloat magazine . Following is an overview of our talk:

The Ocean Cruising Club Awards

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As PR Officer, Web Editor and Rear Commodore of the Ocean Cruising Club, I have the honour of being the one to announce the winners of the annual awards which recognize the extraordinary achievements of people cruising the world's oceans. I've been a member of the Awards Committee and co-Chair for several years so I know how arduous a task it can be to coordinate the awards decision-making process. We have members all over the world taking part, some submitting nominations others taking part in the selections of winners. In any case, it's an extraordinary thing to be part of as we journey into people's lives to see what they've done that merits the attention of the world, and to be blown away by the stories we uncover.

Buying a boat

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Many of you are probably scouring the boat shows for that perfect next boat. Whether it's larger for the big adventure or smaller for the downsize, the decision to buy is never an easy one. Until, of course, you fall in love. Then all bets are off. Here's a decision tree that may make it easier. I came across it randomly on the internet and don't know who to credit. I hope it helps. Good luck!

Diary of an Atlantic crossing

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We are shortly giving a talk on heavy weather sailing at the ISA Cruising Conference . I recently came across my diary from our first Atlantic crossing in 2008. I was reminded that the markets collapsed while we were at sea. As all we had was an SSB radio, we didn't really know about anything happening in the world, so it didn't matter. We sailed north from New York to Canada and then set off for Westport, Ireland from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Herb Hilgenberg was our weather router and Matt aboard s/v Ault was the only other sailor in the northern North Atlantic. That it turned out to be Matt Rutherford is a whole other story.

Christmas at Sea

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In 2009, Alex and I set sail from Ireland in early October heading to the Mediterranean to overwinter. When we got to Portugal, someone told us it was going to be very cold there, so we turned right and went to the Caribbean instead.

Citizen science and sailing

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Getting involved in scientific research is a real game changer for many cruisers. Like Alex and me, many people get out there and then find they need more than just floating around from place to place. They need a purpose. As budgets for research in Universities and government agencies get cut, supporting research projects through participation in citizen science is a real boon. Many cruisers end up in remote places where it would be hard to justify sending a research vessel. Having someone already there who can take some measurements or observations and report back via an app when signal is available is making a difference to the collective knowledge base about the earth and oceans.

Technology and sailing

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Visibility decreasing as we enter the Bay of Biscay  Not long ago, when people set sail to cross oceans, they set off with some charts, a sextant, sight reduction tables, pencils, dividers, parallel rules, a compass, a log to measure knots and a clock. If they knew the speed at which they were sailing, and how long they had sailed, they could determine where they were. They would back that up by taking sights on the stars and the sun and calculating their lat and long.