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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.