The South Pacific continues to astound. We ‘ve passed through Tikehau, Moorea, Tahiti and Tahaa and we’re now on our way to Suwarrow, Niue and Tonga.
Read more at:
Mistral Sailing
Karen’s Travels
World Cruising Logs
YB Tracker
The South Pacific
Since my last update we have completed the longest passage on the world circumnavigation – 2980 nm from Santa Cruz in the Galapagos to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands.
We had Patrick and Janie to help us (thanks!) over the 21-day passage. Three weeks is honestly too long to be sailing non-stop, but needs must.
After a few days in the Marquesas we said goodbye to Patrick and Janie and sailed ourselves the 480 nm south-west to the Tuamotu Islands and the Ahe atoll. All the atolls are a challenge – poorly surveyed and charted sometimes and inaccurate tide tables. Only to be attempted in daylight and in good visibility.
Read more at:
Mistral Sailing
Karen’s Travels
World Cruising Logs
YB Tracker
Moving On Quickly
It’s been quite a few weeks – Panama Canal (got clunked into the side), Panama City, the Las Perlas Islands in the Gulf of Panama and the passage from Las Perlas to Galapagos. Here are a few photos to give you a flavour.
Read more at:
Mistral Sailing
Karen’s Travels
World Cruising Logs
YB Tracker
World ARC 2023
We are now well on our way – two legs completed, Rodney Bay, St Lucia to Santa Marta Colombia, and Santa Marta to the San Blas Islands. We are now in Shelter Bay, Panama, preparing to go through the Panama Canal.
Read more at:
Mistral Sailing
Karen’s Travels
World Cruising Logs
YB Tracker
ARC+ Leg 2
We are now in Grenada after a moderately challenging passage from Cape Verde. 2180 nautical miles in 14 days.
Read all about it on Karen’s blog and the Mistral Sailing blog.
ARC+ 2022
We’ve arrived in Cape Verde at the end of Leg 1 of the ARC+ 2022. We had a wonderful sail here – 860 nautical miles – and have had a few relaxing days before we set out across the Atlantic on Friday.
There’s much more on Karen’s Travel blog and our Mistral Sailing blog.
Sailing Again
We collected Mistral of Portsmouth at the beginning of August, and with the help of Bill, Sheila, Laura and Rory, we sailed her from Gruissan in France to Palma, Mallorca.
Bill, Rory & Laura 
Bill & Sheila 
Dining in Santa Catalina 
Laura 
Amanda, Karen & Valerie 
Calum & Ceri in Tim’s Bar, Andratx 
Ceri & Isobel 
Nicols girls 
Tilly
Since then we’ve been based in Palma. Quite a few friends and family have visited including Laura H, Calum, Ceri, Isobel, Mia, Tilly, Shirley, Jane H and Janice. More to come!
Paddleboarding 
Sa Foradada 
New tender motor 
Riggers at work 
Laguna del Salobra sunset 
Cocktails 
Laguna del Salobra beach 
Laguna del Salobra beach 
Happy Captain! 
Exploring Palma
Mike of Guardian Yacht Services has been a great help with finding experts to repair and improve the boat. And there have been a few things to fix – tender motor, mainsail furling, a tear in the genoa to mention a few.
Off the Hard 
Force 6 
Andratx 
Andratx 
Soft shackle in dyneema 
First mate 
Three sails flying 
Mistral 
Mistral 
Cala Blanca
So far, apart from fixing broken things and learning how to splice dyneema into soft shackles, we’ve visited Andratx, Cala Blanca, Las Isletas, Soller, Deia, Pollensa, Port-Petro, Laguna del Salobra, some of those in the course of sailing around Mallorca. And now the weather is starting to cool down, we’re enjoying Palma even more.
Read more on Polarsteps and Mistral Sailing.
Sailing the Balearics
We’ve spent the last few weeks sailing the Balearics – Valencia to Formentera, Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca and then on to Sardinia. We’re learning how the boat works and how to fix her!
More at Mistral Sailing
Sailing Mistral
We spent most of February sailing our new boat, Mistral, from Valencia to Palma and back. The boat is a 2001 Oyster 56, and we love her!
created by dji camera 
created by dji camera 
We escaped Spain just before the lockdown, and have spent the last ten weeks in lockdown in France. Once we’re released we’ll travel back to the UK to visit friends and family, then head off to the boat again.
More sailing details at: http://mistralsailing.net
Sailing in Croatia
A beautiful two weeks in a chartered Dufour 43 sailing from Dubrovnik to Split and back with friends and family.
Video: Round the Island Race 2016
The annual Round the island Race, round the Isle of Wight, that is, took place this year on 2 July. We entered, as usual, with some friends, having sailed the Solent for the previous few days.
Conditions were challenging, at times, but the big disappointment was the genoa jamming as we tried to take it down towards the end of the race. Hey ho, we had fun and there’s always next year.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98DyMhnRpJU
Music by Josh Woodward (buy it!), cameras were two Drift HD Ghosts and a Drift Stealth 2.
High Speed Sailing
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6dnOlE9sjk