Ready to go to Gibraltar…but waiting in Porto
March 24, 2013
We arrived in Porto yesterday, ready to set off on our boat delivery to Gibraltar, where Shearwater will await a ride to Florida on a big ‘ol ship. However, we’re still in Porto – waiting for the Maritime Police to open the entrance of the harbor to all vessels. Currently, the harbor entrance is open
Unwired
January 2, 2013
Spending a few days on the boat affords us time to start poking around in cubby holes…and tracing wires that are not labeled…and pulling those wires out to find….they are not attached to anything! Back in the spring, we installed new NKE instrumentation and autopilot on Shearwater – the installation went reasonably well, although there
French tailgating at the Vendée Globe
November 17, 2012
This past weekend was a fun one filled with ample servings of sailing, travel and good food. We flew to France on Ryan Air (round-trip tickets were $77 each!), and then drove from Beauvais (north of Paris) to Les Sable d’Olonne to see the start of the Vendée Globe nonstop, round-the-world sailboat race. We had learned
Lead up to the start of the Vendée Globe
November 8, 2012
The once-every-four-years Vendée Globe will start this weekend, and 20 solo skippers will set off to race around the world, without stopping. It’s an incredible feat to be able to accomplish – both to manage the boats (think running with scissors) and to deal with the exhaustion…for almost 90 days. It is a delicate balance of
Porto and Oporto
October 21, 2012
Recently, we were able to show our good friends, Ari and Yani, our boat – they are originally from Argentina and had been our neighbors for a few months before moving to another apartment here in Madrid. We meet regularly to solve the world’s problems; our solutions are frequently offered in an eclectic mix of
Oh the people you’ll meet!
October 6, 2012
With a nod to Dr. Seuss, the past year has been one experience after another meeting people with vastly different backgrounds than ours – and these experiences (like the one mentioned below) often leave us thinking about our own histories, families, and identities. Recently, after successfully tackling the alternator issue on Shearwater, we had the
Salty dogs
August 9, 2012
Snapshots from Porto
August 7, 2012
Shearwater is currently at the Douro Marina in Portugal, where we have been quite happy with the helpfulness of the marina staff and the pleasant town of Vila Nova de Gaia, which is right across the River Douro from Porto. We spent this past weekend cleaning up a bit, as well as collecting some items from
Snapshots from the Azores
July 31, 2012
We’re slowly getting back to our normal routines, and we took the opportunity to unplug and rest (facilitated by the broken wifi in our apartment that was just fixed) after arriving back in Spain. We had a happy reunion with our dogs, and we’re now going through our pictures and video to share some of