Ever since I first heard the Buddha’s teachings, some three and a half years ago, I’ve fantasised about the idea of taking a couple of monks sailing. The Buddha and his monks and nuns dwelt in the forests of northern India, and the branch of Buddhism which resonates with me is the one which sticks closest to the life which he advocated: a life verging on the ascetic, with the monastic members of the community still camping out in huts…
Once upon a time, almost 27 years ago, a young and ridiculously carefree artist set out across the Atlantic Ocean. Skippering the brand-new, tupperware yacht which carried this maiden was a carefree Master Mariner – also young, but with a six year circumnavigation of the globe in his wake. The vessel had barely crossed Biscay before these two young and carefree hearts began to beat as one, but she was about half way across the pond by the time the…
Various friends have written to us in the course of the past few weeks, asking how we’re faring at “the uttermost end of the Earth” now that Spring is in the air. Well… all I can say is, Spring has not sprung! Last week the village of Puerto Williams was once again buried under a foot of snow. I have a dim recollection of crunching my through something similar at about the age of seven. This kind of thing happens…
“Listen!” says Emmanuel. “Do you hear that?” The wind, hurrying across the marshes beneath the wide open sky, whispers gently in the reeds on either side of the road, and somewhere in the distance a buzzard is mewing. Smaller birds twitter. But Emmanuel isn’t talking about these soft sounds. We’ve spent the past half hour driving north along the dirty track which passes for a state highway, and after every half mile he’s been getting out, climbing onto the roof…
For the past six months we’ve been hanging out on the Rio de la Plata, or River Plate, exploring the estuary and – more importantly – getting the boat ready to go south. There’s a lot of work involved in preparing to face the Southern Ocean. 18 years ago when we went south with our previous boat we were capsized in storm force winds and the vessel began to fall apart. The hatches were torn off, so that the waves…
Last December we got a message for our friend Morgan, a born-and-bred cruising yotty who currently earns his living sailing other people’s boats. Morgan told us that he and his girlfriend, Cheryl, were passing through Buenos Aires on their way south to the Falklands. He knew that we were in the area, and he wondered if I would like to join them for this voyage. Last time I visited the islands I was four years old, and we arrived by…
Once upon a time Daniel and Beate decided to find our whether their liferaft really worked. So they lobbed it overboard.
The Argentinians are very friendly people. For example, the other day, while Nick was buying wood and struggling to lash it to his bicycle, a complete stranger asked if he would like to put it in her car, instead. She didn’t mind the fact that she would have to go out of her way to take it to our dinghy. And just yesterday, while we were shopping, another woman approached us and asked if we would like to borrow her…
It’s the middle of winter. The days are short and the nights are long; sometimes it seems as if the sun has scarcely risen before he is sliding back down and is once more entangled amongst the cold, naked trees. At daybreak the river is shrouded by a skein of fog, like wet wool, and heavy droplets of water rain from the rigging, hitting the deck above my head with the sharp tap of falling nails. But there’s seldom a…
Someone wrote to the website recently complaining that I write too much. More photos is what you need, he said! Inspired by this sentiment we’ve decided to make this month’s article a pictorial tribute to Brazil.