Once upon a time there was a sailor; and the sailor sailed across the ocean for many days and many weeks until eventually he came upon an island. The island was very lovely. The sailor went ashore and he gazed up at the green trees, which were so refreshing to his eyes after such a long time spent staring only at the vast blue desert. He heard the breeze passing through the leaves of the trees and he smelled the […]
Having returned to Tahiti, Caesar, Nick and Jill have begun the task of reclaiming their boat from Mother Nature’s grasp. Last week we saw them scrubbing away algae, wiping away mould, and chipping away rust. But there was much more to be done before the skipper would allow the family to put to sea. REPLACE THE ANCHOR WINDLASSThis was the biggy. This was the thing which kept us chained, quite literally, to the seabed in Tahiti when we would much […]
The story so far: Caesar and his parents, Nick and Jill, have left their baby trees to fend for themselves, all alone on a mountainside, and have flown to the other side of the blue planet. With this misdeed they have probably cancelled out most of the Brownie points that they’d earned by planting their fledgling forest (so now they will have to buy more land, somewhere, and plant more trees.) Back aboard Mollymawk, the family is finding out what […]
It was the smell which first alerted me to the change in the weather. Aboard a boat, one always hears the raindrops pattering on the deck – one is attuned to hearing the first few, so that one can then rush around, shutting the hatches – but in a house it’s all different. I found that, often, if I hadn’t happened to glance out of the window and seen the change in the view – seen the cloud rolling down […]
(Long Read – 3,000 words) Finally – at long last – we’re back on the boat! I’d always imagined that when the world fell apart – when Global Warming hit hard and the droughts and storms made food scarce, or when Capitalism toppled over, or when the bombs began to fall again or Fukushima blew apart – then, I imagined, we cruising bums would be well set up. With our own means of international transport and with the lockers always […]
When they pointed it out to us from the village, Selkirk’s Look-Out seemed to be not very far away. We had come ashore to do the official paperwork incumbent upon any new arrival to the Juan Fernandez islands, and we were not equipped for a hike. We had just one small bottle of water between the five of us and no food. Still, the path up the back of the valley did not appear to be very steep, and the […]
The human race has suddenly vanished from the streets and from the countryside and even from the ocean. All over the world, countries are in lock-down and ports are closed; all over the world, cruising yotties are being quarantined aboard their boats. And all over the world, while Homo sapiens hides from a deadly virus, wildlife is making a come-back. Or so they say. Foxes and deer have apparently been seen ambling along empty high-streets, turtles are nesting on beaches […]
“To cruise or not to cruise?” – that is the question of the moment. We’ve seen several social media posts recently from yotties who are holed up in one particular port and who want to move on to another where the grass seems greener; and we’ve even heard from people who want to rush out and impulse buy a boat – right now, this week – so that they can flee from the plague. With the coronavirus rampaging around the […]
In March of 2019, Nick and I celebrated 30 years of living the liveaboard life together - but, in fact, on the anniversary of the day that we joined forces and embarked, we were not actually living afloat; we were hanging out on a hillside in Iberia. We had left the boat and gone there in order to save the world.
“For here am I floating in my tin can…” Three weeks of luxurious living aboard the RMS St Helena had rather spoiled our kids. When they first set eyes on the vessel which was to be their new home, Caesar peered into the empty, unbuilt interior of the fifty-footer and said, “She’s very small…”. Clearly, it was going to be difficult to find space for the moat which he had planned to construct around his cabin. I forget what words […]
