The traditional path to northern Spain by boat is to depart Les Sables d’Olonne, La Rochelle or Royan.  From here you turn various degrees of left and aim the boat at Bilbao or Santander and some 40 hours you should be in Spain! Any deviation to the right gets you nowhere other than America and READ MORE

Time was pressing, Île d’Yeu was next. What was normally a simple journey from l’Herbaudiere, was interrupted by numerous radio instructions from an armada of patrol ships which were protecting cable laying vessels out to a new wind farm.   What was amusing was those of us who called up were given simple instructions which READ MORE

It was a simple plan. Head south down the Atlantic coast to La Rochelle and wait until the weather allowed us to go to northern Spain.   We’d arrive somewhere that serves Tappas and then Richard and Amanda would jump ship in Bilbao and head home on a ferry.   We had three weeks to get READ MORE

Some years ago, we sold our family home in Woking and downsized to an apartment in Chichester which we could lock up and leave whenever we wanted, have no concerns about the garden and go sailing.   Yes, this does involve communal living and the inevitable service charges but our neighbours are the nicest people you’d READ MORE

Arriving at Arzal, and our rather underwhelming Airbnb, we came to try and understand the mystery around getting a boat lifted in our new marina.        Our old marina was a relatively simple affair which we all understood.  You turned up on time, aimed the boat at a trailer that was so far underwater you could READ MORE

Blink and there went the winter and as the days started to get longer our thoughts went back to LJ and where to go this year.   Having bounced up and down the Atlantic coast of France, the neighbouring north coast of Spain would be the obvious choice and we looked at this as a READ MORE

Two things had now become high priority on the list of potential disasters, and in no particular order. 1 : The fridge was starting to give all the signals of wanting to die at any given moment which meant warm wine and even worse, warm beer. and if that wasn’t enough. 2 : A storm READ MORE

St-Martin-de-Ré on île de Ré is without doubt the ‘jewel in the crown’ marina on the Atlantic coast and one must not be put off by the narrow entrance, high walls and tight bends, it’s worth it!   It is one of the smaller marinas and one we were told that it was highly unlikely that READ MORE

It was an early morning start to exit Rochefort because if we’d have missed the lock gate it would not open for at least another 12 hours so there was no time to lose, we had to go.   Two hours down river we were back out at sea and facing île d’Aix.   This inconspicuous island READ MORE

As the boat resumed some form of assemblance, we pottered over to St Denis on île d’Oléron.   The marine charts show the entrance as a tricky one and necessary to judge that the right amount of tide had come in to get over both the drying outer harbour and a sill.   The penalty would be READ MORE