Blog

As I write this opening sentence, it was a year ago today that we boarded a flight in Grenada back to the UK. A whole year since we last felt the Caribbean sun on our faces. 364 days since that chapter of our life called Sailing Mirounga ended. Or is it? We shall see… Stability […]

Hi. How are YOU? We’ve missed you. Somehow, it’s been 6 months since we enjoyed our last sail and signed over ownership of Mirounga. We left her a few days later and got back to Scotland on May 9th. I’ve wanted to give updates so many times, but I just haven’t had the chance. To […]

I can never resist stealing that line from Douglas Adams. It’s just so good. A few people said to me when I was mulling out loud about the future of our blog and social media feeds, that I’d know what to do when the time came. You were right. Thank you. I had thought I […]

I had meant to write a snapshot week this week, because it’s a biggie. We’ve got a huge hurdle in the sale of Mirounga to leap, and I have a couple of other big things going on personally. In the end, though, I can’t bear to write a day by day account. Some part of […]

I never meant to go so long without writing. I’ve had so many blog thoughts ready to flow out of my fingers, and so little time. They pass me by. Keep me awake at night. Then, by the time I might sit down to write, they’re gone. I had thought to write a snapshot a […]

We almost can’t believe it but it’s a year today since we posted our first blogs! We started to post six weeks before moving to Bequia, and started by introducing ourselves and sharing our sailing history. Then the blog has become about moving to the Caribbean, adjusting to life onboard, and our adventures sailing the […]

Hurricane Elsa wasn’t the first tropical storm we’ve experienced. The first was actually on our wedding day, 8 years ago today. We had booked a holiday to Barbados and Montserrat in the January of that year. At the end of May, on my birthday, Colin suggested we get married while we were there. I had […]

This is the story of our brush with Hurricane Elsa. I jumped out of bed and rushed around packing our laptops, boat papers, passports, shoes, warm clothing, a torch, wallets, chargers, battery boxes, and of course my hip flask of rum. I fell asleep easier knowing that if we had to jump out of our […]

Today is Shirley Denise Kilpatrick’s 69th birthday. It should have been anyway. Just two weeks and two days after her 67th birthday, a happy event surrounded by family, she died. It was melanoma, which went undiscovered until it had reached Stage 4. Reached her brain. We couldn’t be there when she died. We didn’t know […]

As Ailsa finishes locking the door and turns around, she sees a cloud that could only be described as Death Star-like in its imposition on the sky. The last of the sunset light gives parts of the dark mass a foreboding glow. To say the past week has been surreal is an understatement. It was […]