THE BIG five-oh struck last year, so to drive away the blue devils I headed south to find the Patagonia that all my OCC friends were enthusing about. I took a place on Seal , a Chuck Payne designed 56ft cutter, skippered by Hamish and Kate Laird. Both her owners have extensive high latitude experience and have worked several seasons on Skip Novak’s Pelagic . They have injected this experience into every detail of the custom built (and part self-built) Seal . This was their first seas... (3260 more chars)
(Tuesday, 06 November 2007) Written by Mark Holbrook
To those likely to be concerned with the organisation of such events I have made it clear – I want my corpse to be carried into church, not wheeled in like some piece of offal. I want to be carried , if at all possible by six stout friends, but paid flunkeys will do. I just have a horror of that neat collapsible trolley thing that sits at the side ready to squeak out again if mother earth is to receive my bones or only used for the delivery trip if I am to make my own personal contribu... (5480 more chars)
Cape Horn Part 1
Deca-Plegic Blues
Patagonia can be paradise. There you are, somewhat south of the 55 th parallel’ and so far life has been good. Food is easy to come by in these cold waters, friends, mates and the resultant offspring from when I can tell the difference, come and go. Yes, prime of crustacean life has arrived. Funny how these Chilean Chaps think a crab pot is hard to access – you just crawl in, eat well and crawl out again. The troubl... (4759 more chars)
Now dear amigos, this tale cost me a lot of cerveza in a dark bar in Pontevedra so read with due respect!
'Rain Again' is anchored off the Isla Tambo in the Ria Pontevedra. The world seems to be made up of 'sticky' and 'not-so-sticky' places. This anchorage, just East of the island is one of the former and very hard to get away from. You know how they scored cites for 'liveability' in the USA and Pittsburgh came out top? Everybody asked 'Why?' well Pittsbu... (3678 more chars)
