Not as well known to the US population (although the 2021 volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma made global headlines), the Canary archipelago is an autonomous region of Spain that lies off the northwest coast of the African continent. In ancient times the islands were at the western edge of the known world […]
Porto to Madeira, nope…. the Canaries
We weighed anchor for the last time in Porto the morning of Oct 25, eyes shining and high excitement on board for our sail to Madeira. We planned to stop there for a few days and explore the trails and maybe even some rock climbing and more wine drinking (yes, in that order) before heading […]
Port in Oporto
We finally departed Baiona on Oct 15, realizing that we would probably never find our second bicycle and we best move on. We broke the trip to Porto up with an overnight in Caminha, located on the Portuguese side of a river marking the border to Spain. This involved navigating a tricky (narrow & shallow) […]
The Case of the Missing Bicycles in Baiona
I [Diana] scanned the shoreline’s breezy walking and biking trail through the binoculars while Randy set up the oars on the dinghy. The outboard was out of commission, again. I must have missed it I think as I revert the path, scanning back and forth and not seeing what I’m looking for – two small […]
NW Spain – A Coruña to Baiona
Our time in France, Ireland, and the UK felt a bit like our training ground, and the Biscay + Spain was where the training wheels came off and we felt like we were cruising for real. It was just us from now on, no trips back to the yard to fix things or have people […]
Guernsey and the Bay of Biscay
We left Tréguier and headed to Guernsey to fuel up and pause the Schengen clock for a few days as we watched the weather for the Biscay. Not much to report on Guernsey as we were on the quarantine dock for two out of our three days there, due to COVID protocols and our […]
Tides in Brittany
Have we mentioned the tides in this part of the world? We were in the Saint-Malo neighborhood, which has the highest tidal changes in Europe. During Spring Tides, the water level can change up to 13 meters (42 feet) every 6 hours. This is no joke! The volume of water coming and going is astounding. […]
Back in Tréguier
By early September we were due back for some final boat work where our adventure began at the boat yard, in Tréguier. As a bonus, there were several other Boréal owners at the marina (doing the same thing) and we were excited to meet them in person. A sort of non-Facebook reunion on the docks. […]
Friends on the River Fal
From the Isles of Scilly it was another overnight passage to the river estuary of Falmouth Harbor, which proved to be a great place for us to visit friends, day sail, and as our intrepid instructor Ian likes to say, “pootle about”. This is a proper English phrase, you can look it up. Once again […]
A foggy turn eastward to England
For anyone that has an interest into the technical aspects of navigation, running your boat at night can be a fun and engaging activity. It can also test your nerves as the darkness impedes the primary sense of vision leaving your imagination to fill the void. As our time in Ireland was closing, we turned […]