Hurry up and wait...
We sail 100nm's again trying to get further south and make some distance before the low pressure systems brings winds turning against us again, then we prepare and wait for the sea to calm and the winds to turn in our favour but can't seem to find any space in marinas further south. The need to head...
The Wild West
Today, I update this blog from onboard the back of our faithful Giramonda anchored at the foot of green mountains overlooking a long sweeping sandy beach. It’s calm and peaceful and a complete transformation from Muxia from where we left this morning a little impromptu, “right let’s go”. The reliabl...
A square route...
If two sides of a triangle (down the French coast and then across the northern coast of Spain) are 200 nautical miles, then the direct distance would have been 282 nautical miles.... but, we wanted to see France and Spain, but turns out we’ve been in such a rush to get some miles under our keel we h...
Locked out...
After leaving France we battled against the prevailing current along the northern Spanish coastline past Bilbao and Santander to Gijon. While winds were light we were boshed around by the confused sea with waves and swell coming from all directions. We’ve enjoyed Spain so far, very friendly marina s...
The Little Rock...
Better known as La Rochelle, ‘the little rock’ is home to Europe’s largest marina (Port Minimes) just a short water-bus ride away from the historic fortified city now bustling with tourists, restaurants and street performers. We rocked up a week ago at 1pm after a speedy sail down from Les Sables d’...
It's a privilege...
Our floating home Giramonda is the second boat in the 515 series to have been constructed almost fourteen years ago here in Les Sables D’Olonne! Upon arrival we could see a handful of the newer 510 Signature seriesfloating alongside the pontoon outside Privilege HQ. The office and factory are the or...
Back in trouble...
As my father in law often says “I’m always in trouble, it’s only the depth that varies”. Today I’m in deep. Following 12 hours of refusal to pee on board and puppy dog eyes I cracked and decided to take the dog to shore in our small speed boat (aka large dinghy), weighing in at I guess about 500kg,...
It's a race...
We have now taken on three of the most notable tidal races in the world, the Alderney Race was our first, the Chenal du Four was our second, and we have now just completed our third the Raz de Sein. Image: Chenal du Four and Raz de Sein These races are notorious for seas that appear to boil like a c...
Another first...
I was not expecting to do an oil change so soon. I had anticipated doing it in 12 months, or before the Atlantic crossing, but while diagnosing the voltage drop between the starboard engine alternator and the DC/DC service battery charger (more on that below) I noticed a short hose near the base of...
Crossing the sleeve...
A little cryptic this week, but our French friends call the English Channel ‘La Manche’ which translates to ‘the sleeve’. This is because the shape of the channel resembles an arm or the sleeve of a jacket or jumper. With less ado... we’re stuck in L’Aber Wrac’h on the north western tip of France wa...
Peaceful they said...
Treguier was described in our guide book as “A broad estuary along a long narrowing channel that meanders through the countryside up to a fascinating old town with well preserved medieval buildings”. Instead we arrived to the pounding thump thump thumb of the latest top 5 (not 40) and crowds of teen...
Fort Brehat...
It’s with desperate disappointment that we have left this beautiful island. The simple reason is it is impenetrable by dinghy! Not ones for giving up easily we made a couple of attempts to ‘land’ our dinghy and explore Brehat, but the mooring near the sharp rocks would cut her to bits, or leaving he...
Paranoid...
I’ve earned the label of being paranoid from my dearest. Each time I’ve seen a douane (customs) boat I’ve said that they stopped and turned to come and visit us. The first time was leaving St Malo (they followed us out of the channel), then while we anchored near Fort Latte (they stopped for at late...
It's a squeeze...
Giramondo is 14.75 meters long and 7.95 meters wide, with some chunky fenders hanging off each side let’s call that 8.6m which leaves only 70cm each side, with sea water slowly exiting the harbour and luckily light wind Janine shouts out ever decreasing distances as we carefully nudged airway forwar...
Almost alone...
We did it; after five years of planning, saving, searching, we have finally anchored our floaty home in a secluded bay for the night. With the falling tide in the morning we scooted over to the remote isolated sandy beach in our dinghy and enjoyed the peace and tranquillity of the sea, the birds, an...
How steep...
We’ve been in St Malo for three days now and we’ve really enjoyed it here. On our first night we were lucky to stumble on a live music venue which had a sign in the window just were we sat (no dogs), but unknowingly as we approached, the owner (must have been) was smoking a fat cigar and waved us in...
HW Dover...
Not surprisingly, despite us being hundreds of miles away from Dover, the tidal times at the narrowest part of the English Channel are used to determine what is happening with the rest of the channel. Alas, as we planned to leave Cherbourg to head west then south down to St Malo we needed to careful...
High and lows...
We’re not talking waves but emotions. The trip over from Portsmouth to Cherbourg was calm and went well. We both enjoyed the Champagne sailing with light winds of 8-10 knots on the beam across calm 0.8m rolling seas under the sun and blue sky from midway onwards. Giramonda behaved well with a full G...
Farewell...
While preparing to leave we have been saying ‘see you soon’ or farewell to our friends and family. While it feels daunting in some way that we will be departing for a big long adventure of 3 years, in the short term we are only hopping over to La France for a few months and will easily be able to ke...
Tea bags...
Perforated tea bags seem to have fewer holes than our boat, we have so many holes on the top and under neath. It’s a surprise that she floats. We woke up Monday to find the port hull with 9inch of salt water and only a subtle drip drip noise overnight. On inspection it turns out the non-return valve...
Almost...
Light is at the end of the tunnel, we’re not a train but we feel like we’re making progress. Things are coming together. The batteries are in (almost), the solar panels are helping us get off grid (almost), our water maker is working (almost), the mast, boom and rigging is up (almost), the fridges a...
Hare and the tortoise...
Of course it’s tortoise. No March hare here! Getting our mast back on has been delayed again by another week. The mast came off almost 3 months ago. Ok, it needed stripping down, painting and rebuilding, but the first three or four weeks it sat in the yard just waiting, it was moved into a shed and...
The end...
Not this project but of a chapter. Both Janine and I have now ended our corporate careers. Janine finished at the end of January and I finished end of February. Janine worked for Estee Lauder for 24 years and the stress, pressure and recent senior management style was beginning to have serious side...
Tatt two...
After five years of marriage we have decided to replace our metallic wedding rings with a different symbol of our commitment to each other on our wedding fingers that is more sailing friendly. Metallic bands are great in the regular world but in the sailing world we risk trapping the ring in winches...
Air BnB and ..nG...
New Years Eve was fun in SouthSea, probably one of our last nights out in the area as we are now packing and moving to PortSea for 4 weeks, closer to Portsmouth harbour and the ferry, and a slightly bigger flat. We’ve really enjoyed SouthSea but after 8 weeks the time has come to move. It only took...
Beside the sea...
Since selling our home we have lived in Southsea, a pretty suburb of Portsmouth, for a month. We’ve really enjoyed it here amongst the small boutique shops and cafes. This is the start of our adventure. Exploring new places on foot, meeting new people, trying new things including getting small tatto...
Go faster stripes...
Now that the anitfoul has been completed, and it feels weird to the touch, we both expected Silic to be super hard like glass or ceramic, but it’s soft, and smooth, almost like skin, it feels creepy. But now that it’s finished the guys will stat polishing the upper hull sides ready for Tony the stic...
Tutti Frutti
Finally there’s a break in the weather. Since we were lifted out of two water onto the hard Quay we’ve had day after day, week after week of rain and high winds preventing any serious work on the hull. But we have three days of fine weather this weekend. The guys at Desty Marine Services have worked...
Plastic surgeon...
Our galley (or kitchen) will be a central part of our daily life, making coffee, breakfast, lunch and diner. So it makes sense to us to have a galley that is pleasant and practical. Giramonda’s galley is unfortunately, like many areas of the boat, poorly maintained. Specifically it has two large irr...
Rain stops play...
After what has been one of the hottest and driest summers ever up until October we now face day after day of driving rain, which isn’t great for getting boat work done. We can’t drop the mast, we can’t replace the teak, we can’t even keep the plastic sheets up around the hulls to continue with the a...
Another hot topic...
Switching out the six 160Ah AGM’s with Lithium. Why? The AGM’s aren’t holding their charge. They collectively can discharge when new 50% of 160Ah x 6 = 420Ah. That’s 1.2Kw for 4 hours. But as they’re old we get less than half of this, say 210Ah. The charge rate of AGM’s is slow. So most of the 1.6kw...
Sunny side up...
Recognising that the old solar system was end of life we’ve spent some time researching different replacement options. Laying flexible panels on the roof initially seemed like the obvious choice. It’s a large roof pointing skywards. But... flexible panels decay quickly, they are prone to overheating...
Amphibious...
We can now truly share the nervous feeling of those YouTubers’ who share their experience of their treasured home being lifted out of the water. It’s an alien experience, boats are not supposed to be on land. It is an unnatural environment for them. Watching big ‘G’ being lifted out with 50cm to spa...
Lucky escape...
We were very excited about exploring the Cyclades in particular Mykonos and the surrounding islands given it is a sailors paradise and especially because this was our first opportunity to try out the Fountaine Pajot Lucia 40 that we've been seriously thinking about buying. We tried to arrange a sea...
Going nuts...
So one month in to our ownership of Giramondo, or big G as she is affectionately known, and we’ve spent a few nights and many days on her and she has started to feel like she’s more our boat. Even pugs has been down to have a sniff around. We have now been through each and every cabinet and locker a...
A lovely mess...
It is only as we started to work through each cupboard in depth and open up each floor board have we started to realise how grubby and unloved she has been. There is so much rubbish and dirt to work through even before we start looking at the long list of work to do: cracked kitchen worktop, mouldy...
Ferry ferry hot...
Janine and I took off to Athens then headed south by ferry to spend a few nights on different islands before returning to Athens and flying back to London. Our first night was in Mikrolima (small harbour) in Piraeus, Athens. Even at 11pm on a Sunday evening it was busting with energy and we sat down...
Step up...
We drove down to Hamble to spend an action packed day learning how to survive should we ever need to abandon ship. It is an RYA course so no critics of the course provider but it was a confused set of messages: never leave your boat - unless it's below the waterline or on fire, there was no focus on...
Is she a lemon...
Things are happening fast. Too fast. We are not ready to start seriously looking for our boat and especially not ready for making offers, but today our offer was accepted. We just could not pass up on losing this opportunity, but is she a lemon? The boat is an old 2010 Alliaura Marine, Privilege 515...
2km on crutches...
Early in 2020 after our visit to Düsseldorf we made plans to attend the multihull boat show in the south of France (Le Grande Motte, near Montpelier). But soon after in: 2020: covid struck and the show was cancelled and our flights were cancelled. 2021: covid refuses to subside and re-emerges over...
Starting to feel real...
We've been planning our adventure since 2020 and now it’s starting to feel very real. We have just put our home up for sale. Very exciting but at the same time we love our home, we completely transformed Keepers Cottage from a run down wreck to a beautiful modern cosy home. It will be hard to say go...
Ship Captain...
The Ship Captains Medical First Aid course is mind-blowing. It is delivered in two parts over nine days in a classroom at Hamble school of yachting, near Southampton and by day three we were mentally exhausted. We spent four intense days studying part 1 with wonderful retired nurse Sue Johnson learn...
Marina marina...
This time we sail around the incredibly beautiful islands of Croatia, north of Split. We try anchoring overnight and watch shooting stars. We cycle to the stunning Krka waterfalls from Skraddin town. We enjoy the most amazing fish at a remote Konobo (taverna) on Kakan island. Visit the posh marina a...
Channels we love...
While patiently saving for the day when we have enough to sell our bricks and mortar home and buy our dream floaty home we are learning as much as we can by getting out on the water to sail and medical courses (next one is Ships Captains Medical), and of course binging on YouTube! The channels we lo...
MOB: Mum overboard...
Brendan spent a week with his mum (Julia) completing their coastal skipper practical out of Southampton together with Martin and son Alex, all of us under the competent guidance of Clive our tutor. It was much fun practicing ‘Mum overboard’ manoeuvres under light winds and warm weather. Martin, Alex...
We fell in love...
Hey guys! We're Brendan and Janine. We fell in love with the idea of sailing around the world with our pooch and retiring from the 9 to 5 rat race before we turn 50! It was huge!! Join us as we prepare for retirement, to live off-grid, and for the adventure of our lives. We would love you to get inv...
Le grand large...
It took me a while to realise what this odd phrase actually means, directly translated to ‘the big wide’ makes no sense in English but the intention is to mean ‘the big blue’, i.e. the ocean! The flat western coast of France is open to the Atlantic and has surprised me. I was expecting rugged cliffs...