Nichola

Birzebbuga Could this be our new favourite anchorage? Well almost….. We had a mostly uneventful motor down the rocky coastline from Rinella Creek. The swell picked up as we rounded the south of the island and had us doing a nodding dog but the distance wasn’t too far before we […]

Sailing in Malta – Birzebbuga

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Emerald must have been saving up her breakages this winter. After the leaking rudder we have had problems with old petrol for the outboard, a perished outboard fuel line and worst of all…. a blocked loo! Just a few blogs ago I wrote how Colin had had his worst day […]

Malta – Rinella Creek

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Thursday morning was mass exodus day from Marina di Ragusa – the first calm weather day since Saturday. We were in the first batch of departees at 6am when the marineros came on duty and could help us and others without a bow thruster to turn in the narrow gaps […]

Sailing From Sicily to Malta

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Whew! Doesn’t time fly when you’re working hard? April has zoomed by with lots of activity in the marina as boats prepare to leave for their summer cruising. We had a long list of get-gone jobs – transforming Emerald from her static winter state so that we can head off for our […]

A Frenzy of Get Gone Jobs

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Last summer we had to say farewell to Crazy Pony the dinghy whose glue had given up the ghost in the sun and heat. It was replaced by Crazy Horse, a slightly bigger model and this time made of hypalon fabric. Hypalon stands up much better to the sun than […]

Crazy Horse Has a New Coat

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Our sailing-away life has been a bit marina centred of late and I was starting to get itchy feet for at least a few hours away from the boat. Hiring a car here for a last minute day out is just too expensive or too much hassle, so being limited […]

Rambling Round Ragusa

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The Headlining We were lucky last summer to not have too many breakages or things wearing out which meant when it came to winter jobs we could get on with the cosmetic jobs that are usually bumped down the never-ending job list. Back in the eons of time we decided […]

Tarting up Emerald

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Ah I’ve let the blog slip a little, the last one being back in December. We’ve had some great winter weather since then, only just breaking down in the last few weeks into more unsettled conditions. Christmas & New Year In the run up to Christmas a weekly Sunday advent […]

What have we been up to this winter?

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As part of our efforts to see more of Sicily this winter we headed off along with the Wandering Dragons (Stephen and Anne) for a three day road trip. We were extremely lucky with the weather – blue skies, light winds and warm temperatures contrasted sharply with the Medicane (a […]

Bikini Clad Romans and Rumbling Volcanos

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We’ve been back in MdR a month or so now and have been getting on with putting Emerald to bed, cleaning and removing sails, washing the dinghy and kayaks for storage and servicing and winterising the generator, outboard and main engine. I Can See a Rainbow / Working on the […]

Back in Marina di Ragusa

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The Weather Window Quandary The Ionian Sea between Sicily and Greece is a notoriously difficult stretch of water to get a perfect weather window for crossing in one go. This is especially so as autumn arrives bringing regular storms. In the last two weeks we have sat out three storms […]

Highs and Lows of our Sail From Greece to Sicily

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Post via ssb from crossing from Greece to Sicily Position: 37 37.30 N 17 49.01 E Speed: 5.8 knots Course: 247 deg All well on board. Lazy Tern all well on board 4Nm in front of Emerald Wild ride yesterday, Force 6/7 on the beam. About 140Nm to run to […]

Position Report- High Seas

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