We’ve not had much luck with the dinghies we’ve owned. First off was the one that came with Emerald, a 3.1m Quicksilver inflatable with wooden floor. It weighed about 3 million tonnes making it a pain to haul up on beaches or onto the davits. After our 3 month trip […]

Leaving our Med mooring spot in Ormo Abelike went perfectly, there was barely any wind which helped a lot. As soon as Colin untied the windward stern line, Emerald gently moved forward as the taught anchor chain obeyed the laws of physics (Hooke’s law for those that care) and returned […]

Emerald is a 1979 Kelly Peterson cutter, our home as we wander slowly around the watery world. This blog provides a place for us to document our travels and the work we do to upgrade and keep her maintained. We hope you enjoy it. To be kept up to date with the […]

Doing something for the first time in Emerald can make us a little nervous, particularly if it involves close quarters manoeuvring. So today we set off for our first ‘tying to a tree’ Med mooring adventure with just a little trepidation nibbling away at us. There are three large bays […]

When we bought Emerald her deck and coachroof had previously been painted using Awlgrip paint. It weathered well but in the last few years had begun to look worn, scratched and faded. We have made a few epoxy repairs to the deck which had to be painted to protect the […]

1st June A couple of weeks in Vlicho Bay and it was time for a change of scenery. We decided to head over to Ormo Varko on the mainland, 6nm northeast of Nydri. A light easterly was blowing and we managed to sail all the way; as we passed the small […]

Our friends Pat and Duncan offered to go halves on a car share so off we went for a day tour of Lefkada island. First stop was a walk in the Melissa Gorge (a leaflet describing this and many other walks on Lefkas can be downloaded from here) off the […]

The sea | the sea | the open sea |The blue, the fresh, the ever free |-”The Sea,” Bryan W. Procter. It is at last time to sit down and write Part II of the green Emerald series. This time I’ll go into detail of our solar panel setup and […]

It’s just over a week since we arrived in Greece and we’ve been busy little bees. First was a trip on the bus (€1.60 each way, pay on board) from Nidri to Lefkas to pick up an internet SIM. We went for a Wind SIM which gave us 6GB for […]

Sailing to Greece On Wednesday morning we were up at 5am to set off for Greece. The air smelt of sulphur (Etna was erupting) but there was not a breath of wind. We dawdled about for a while delaying our start, checking and checking again the wind forecasts. It looked […]

The Making of a Syracuse Super Sarnie Last time we were in Syracuse we never got round to trying one of the mega sarnies from the Caseificio Borderi deli at the far end of the daily market. The time had come to make amends so we joined Tree from Tinkerbell amongst […]

We started the summer 2015 season with a reverse in direction of the last trip of last season. Like last year we were able to sail most of the way and the winds were stronger than forecast. The last day of boat prep was fairly manic not helped by things […]

April arrived with improved weather; warmer days and less wind made progress on the job list easier. The canopy needed a good wash to get rid of the Sahara sand that occasionally blows across from Africa, then re-waterproofing and some sewing repairs made, mostly due to the thread starting to […]

March arrived and it felt like time was suddenly racing on and we needed to crack on with some boat jobs. New covers for the cockpit seats, finishing the solar water heater (read about that here), lighting for the back deck and numerous other little jobs. Bar Stella Marina has been […]

Colin has always been a rugby fan having played from school age; when we met I soon began to enjoy watching it too, although it helped that it was the year England won the rugby World Cup! Whilst were watching the 6 Nations last year we realised that this year Ireland […]