Life Aboard

Porto Santo's winds are influenced by the Azores High. The harbour provides good protection from the prevailing north/northeast winds. However, south to southwest winds bring challenges, and an occasional named storm can bring uncomfortable conditions for boats both on the moorings and pontoons.

When the Wind Blows in Porto Santo

by
1
We might as well write our plans in sand at low tide. Sailing plans can be fragile, easily broken by multiple factors - weather, boat problems or myriad unexpected issues. Sometimes the forced plan change can result in a good experience, sometimes its bad.

Plans Are Written in Sand at Low Tide

by
Whilst sailing from Ibiza to Mallorca, the wind died and we had to motor. Just after switching on, the engine stuttered and died. Diesel bug had blocked one half of our fuel system. Read on for how we dealt with this.

Attack of the Diesel Bug

by
Winter 2017-18 In the depths of January the winter seemed to be crawling by, but in the blink of an eye, here we are in the last flurries of preparation to depart for our summer adventures. As usual, there have been plenty of jobs to do on Emerald. There was the […]

Winter 2017/18

by
Emerald has inward opening ports, held open by a hook hanging down from the ceiling. There are 14 of them in all, which with most of them open in the summer provide plenty of entry points for small, evil buzzy, biting mosquitoes. I made the first version of the boat […]

Instructions for DIY Boat Mosquito Screens

by
20th July: A very relieved Emerald crew are now floating again and so far so good: the bilge is dry! We’ve bravely left the safety cocoon of Murter to venture a few miles north for a few easy days. Life in a boatyard can be hard work physically. There’s all […]

Croatia Boatyard: Leak Busting and a Bora Wind

by
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

by
Ratty, Roland, Ben, Basil. Whichever cosy name we gave our furry stowaway it didn’t make the rat any less unwelcome. We were very lax when we tied our lines ashore at Port Leone on Kalamos. Not once did it cross our minds to put anything on the lines to stop a […]

Rats!

by