Shetlands And Iceland, 2003

by Phyllis July 13, 2003

Well, we finally made the break from Norway and leaving was as hard as we expected it to be. Especially since we left the coast at Ålesund, one of the most beautiful of Norwegian cities and especially beautiful in the long golden light of late evening with a perfect rainbow framing the city thrown in [...]

Glenarm, Ireland

by Colin January 19, 2010
The marina at Glenarm, Ireland.

I’ve only ever seen one sailing magazine article by the great writer and sailor Jonathan Raban, but the first sentence of that article may explain why: “Marina is a word like rubella—it sounds far nicer than the thing it describes.” And for many marinas, maybe that’s the truth. Practical, convenient, yes, but it would be [...]

Sailing The West Coast Of Scotland, Part 1

by Colin December 14, 2010
If you don't like the weather on Skye, hang around for 5 minutes

A hardy perennial in sailing magazines has always been some well-known individual describing their ‘favourite secret anchorage’. I’ve never fully understood the rationale for taking part in such an exercise.  After all, if it’s no longer a secret, won’t that make it as busy as any other place as a result? As someone once wisely [...]

Sailing The West Coast Of Scotland, Part 2

by Colin January 15, 2011
North to Stornwoay

Sailing ‘off-grid’ is all about getting away from the crowds, and the west of Scotland can certainly offer that – during my first fortnight in charge of a charter boat in the Hebrides back in the spring of 1992 we saw one other yacht in two weeks. And in those days there was a kind [...]

A Change Of Latitude

by Colin August 11, 2011
Shark spotting off Rum in the Inner Hebrides

We’ve just returned from two weeks in the western isles of Scotland, carrying out a short basking shark survey, our first in the area since 2006. Fortunately for us, the weather came good, and we had two weeks of light to moderate winds, with just the odd bit of wind and rain to remind us [...]