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The crew members walked down the aisle passing out additional sick bags to the several peaky-looking passengers. The woman in front was gripping tightly onto the seat-back in front of her in a tissue-filled clench. The top of the thin and curly-haired pate of her partner, directly in front of me, was sweating profusely in the manner of someone in some anxiety or distress. The general buzzy background noise of chattering guests slowly quietened as each of them in turn stopped

Missy Bear in Leros marina, ready for her summer haul-out Once upon a time (well, many years ago), Richard and I did a one-day Royal Yachting Association (RYA) course on how to use a ship’s radio. This included the critical safety features for broadcasting a Mayday ( m' aider ), and of course the Nato, or phonetic alphabet – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc. Not long after, the two of us went sailing around the Whitsunday Islands in Australia on a 32' Jeanneau Sun Odyssey and though

A Hunter from 1936 My father Walter is 86 years old. He was born in 1936. He is almost as old as Wood Rose: a classic, hardwood, 24’ Gaff-rigged yacht, built and launched the year before at Hunter’s yard in the Norfolk Broads. Me sailing Wood Rose on Horsey Mere. Image (C) Roger Haynes The Broads is a series of medieval peat-workings that flooded, despite wind-powered pumping, as sea-levels gradually rose. The opportunity that these new ditches and broad, open lakes provided

(c) Lawrence Durrell, The Greek Islands If you ask a British tourist in Greece what they know about the Cyclades, they are likely to give a variety of answers, depending on their background. Your average ancient Greece historian is likely to tell you about Delos (the centre of the Delian League), an island deemed to be the birthplace of Apollo (the sun god) and his twin sister Artemis (goddess of hunting, childbirth, the moon, and interestingly, chastity). Her Roman equivalen

1. The lee of the mainland bares a lighter sea hue, we spy horses ahead frothing white o’er dark blue. The cape off port-bow portends wind’s sharpest teeth; “Reef the main, Missy Bear, and head east-by-sou’-east”. 2. The chart hints of isles lying oceans apart, but it’s line-of-sight sailing each morn‘ we depart. The far, craggy rocks loom for’d of her shrouds, their high peaks caressed by white duvets of cloud. 3. Shearwaters wheel freely low over the crests, and dolphins