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Section of the Hereford Mappa Mundi. Alix and I first went to see a depiction of Middle Earth back in 2009, when I was doing my post-graduate studies at Gloucester University. The 14th century map of the known world – the Mappa Mundi – is housed in Hereford Cathedral, and we had a day trip there to see it (and the chained library, of Harry Potter fame). It’s the largest medieval map of the world and, if memory serves, was painted on goatskin by monks at Lincoln Cathedral in a

Ed, And no, the wind wasn't due to the baked aubergines that we had for supper. We were just nodding off around midnight, when Richard commented that the wind was coming around to blow a westerly. This had been expected, so nothing untoward. But it blew up quite quickly. We checked the anchor holding, and were happy that it was steadfast. For the next three hours we dozed fitfully. MB swung to-and-fro on her anchor. Our cabin hatch was wide open, and as we swung one-way, cold

Bonifacio, just visible perched on the almost white limestone cliffs on Corsica. There’s a reason that yacht owners pay professional crews to deliver their boats from A to B. OK, some owners don’t have the time, but more often it’s because they don’t fancy doing the trip themselves. It may be the wrong time of year, or simply that the voyage would be against the prevailing winds and currents. In short, it would be a tiresome slog, so better to pay someone else to endure it, a

MB at Isola Rossa. I seem to have overlooked Isola Rossa in my last blog. A pleasant enough town, a few shops, bars and restaurants. But we seem to end up having dinner at 22:00 most nights. This is great when we are in Spain, and can have a siesta, but I have to confess, after a day’s sailing and all that fresh air, even I am getting a bit too tired at that time to enjoy food. We decided to eat ashore as we were so tired, and ended up in a large, busy restaurant. Service was

Fornelli Passage I thought we were going to have an easy sail to Stintino from Alghero, which we did but there’s always a but… Richard had been saying to me for a few days that I should read the pilot guide [ Ed, ‘Corsica & North Sardinia, Fourth Edition, Madelaine and Stephan Strobel, pub. Imray ] for our trip to Stintino. A pilot guide for an area is a book that helps passage planning, but also describes towns, marinas, anchor spots, wildlife, some cultural references etc,