"Since Hasan and his team of reporters don’t own or use computers, the newspaper is handwritten and then photocopied. But they also believe writing stories by hand...makes the paper feel more intimate and brings their community closer.” […]

“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.” - Henry David Thoreau

Late Wednesday night, I was admitted to Ospedale San Carlo di Nancy during a serious episode of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and tachycardia. The next morning I underwent a coronary angiogram. An arterial blockage was found and two ‘balloons’ were inserted to widen the artery. I’m […]

“If timelessness exists anywhere on earth, it is not in sight of the sea.” – David Gange [from his book, The Frayed Atlantic Edge, 2019]

“What [they] did not consider…is that the authors they programme to create progressive, informed and timely discussions on global affairs are likely to be engaged in the BDS and other solidarity movements—and willing to make small sacrifices to stop the financing of genocide and human rights […]

Contrary to the joy we felt when we first arrived in Rome, our first week in the city hasn’t been great: a depressing, dead-end encounter with an immigration attorney, a cardiologist sucking through his teeth as he reviewed my scans and blood tests, and my Mac Air still dead, the cause still […]

“The paddle for knowing the ocean uses science and research to build from our existing ancestral knowledge, rather than replacing it. The transport and reconnection paddle will ensure that our people return to the ocean for transport and movement, filling it up with our life and our attention.” […]

Missing this.

As my wife and I plot a serpentine route to settlement ashore, after three years of living afloat, I’m trying not to think of Apple’s notification, this morning, that my Navionics subscription to Mediterranean and Black Sea charts will expire soon, as an omen.

86 hours since we arrived in Rome. 86 hours of a comfortable double bed, a flushing toilet, hot and cold running water (showers and a washing machine anytime!), a large kitchen with a fridge, and a supermarket just down the street. 86 hours of rest. (Also, 86 hours of our son’s amazing cooking.)

The first night in a year sleeping somewhere that isn’t moving, somewhere stability and balance are constant, reliable. I miss the wind’s noises, the shifts of swell felt underfoot, the slap of wavelets against the hull. Outside now, the incessant rumble of traffic and unfamiliar voices. I’m in […]

Up at dawn to square away Wrack before we leave her for a few weeks. Stripped of gear and any sign of our habitation, she looks…forlorn.

A rush of white water, an abrupt gouge in the sea between our hull and the breakwater, as a dolphin lunges into a school of mullet feeding close to the surface. Panicked, fish breach skyward in every direction.

“It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

My friend, Swedish artist, surfer and activist Peter Stridh, has just anchored his 10-metre sailboat off the south coast of Mallorca after an adventurous long haul singlehanded from Algeria (via Ibiza). He’s inviting anyone who might want to join him there (to hang out or to sail with him to […]

My friend Peter Stridh has just anchored off the south coast of Mallorca after an adventurous long haul singlehanded from Algeria (via Ibiza). He’s inviting anyone who might want to join him there (to hang out or to sail with him to Sardinia in a couple of weeks to reach out) via Instagram […]

Startled tonight by a bottlenose dolphin just a metre or so off Wrack’s transom: a loud tail slap as he dove beneath a school of large green mullet milling around our hull. He surfaced, circled astern of us for a minute or two then, with another tail slap, disappeared under the black water.

Our son left us today to fly (via Rome) to Paris for work. He has told us he’ll rejoin us aboard in a few days, but his life is too fast-paced and unpredictable to count on that. Given was in tears as he walked away along the dock.

The end of August to the end of September, a season of uncertainty in the Western Mediterranean: unsettled weather patterns, fickle winds, brief but violent squalls, thunderstorms, and lightning. Passages are planned around benign but illusive ‘windows’ that, overnight, close and become chaotic […]

“We are now witnessing a frightening attack on history — an ongoing effort to rewrite, and to whitewash, the complicated story of the United States of America. “In recent months, many organizations dedicated to exhibiting, protecting, documenting, and archiving the multidimensional narratives […]

I wake amid the still, dark hours to realise I have just turned 71. “Birthdays are ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ask, ‘Que pasa, baby?’” - Jim Harrison, American author

"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history." - Aldous Huxley

An update: We have been in Cagliari, a large port on the south coast of Sardinia, for the past three days. We sailed here from the rugged, somewhat isolated Gulf of Teulada, 30 nautical miles to the west, to replenish our provisions, refuel, and service our quarter-century-old diesel engine […]

“Slow travel is - erm - slower. But you live it.” - Nick Harkaway

Because of our engine issues (and a consequent lack of money), we’ve missed a narrow weather window to sail to Rome. We’ll lurk around the Gulf of Cagliari until the weekend, then head into Tyrrhenian Sea.

Nearly midnight and dolphins lurk in the darkness, alongside our boat. We hear them breathe but glimpse them only briefly in swirls of black water. Flashback to our Mediterranean crossing: in darkness, 120 miles west of Sardinia, Wrack disturbs a sleeping whale. It slaps the sea close by the […]

Wrack motoring through a mid-Mediterranean calm. Video by Given Rozell.

Looking for fair winds to take us 220 sea miles east-by-south to Palermo, Sicily. Thursday, maybe.

Count us among those who are lost to this world: that’s the caravan we’re travelling with. -Mir Taqi Mir (tr. Ranjit Hoskote)

Our last sunset in Spanish waters as Wrack motors east, away from Ibiza across a windless sea.

We anchored in Sardinia at 4.30am this morning, after a three and a half day passage from Ibiza. We’re in a quiet cove deep within the Gulf of Teulada, one of the least inhabited coastal areas of the island.

Yesterday, an early morning motor-sail in variable winds to an anchorage off Santa Eulalia del Rio. Today, we’re having to re-think our planned departure towards Sardinia. I have acute angina. I hope it’ll settle in the next 24 hours. [fuck]

Full moon setting, as we weigh anchor this morning for a 20-mile leg up the east coast of Ibiza.

If you’re up for a real adventure, my friend, artist, surfer and activist Peter Stridh, is looking for crew aboard his well-sorted 10-metre Laurin Koster sailboat for an extended passage from the south coast of Spain towards Portugal on the Atlantic coast and […] [Original post on merveilles.town]

Ibiza, finally. Landfall at dawn, today.

An afternoon so humid, it’s like inhaling steam.

Woke before dawn to a cool breeze through Wrack’s open hatches, the boat rolling gently. I’m taking advantage of the solitude to re-read my friend Jenni Fagan’s 2017 novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims. #theLibrary

The aftermath of a rare rain squall passing over the marina at Alicante at 4.00am, this morning. We’d left our washing out to dry in the morning sun.

“There’s no replacement for putting scientists into the field on a ship.” - Carlos Moffat, physical oceanographer, University of Delaware. So, of course, the US government de-funds the ship. https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-plans-abrupt-end-lone-u-s-antarctic-research-icebreaker

Running for shelter.

Just after midnight: rain (the first since the end of winter), lightning, and a 30-knot mistral.

“In the early hours of the morning, a couple of days ago, I woke to a bright moon framed by an open hatch above the main cabin. My wife, who had laid awake most of the night, fretful about our circumstances and the voyage ahead, asked me, ‘Are we going to be ok?’ “‘At sea, yes. The rest…I don’t […]

C.C. has the watch as Wrack leaves Cabo de Agua, Spain, in its wake. Photo by Finn O’Hanlon.

Wrack off the wind at six knots up the east coast of Spain, yesterday.

Force 6 headwinds delayed our departure from Cartagena, this morning, but now I’m laid up with a fever, muscle ache, nausea, and utter disinterest in anything beyond the confines of my bunk.

In a ramen restaurant in Cartagena, tonight. Photo by Finn O’Hanlon.

We arrived off Cartagena in darkness at 4.00am yesterday after an uncomfortable (windless, a steep, short swell, bloody hot) 24-hour passage from Aguadulce. With Wrack secured, we slept just three hours before having to deal with harbour formalities and moving Wrack to a new berth.

Our last sunrise in the Alboran Sea, yesterday. Ahead, 100 tedious sea miles between the Gulf of Almeria and the port city of Cartagena.

After seven months in Almerimar, southern Spain, Wrack headed to sea, on Monday. Video by Peter Stridh.

This time last year: leaving l’Aberwrac’h, in northern Brittany, aboard Wrack at dawn.