Feeling no need for preparation — and now safe aboard Wrack after half a night in hospital — I'm sprawled along a narrow bunk, absorbed in The Sea (and relieved by its subject's close proximity).

What's in a name? "Our Wrack is a hard-worn, scarred, old vessel, but sea-kindly and sound. The name isn’t a reflection of its history but rather that of its crew." ccohanlon.tumblr.com/post/7996618...

Whenever people challenge me about maintaining this GoFundMe for so many years, I remind them The Irish saying is "Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine," which translates to "Under the shelter of each other, people survive"

Another of my diaristic pieces about the sea and sea-dwelling has just been posted to the Azores-based Sea-Water Amplification project's substack.

Gary Snyder

Today is my oldest daughter's birthday. I haven't seen her or heard from her in the last couple of years — her choice — and her absence has broken my my heart.

"...it all signals a vibe shift in how we talk about climate change, reframing it from the existential risk it actually poses to a less urgent, peripheral issue—even as the floodwaters reach our front doors." – @nitishpahwa.com [via @motherjones.com]

Another dour afternoon of wind and rain. I'm holed up below decks catching up with some reading: the first submissions for Burning House Press, for which I'm guest editor this month. burninghousepress.com/2025/11/01/n...

A mid-afternoon thunderstorm approaches (photo from Wrack's tiny galley).

“Please enter your six digit versification code.” These senior misreadings can be fun.

It’s Dory Previn’s centenary today, here’s a repost of a Quietus feature from 2024 if you‘re curious to find out more. Really enjoyed writing this (and the documentary is excellent too). thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

The men's showers here at the marina are unarguably the best I've encountered since we left the UK: a strong flow, hot (not lukewarm), and clean. At this time of year, hardly anyone else uses them.

Pink clouds, a pale blue sky — a Cagliari sunrise drifts into kitsch.

#RIP another jazz great: Jack DeJohnette, aged 83.

"When I told friends about crossing the US on a Greyhound, many seemed alarmed. Wouldn’t it be dangerous? Lonely? Depressing?... In 2023, it was indeed depressing at times. Many of my fellow passengers were strung out and looked to be barely hanging on." – @joannapocock.bsky.social

The Tara Polar Research Station, a French vessel purpose-built to drift in arctic ice, in Reykjavik harbor. [via @rahmstorf.bsky.social] fondationtaraocean.org/en/schooner/...

"Most artists I know are like this. Finding time to make art while working another job, or taking care of loved ones. They improvise. They get better. They get worse. They get better again. "Really it mostly comes down to that first thing: finding time..."

“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” – Aldous Huxley

A single dolphin off the end of our pontoon, arching across a dragon boat's wake as its paddlers practice cadenced strokes in the lee of the breakwater.

Now open for submissions of unpublished fiction and non-fiction, poetry, graphic narratives, photo-essays, and short films focussed on the actuality or idea (no matter how abstract) of a journey(or journeys): email to [email protected].

Today I learned that the earth’s “migrating magnetic equator” passes through Kerala.

- short stories from the boat yard -

It looks like I have to go back to hospital: chest pains, severe breathlessness. It's either the post-angioplasty medications or something has been missed. I was hoping to be re-admitted to the San Carlo di Nancy in Rome but we can't afford the flight — "And you can't travel like this," (my wife).

"The deployment of personal threats in an international negotiation represents another departure by the Trump administration from diplomatic norms and signals further tension in relations between the U.S. and EU. "The threats were not limited to European delegations..."

Ah, the mistral is back: 20 knots across the deck and the boat hobby-horsing on a low, westerly swell along the inside of the breakwater.

Yesterday 8.30pm

Grissini, and most recent experiments.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5H... for @ccohanlon.bsky.social thanks to @herbert-pfostl.bsky.social

Write something. Write it today. Write your heart out. Write something weird that only you would think of. Your enemies will not topple to your silence. Write your future and live it.

Instead of dolphins, this evening, antifa students facing off fascist black shirts in the centre of Cagliari.

"...little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire. You're just going to have to make up your own mind one day about what's right and what's wrong." – Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas), from the 1963 film Hud.

Cagliari harbour's resident pod of dolphins turned up off our pontoon this afternoon, playing havoc with the schools of large, flathead mullet that lurk within the marina. Given believes that the close proximity of dolphins is a sign of good luck. I bloody hope so — we need it.

@katmabu.bsky.social has put herself on the line to protect our communities from ICE and now she’s being prosecuted for daring to dissent. We’re proud to stand with Kat and the rest of the “Broadview Six” against these trumped-up charges. And we’re proud to support Kat for Congress.

I wish that more people were celebrating the very first treaty with First Nations people in Victoria. This is an Australian first, after a very long truth telling commission

Heavy rain driven by a hard sou'westerly across Cagliari this evening but below decks, Wrack feels like a small cottage: cosy, warm, with an aroma of curry and coconut as Given prepares an Indian vegetarian dish.

Another nomad-sailor in trouble here on the south coast of Sardinia: Peter, a soulful surfer, artist, community activist and permaculturalist, is recovering from a recent heart attack aboard his 10-metre sailboar and doing it very tough,. Please help him with a donation, if you can, or a re-post. 🙏

The city is a living palimpsest. Our stories are overwritten as soon as we stop telling them. Our stories are overwritten even before we leave the end of the street.

Wake late to leaden skies, light rain, and an oppressive humidity.

The Azores-based researchers and educators, Sea-Water Amplification (SWA), have been (re)publishing some of my old writing on the sea and seafaring. Let them know what you think — and maybe support them too, if you're inclined. seawateramplification.substack.com

This night of sitting up and not sleeping so the pain can see dawn.

The mistral is still strong, but no longer a gale and the sea inside the breakwater is less agitated. I spent the morning working with a local mechanic on our broken diesel engine — we're bleeding the fuel line, changing the oil and filters. If it starts, we'll see/hear what else needs doing.

#RIP the great Jack de Johnette, aged 83.

After a brief hiatus, this morning, the mistral is howling again — gusts of 40 knots — and the boats at the exposed end of the pontoon, including Wrack, are slam-dancing. My wife is cocooned in a duvet, staving off sea-sickness.

“History advances, plugging its memory as one plugs one’s ears . . . A moment stopped would burn like a frame of film blocked before the furnace of the projector.” Susan Howe quoting the narrator of Chris Marker’s _San Soleil_ (1983). Out of the essay “Sorting Facts” (1996).

Another sea-dwelling good cause in financial difficulty after an armed assault and robbery on the Infinity Expedition's 120-foot ferrocement ketch in Belem, Brazil.

Arka Kinari is a 60-ton, steel sailing ship that transforms into a floating stage and cultural platform to sound the alarm for climate change. It has voyaged to over 20 countries, reaching the world’s most remote peoples and places. Then, in Indonesia, it (almost) sank.

5.00am: wake suddenly to a series violent jerks as the mistral hardens and Wrack bumps fenders with its dock neighbours. I climb on deck naked, a small torch between my teeth, to check for damage. It's cold and the spindrift feels like rain.

Gusts of force seven and a three-foot swell in the harbour has Wrack pitching hard and snatching at its doubled bow lines. It's going to be an uncomfortable night The conditions will worsen before dawn.

Tearful goodbyes on the quayside as our daughter leaves us to head to Rome. The mistral is regaining its strength. My wife and I are adjusting lines and fenders and stowing loose gear before the 25-30 knot gusts and steep chop set in.

Our youngest returns to Rome tomorrow. She want to spend some time with her brother at his apartment in Ostiense. We're hoping she'll come back to Cagliari in a month and maybe sail with us to Sicily. Against all expectations, she enjoyed living aboard (her mum created a very cosy cabin for her).