S/V Aphrodite

Corsica
We departed Barcelona on 9/16/07 and sailed across the notorious Gulf of Leon to Corsica, which is a group of French islands about 100 miles off the French coast, tucked in closer to Italy than it is to France. The high jagged mountains are an impressive sight. Dorothy Carrington, author of Granite Island, describes her [...]

What follows is a bit of Barcelona’s history.  We found the city to be so interesting that we stayed several days longer than planned.  Unfortunately we were unable to get into the “Old City” marina which would have put us within walking distance to everything. But, we bought multiple day tickets for the tourist bus system [...]

We hooked up with Jeri’s cousin Peter Drefine, wife Tina and boys Adam and Warren in Formenterra, in the Balleric Islands of Spain.  We had great dinners, mud baths and kiteboarding.  It was great to meet everyone.

THE MARRAKESH EXPRESS, who sang that song???? We have just returned from Morocco, but definitely did not find the Marrakesh Express. What we found was the Slow Boat (trains and busses) To China! Traveling in Morocco is for the rugged, not the faint of heart. If you have ever considered going to Marrakesh, my recommendation [...]

We have been all around Portugal looking for a Portugese Water Dog or Cao do Agua as they are called here.  The breed is purebreed.  They are rare and hard to find, it may take us up to one year to get one.  Today we visited one of the best breeders, Carla, who lives in near [...]

We spent a night in Sines, pronounced “cinch” which is a charming fishing village and set out for Lagos. We sailed downwind with only the Code-0 spinnaker for 5 hours until the winds built to over 20 and we reefed it. Within an hour the winds “died” to 11 knots and we put it back [...]

We sited land on 7/2/07 after a lovely 5 1/2 day downwind sail from the Azores. Arriving mainland Europe was an amazing moment for us, especially for me since just 4 years ago even the thought of it scared me. I still have to pinch myself and look at a world map to realize just [...]

We made landfall in Cascais, Portugal near Lisbon yesterday evening.  The sun was still shinning at 10 in the evening and the port looked beautiful.  We celebrated our crossing with a bottle of reserve Azorean red wine given to us by Pierre who stayed with us several days in San Miguel, Azores.  It was delicious, thanks Pierre!  Our crossing took 5.5 days, [...]