Out on the Blue returned to the UK yesterday the 3rd of August, four years and eleven month after she left in 2007. We spent a week with our friends Garry and Jan in Portugal at Povoa de Varzin where the boat has been kept for the past year. There were a few technical problems that needed ironing out and these took a bit longer than expected but otherwise the boat looked very smart with her newly painted hull. During this time we visited the lovely old city ...

We sailed to Cascais near Lisbon to meet up with our friend Cal and her son Alex who flew out from Dundee on the 9th of August to stay with us for a week. When we arrived we were surprised to find that the Americas cup yacht race was at Cascais all week. The revolutionary new design catamarans are about the fastest racing class boats and they were racing in the harbour nearly every day we were there. On one occasion the start line was very close to where we wer...

We left the marina in Tropea on the 1st of July and headed for Stromoli but some very insistent fishermen made us change course to avoid their fish traps and we ended up in Vulcano. From there we motored to Sicily and a very rolly anchorage at Capo d'Orlando. We continued along the coast to the northeast corner at San Vito Lo Capo and went ashore to buy bread and vegetables. When the wind picked up in the afternoon we set sail across the Tyrrhenian Sea for ...

Italy and the Aeolian Islands (12th June to 1st July 2011) Hanna and Richard joined us for a holiday. They flew out to Lamezia Terme airport and met us on Sunday evening at Stella del Sud marina at Vibo Valentia. Richard hired a car from the airport for 3 days and early the next morning we set out to drive to Naples and the beginning of their Italian volcano tour. The first and most easily accessible volcano was Vesuvius. We drove most of the way up and walked ...

Rhodes, Crete and the Peloponnese When we left the harbour in Rhodes the anchor was stuck fast. I thought maybe we had found the statue of the Colossus lying on the bottom. Try as we might maneuvering the boat back and forth it would not budge so unfortunately we had to send a diver down to free it from a metal plate it was hooked under. It would have been a very inexpensive mooring at only 6 euros a night but the €120 for the diver made it the most expens...