I came back to the boat in Gibraltar on Monday October 17. The boat had safely been brought to Gibraltar by Georges Fillon with his nephew Antoine.  Georges is coming back for this final leg with me and I am accompanied by a longtime friend and colleague in the diamond trade, Paul Kawan. Paul is a legend in our industry…

Our 6th and final day of the crossing was excellent. In the early morning of Tuesday August 23rd, the wind shifted to the West as expected and gradually turned to the Northwest. The option to go further West paid off, allowing me to head straight for Praia. We were able to sail in ideal conditions in a straight line for…

The repair of the auto-pilot piston drive took finally longer than forecast. In fact, I found out that there were no direct flights from here to Salvador. The piece had to transit in Recife. It left on Thursday August 11 and not on Wednesday as I had been told. Further, all the oil had not been purged, as a result…

Just a short news to inform you that a mechanic found by the ever-reliable Marcello from Salvador de Bahia (who had fixed my forestay fitting) came yesterday, Wednesday August 10, on board at 7:30 am. He took the piston out. As it turned out, one of the bolts holding the piston on the gimbal had fallen some time ago. As…

We have successfully arrived at Fernando de Noronha on Monday night at 11:00pm. We had a very fast crossing. The wind was very stable since Sunday night. Right after dinner it increased to 20 knots with gusts up to 25 but as it was coming from the South East, it did not add any strain on the boat. We regularly…

I don't know about you, the year didn't start very well for me, but when you think about it, you can see the positive in everything. Speaking of positives, here is one I would have liked to avoid, the Covid of course. During our week off with Marleen in José Ignacio, near Punta Del Este in Uruguay, I caught the…

Saturday December 18 was a long and eventful day. As it turned out we had a beautiful 2-hour visit of the island of the States. Although we arrived in the middle of the night, the sky was strangely lit towards the South. We woke up at 5:30 am with a dense fog hanging on the steep cliffs. We explored first…

Dear Friends, An e-mail was sent last month by mistake. My website had expired and I had lost all the content and functionalities. My daughter Larissa rebuilt it from scratch. From the reactions of many of you, it seems that you are ready to follow the next adventures. We are now in full preparations of the second leg of the…