TELL-TALES
Rod Heikell's very informal site on sailing around bits of the world and an eclectic collection of things nautical or nearly so.
NAVIGATING AROUND THIS SITE
I'm getting lost on what is where around this site so below is a brief guide to the bergy bits and the deep water.
New bits are added to existing pages when I get time and access to a broadband connection so its worth checking pages you may already have looked at.
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The blog continues in the Caribbean and on towards Panama and through the canal. Mostly text but also photos and the occasional amateur, very amateur, video.
To track our position see the box on the home page.
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The blog goes on across the Med and into the Atlantic
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Skylax blog July to September 07
I'm putting this blog up as a page and will continue other blogs here and on additional pages as the original blog page appears to have some terminal glitch...
Odd bits on where we are, odd letters, a pot pouri of text and photos from July to Sept 07
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Same as the other blog but from April to June 07.
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These pages will contain bits and pieces on sailing in the Mediterranean. Some pilotage. Weather. Yacht services. A bit of a pot-pourri on sailing in the Mediterranean.
Mediterranean weather forecasts on the net
Getting around Mediterranean France
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'Crossing an ocean in a small yacht is a bit like living your life backwards. At the beginning you die, then you get fitter and younger, and then when you arrive you have an orgasmic celebration and the idea that life is just beginning.'
Douglas Graeme
Important corrections and amendments to my Indian Ocean Cruising Guide
Account of a voyage eastwards from the Med to India in Tetranora.
Planning the eastabout passage across the North Atlantic and experiences in seven tenths and Skylax.
Protection from those rays...
Gibraltar to Canaries November 2007
Skylax en route to the Caribbean...
Lanzarote to Mindelo (Cape Verdes) 2007
Skylax en route from Canaries to Cape Verdes...
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Whoever it was who first went down to the sea and floated a log on it, then put up a scrap of animal skin to drift downwind, and then took along some old wild grass seeds that fermented on the trip, well he’s got a bloody lot to answer for …
Douglas Graeme
Ocean Passages and Landfalls mini-cruising guides
For the latest corrections go to the supplement page
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I've annotated some Google Earth maps showing basic facilities in various places. This won't work everywhere because in some areas the maps don't show sufficient detail to be useful. Some of the information is of the sort that can change from year to year so don't necessarily expect to find a WiFi source or a laundromat in the place shown - it may have changed last week. Pin-pointing where a place is on the map can sometimes be difficult, but if the placemark is not squarely on the exact place, it's at least close. Inevitably there may be a few places I get totally wrong, but then everyone needs to spend time exploring an area and finding out about what is where.
The maps are roughly grouped into ocean passages and roughly follow our route on Skylax.
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Bits and pieces on weather and weather forecasts. Go here for Climate Change comment
and articles.
Mediterranean weather forecasts (net)
Turkish weather forecasts on the internet
Weather forecasts in the Indian Ocean
Some tips on Single Side Band marine transceivers and Pactor modems from a self-confessed radio nerd.
I’ve only been using an SSB for a few years, and not really that much until this last year. I though it might be interesting to pass on some of my new-found knowledge to others joining the twilight world of long range radio communications. Much of what is written below is knowledge gained from experience, much is also gained from a number of kind and helpful experts and professionals, who I list at the end, and to whom I’m extremely grateful.
Advice may be found from many sources, but I have sometimes found it difficult to decipher some of the ‘radio speak’ into a language I can understand, at a level which is enough to be useful, but not too much to overwhelm. There are many experienced radio amateurs or HAMS who you’ll meet who will give their time and expertise freely. But beware the ‘expert’ who can really mislead you. How do you tell the difference? Well, maybe after you’ve read this you’ll be in a better position to judge. This is intended as a brief introduction for people thinking of installing a long range radio, or for those who have one but would like to get a bit more out of having it.
USING A PACTOR MODEM & TROUBLESHOOTING
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This page has a jumble sale of odd bits and pieces. Some of it is new. Some of it didn't make it into various publications for one reason or another.
The Real Ithaka?
A short history of yachting in the Mediterranean
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Early Days in the Mediterranean
Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time
From
A short and personal history of sailing Roulette down to
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Climate change
A few articles and odd bits, mostly personal, on how our sailing lifestyles will change with global warming and climate change and it's effects on the seas and oceans of the world
Hurricane Ivan and me
Sailing after tomorrow
Record April temperatures 2007
Carbon footprints
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This page includes a collection of assorted environmental issues in no particular order. It is not meant to be a systematic critique - just odd bits and pieces I come across or that I have been mulling over. Of course the nay-sayers out there can have a field day with this page, but then again one day they might just wake up to the damage we are doing to this planet and to the seas we sail on.
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New or second-hand (or pre-owned as our American cousins like to say and it does sound better) and thoughts on yacht design.
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When we have crew for a crossing I generally send out odd emails on things to think about in preparation for the crossing. It is not meant to be a rigid list, more things to think about. The real preparation is when shipmates are on board and I show them where things are, how all the sailing stuff is rigged on passage, and the few rules we have. Things like no-one goes forward of the cockpit at night without a safety harness. Everyone, but everyone on board cooks. The cook doesn't wash up. The person coming off watch at night makes the new watch a cup of tea or coffee. When we arrive the skipper (me) is responsible for a slap-up meal with lots of alcohol.
Finding your way around a boat
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The days are long gone, if they ever really existed, when sailing folk opened a tin of something for dinner or like Tilman, cooked up a pot of gumbo or burgoo which was added to for weeks until it got too mouldy to eat. Most cruising people eat very well and spend a lot of time thinking about and preparing food. I know I do and included here is a very brief section on food from a number of countries with a recipe that uses some ingredients from that country or reflects the local cuisine, though the recipe is not necessarily an authentic national recipe.
All the recipes are used on board by us so they do work although these recipes, in fact any onboard recipes, should be taken as a guide and not absolute instructions set in stone. One of the things most cruising folk get used to is substituting ingredients which look like, taste like, or have the same texture as the missing ingredient. For example if you need roasted pine nuts try substituting roasted almonds, walnuts or even peanuts. And don’t roast them: fry in a little olive oil and then tip onto a kitchen towel. If you can’t get parmesan try some of the local hard cheeses. In Leros in Greece they make an excellent hard white cheese that keeps well and tastes as good as Parmesan. In Greece and Turkey try the local versions of rocket grown there. Make your own sweet and sour sauce by chopping some chilli into marmelade and adding a little balsamic vinegar. As long as it tastes about right, it will do in the absence of the real thing
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KISS
These pages have a motley collection of practical stuff for boats. It all comes from hands-on stuff on our boats that gets tested in the real cruising world and on those wet salty passages where you find out what works and what doesn't.
KISS keep it simple stupid
If you wander around the boatshow as I did this year, you could be forgiven for thinking that somewhere between the good old days and the glittering arrays on the stands at the boat show that we seem to be missing the point about going sailing and cruising. The basics have got mixed up with the toys that have a by-line like ‘essential for every cruising boat’ or ‘don’t leave port without one’. Its all for your convenience and you would be a fool not to have one on board.
There is a grand complication between the salesman’s patter about the integrated, PC or Mac compatible, talking to the instruments, gee-gaw that you must have and that simple old fashioned concept of capturing the wind in those white things and gliding over the sea to a destination.
In fact most of the equipment we need is low-tech and it needs to be reliable. We run all sorts of complicated gizmos in Skylax: a couple of chart-plotters, integrated instruments and autopilot, radar, lap-top navigation and routing software, all sorts of stuff. The nub of it all is whether you need to continually be repairing all this stuff or whether you keep cruising and repair or replace a piece of equipment when you can. I see all sorts of boats stuck in a harbours around the world waiting for a spare part or replacement gear. In fact most of what we need to keep these sailing dinosaurs going is simple basic stuff and a lot of what enhances cruising is low-tech or at best intermediate technology.
KISS. Below are some simple things that make your cruising more enjoyable and also some caveats on things we use.
Mosquito and 'no-no' protection
Supplements to some of my books
This page contains some recent supplements to my books. It is not intended to be all-encompassing and for a complete list of supplements you should go to the Imray site www.imray.com and click on corrections. The corrections on the Imray site are in pdf format whereas these are straight text/html.
Note: If you want to print off the corrections for a book from here I suggest you highlight the corrections for the book you want and then copy it into a word processor like WORD. If you simply press PRINT for this page it will print off all the corrections - a lot of pages and a lot of paper and ink.
GREEK WATERS PILOT 9TH EDITION SUPPLEMENT #4
IONIAN 5TH EDITION SUPPLEMENT #3
WEST AEGEAN 1ST EDITION SUPPLEMENT #2
MEDITERRANEAN FRANCE & CORSICA 3RD EDITION SUPPLEMENT MAY 2007
TURKISH WATERS & CYPRUS PILOT 7TH EDITION SUPPLEMENT #1
OCEAN PASSAGES AND LANDFALLS SUPPLEMENT #1
OCEAN PASSAGES AND LANDFALLS SUPPLEMENT #2 (2008)
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When the sun drops under the horizon and night falls, with the boat surging on through the sea and alone in the cockpit on night watch, there be sea monsters out there. And wild speculation.
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©Eric & Robin Lambert
These are letters written between 1994 and 1996, sent back by Eric and Robin Lambert from the good ship Heather, a 1964
I met Eric and Robin on Heather in
Sadly Heather was lost in 1997 off Saba in the Caribbean, an island I treat with trepidation when I pass it – the last time in Skylax we had 30 knots plus and a current kicking up horrendous seas. Oh, and the roller reefing jib, the only half decent foresail we had, was shredding all along the leach.
Eric and Robin have a new 36 footer now, Runaway, a kiwi boat they race locally on the west coast
RJH
Eastern Mediterranean: Israel, Turkey & Greece
Small boat voyages
Small boat voyages
There are a lot of people out there who have made passages over the years in small boats against the odds. These are the people who 
decided you didn't need to go out and purchase a new 40-something JennyBennyBav or similar, who do not have boats full of the latest kit from the boatshows, and who have had some quite amazing adventures on the seven seas. This page contains a mix of some accounts of voyages, sometimes just a photo and a brief description, sometimes just a query. Few of the people featured here do that PR stuff to get their voyages noticed and some I have met are wonderfully eccentric and interesting people. Fair winds and following seas to all of them.