Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

Atlantic and Mediterranean Cruising on board Lady M

Success, a Visitor and About to Head East

We ended up staying 2 weeks in Mahon with a little break in the middle. Having installed a new battery charger and finally found someone (Lawrence of Sail Power Menorca) to review our charging systems and diagnose and fix our battery monitoring system that wasn’t giving us any meaningful information. We now feel ready to move on with our travels east, Hooray! What made our time here so special was.. Read More

Balearics, Here We Come!

On Friday August 12, 2022 at 19:30 we departed Barcelona on our passage east to Turkey; first stop Soller, Mallorca. Ed and Shona, and Margit and Erv were on the dock waving us goodbye.  Tina, a multi-lingual Danish friend from the Club, was on board. She joined at the last moment as Cliff and Nancy, from the US, had to cancel over Covid concerns. The preceding few days had been somewhat.. Read More

Back onboard Lady M

We just returned from a month away from Lady M. However, we couldn’t keep away from boats and boating during our trip. Our first stop on the US East coast included a very pleasant Wednesday evening sail from Nyack Boat Club on the Hudson with friends, Cliff and Nancy, which brought back many happy memories of the years when we were members there. We then spent a very enjoyable (but.. Read More

Lady M reporting from Barcelona, June 1, 2022

It is about time we put fingers to IPad and write a blog. We have been on Lady Mayfair in Barcelona, essentially since last September.  Much of the time has been spent refurbishing equipment on the boat, a task more arduous and complicated than anticipated. Prior experience in the US has shown it could be a lot easier and less expensive there, than here. However, the upside is that we are.. Read More

Slow but Steady Progress with Lady M Tasks

I think it is the same whenever you acquire anything new, there is always a settling in phase, getting to know the ins and outs of how it all works and figuring out where upgrades and/or changes may be warranted. This certainly seems to have been the case for us with Lady M. So, not only have we been slowly chipping away at the “must do” ‘B’ items found during.. Read More

Meet Lady M….

After almost a 12 month hiatus as live-aboards, we are back. The pandemic definitely blunted our plans but in the end, June, we managed to fly to Spain and find our next boat, Lady M a 2001 Moody 54. She is a very nice, well loved, blue water boat and much better suited for welcoming guests onboard, although she is a few feet longer than what we were looking for… Read More

Turkey – Last Hurrah, at least for 2020

We are trying to remain positive as we plan for our last day in Turkey. Thursday morning sped past completing COVID forms for entering the U.K. and trying to resolve where our belongings being shipped to Wales are. They appear to be stuck in Holland. Hopefully they will arrive within a week or two! Tomorrow, Friday, we will be back in the U.K.. Our return to the U.K. has not.. Read More

And off we go to Marmaris again….

With Howard’s back slowly improving, we set off for Knidos on August 12th.  It was a good sail some of the way but, again, the wind died behind the island of Kos.  This time we didn’t even go ashore in Knidos, just in case the anchor dragged in the somewhat variable and gusty winds that evening.  Instead we enjoyed great swimming off the boat and a quiet evening onboard. The.. Read More

Bodrum – Where Life Onboard MAZU Took an Abrupt Change

Yes, it happened when we least expected it to.  While we were in Bodrum, we received a message from our Turkish broker, Birol, that an American couple living in Italy were interested in buying our boat so they could sail her back to the US and maybe beyond.  After much heartache, some serious soul-searching and some negotiation, we accepted their offer.  The next step in the process was to have.. Read More

Datça to Bodrum via Pamalut and Knidos

Our last blog was a bit after the fact because we ran out of data on our Turkish SIM card, just at publishing time.  It took three more stops until we were able to find a Turkcell dealer and top up our minutes.  In the interim, the blog was published without photos using wifi from a bar.  The photos have since been added so, in case you have’t already seen.. Read More