I think I’d been in Amsterdam for all of 5 minutes before I nearly got run over by a bicycle. Andrew just managed to pull me out of the way, but with all the trams, cars, people and bikes whizzing all over the show, in what feels like a very random pattern I decided I…
After boarding the train in London at Kings Cross Station platform 9 3/4 we clickity clacked our way across a patchwork quilt of farms and villages. Church steeples poked their way out from behind hedgerows surrounded by boxy brick houses. We passed stunning seaside towns and undulating countryside. And after a very relaxing four hour journey…
As I stepped off the plane in Heathrow, a strange sense of belonging swept over me. This was home turf, my birth country. A place that I have only lived for a short part of my life, and that nostalgic feeling came as a bit of a surprise. London is a REALLY long way from…
When the alarm went off at 4.30am, I realised that staying up partying on the boat until 1.30am means you don’t get enough sleep to feel refreshed and ready to go. Will we ever learn? Still it had been a fun impromptu evening which had started with a flight delay in Christchurch, meaning we’d had…
The heat and humidity of Singapore hit me in the face like one of those hot wet towels they hand you when you get on the plane. But once you’ve acclimatised it is an awesome place for a couple of days stopover when you happen to be travelling from one side of the world to…
I think it was the excitement of finally seeing the Americas Cup in person, I guess I just got a bit carried away… but when the auctioneer slammed down the hammer and said ‘SOLD!’ it looked like we were off to Bali! We were at a fundraising event for the Pleasant Point Yacht Club. Their…
About 18 or so years ago, I started crewing on a boat called Natural Magic. Little did I know how the course of my life would change from the moment I stepped on board that boat. Not only did I meet my sailing sensei Ivan Atkinson, as well as lots of other great people, but…
A wee trip down memory lane! An article I wrote for the Naval Point Club Lyttelton newsletter about the annual legendary Pigeon Bay Race way back in 2007… Ahhh what a lot of fun adventures we’ve had over the years.
A couple of weeks ago on the Women Who Sail New Zealand Facebook group, one of the members Michele, put up a post about a citizen science project – The Big Microplastic Survey. If you haven’t heard of Citizen Science before, I wrote a post about it a year or so ago. It is basically…
Most people these days are very conscious of the huge volume of plastics floating around in our oceans and the impact this is having on the fish and mammals that live in the Ocean and the planet as a whole. Here in New Zealand we are undergoing an anti-plastic revolution. Things like straws and plastic…
Astrolabe Sailing 