Penny, Rich and Libby go Sailing

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The Diary

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Wild Bird Wanderings

Penny and I met in Croatia in 2001. She was managing a large charter-yacht base and I was First Officer on a large prestigious private motor yacht. Over a glass of wine, we dreamed about one day buying a yacht of our own and living the life without deference to owners or charterers. In the intervening years we ran large yachts in the Med and Australasia, got married, bought and renovated an old house, had a daughter - but all the time saving every spare penny until the day in October 2009 when we finally bought our own fine vessel, "Wild Bird".

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March: concluding two weeks in the Spanish VI.

Well what a wonderful time we had in Culebra. This is a fairly small island in "Spanish Virgin Island" group to the west of St. Thomas. Just 3000 people live there, and possessing just a small and precarious runway it’s hardly touched by tourism.

We took the ferry to Fajardo on the east coast of Puerto Rico ($4 return!) and did some shopping (new laptop – hurrah!) as well as sneaking in quick visit to the rain forest. More on that soon.

There are some dreamy photos on the March page. Please enjoy them with us and know that we wish you could be here too.

We’ve decided to ship the Bird back to Southampton in May. Lots of reasons, but we hope then to catch a bit of the Olympics maybe, and also nip over to explore the Morbihan area of Brittany. More importantly, we’ll be close to Dad, who’s been experiencing a period of decline recently.

We Spent a very pleasant few days on Water Island USVI, fuelled and watered in Crown Bay, and have now returned to Culebra. Tomorrow we plan to catch up with friends on the "main" island of Puerto Rico - bringing the yacht with us this time!.

EDITOR'S NOTE - We didn't really realise it at the time, but this was to be the last "Update" blog. Anxious to confirm a school place for Libby, and with the unexpected news that a space was available for Wild Bird on a ship bound for Southampton, we quickly wound things up, and before we had time for regret we were suddenly home, and our beloved yacht was up for sale.

 

Trintella 44 Ketch *** SOLD ***

Yacht "Wild Bird", our fine ship is SOLD, but she appears to have gone to an excellent home where we're confident she will be cared for properly. Sad day though.

Raymarine For over four years Richard worked in the QA department of Raymarine in Portsmouth. During this time he worked at the forefront of the industry, testing and fettling new products and software before their release to market. Wild Bird has benefited by becoming a test bed in her own right.

LifestyleWe're not out to break any records or win any medals. We all love the lifestyle - and who wouldn't?! As far as passage making goes, we feel it'd be unpleasant for Libby to take her offshore for long periods, and Penny is not keen on long passages anyway.

Repairs Richard is well placed to assist other yachties in fault trace, location and fixing. A Master Mariner who was originally in the communications industry, qualified in telecomms and electronics, Richard enjoys solving problems on board vessels of all types. As well as commanding vessels all over the world, he has also served as temporary engineer on a very prestigious sailing yacht.

Website As you can see, I've completely re-vamped the site with a brand new "top" or index page. I'm trying to get to grips with Dreamweaver 8. It's still guesswork, and I'm still having to use "Notepad" and and WS_FTP to fiddle the files so they display properly. I'm planning to simply use "Word" for the monthly diary pages, but if anyone's got better ideas, I'd love to hear them.

 

 

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