escapade sailing

Barbuda: I managed to get completely lost on my early morning run around the wilds of Barbuda, few landmarks in the sandy tracks through the scrub. Nobody around to ask except the wild deer, donkeys and land crabs I met on the way. The sun was getting too high by the time I found my […]

Monty arrived in St Martin fresh from another season in the Alps and ready for 3 weeks of tropical sailing. The forecast was for light and variable winds but with a long-period groundswell from a late winter storm in the North Atlantic. Not great for passage-making, but dream conditions for a weekend of surfing on […]

Since Escapade was hatched we have learned to be a bit sceptical of our firm plans. They do seem to change pretty drastically within a few weeks, or days! One of our original plans was to sail up through the Turks and Caicos islands to the Southern part of the Bahamas. We were keen to […]

Brice and Genevieve made the long trip from Santa Cruz to Tortola to join us for a few days relaxation and sailing in the sunshine. They arrived on the evening of the full moon, so naturally we had a drink at Trellis Bay where the Full Moon festivities were in full swing. Then it was […]

Escapade is not really a racing boat and we are not really racers, but we happen to be here and there is a major annual regatta taking place, so why not? To make it interesting we are competing with another Outremer 51: Archer, owned by Rick and Julie Palm. We met at the boatyard in […]

Donald M Street Jr is a Caribbean sailing legend. He plied these waters for 40 years in his engine-free yawl and literally wrote the book, plus most of the charts.  We still use his pilot notes on Escapade even though they are now 20 years old.  The guru has this to say about the Spanish […]

What a fun week. Our first guests on board in the Caribbean. Tony and Gill joined us from Guernsey for a whistle-stop tour of the Virgin Islands, They are now both experienced deck-hands. Tony is a natural helmsman, and very handy with a boat hook. Both our guests graduated from the JP Watersports Centre with […]

So we only went to St Martin to get a couple of bits of work done on the boat. Our first impressions were not great and we didn’t plan to stay long. But it seems there is a bit of a forcefield surrounding the place! St Martin is so well set up for yachts, anything […]

Islands keep appearing over the horizon and the weeks go by. Escapade has dropped her hook in some beautiful places. Sleepy Nevis with more monkeys than humans. Glamorous St Barts with a sort of Tropical/St Tropez/Ibiza feel and a well stocked French supermarket! The culture shock of the bright lights and traffic of Dutch Sint Maarten. […]

We took a few days to celebrate our crossing in Falmouth with friends old and new. Enjoying the luxury of bars, restaurants and a stationary bed to sleep on, with no night watches. It’s great to be back here and finding so much unchanged – Mad Mongoose, Abracadabra, Grace Before Meals, espresso martinis in the […]