Lifes an Adventure

We are Jeff and Diane living on board Moonfleet of Arun

Year one 1998

Year two

Year three

Year four

Cycle tour

2007/2008

Hi we are livaboard cruisers currently living in Marmaris Yacht Marina Turkey. Our boat is a 36 foot Bermudian sloop built by an old British wooden boat builder called David Hillyard. She was designed by Laurent Giles. She is number one of seven GRP boats built of the Moonfleet series.

We moved on board on the 1st of April 1998. April was spent learning to sailing in and around the Portsmouth area, getting our sea legs, and making the boat comfortable. After all this is now our home. We set off for the west coast and a circumnavigation around the UK on the 5th May 1998. We thought that if it all went pear shaped we could call on our wonderful Life boat crews. The best in the world in our opinion.

That first season was full of wonder, excitement and at times sheer terror, but all went well (most of the time) and we managed to get away without having to call for rescue. It was a steep learning curve as we had only sailed dinghies before. We had done the land based courses for navigation and basic boat handling and a couple of one week sailing holidays. It was a very different kettle of fish sailing our own boat without an experienced skipper looking over our shoulder. All in all we had a pretty good season; even though the great British weather did it's best to drive us back to the house with its central heating, comfortable beds and a washing machine.

We fought our way up to the Shetland Islands, where we visited a friend on a small island called Out Skerries. A very small island just a stones throw away from Norway. The visit was short because we were running out of summer time. So after spending a couple of days on the island we headed back down the east coast. We got as far as Hartlepool Marina and decided we had had enough of being cold and wet. There were four other livaboards in the marina so we tied up and plugged into the electricity got the telly out and settled down for the winter. We had clocked up a total of 1428 nautical miles. Not bad for beginners. But we still hadn't completed the circumnavigation.

It was a good winter lots of people came to their boats at weekends, we got work locally, joined the dive club and learnt to dive. Went to all the parties, and made a lot of new friends.

Now that was a very brief summery of our first year as grotty yachties on board the good ship Moonfleet of Arun.




Tuesday 28 November 2006

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