The Shetland Round Britain and Ireland Race started and finished in Plymouth with stopovers in Kinsale in Ireland, Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Lerwick in the Shetlands and Lowestoft in Suffolk. Queen Anne Battery marina in the days before the start is the only time that all the competitors will be together and there is a lot of news to catch up on, last minute jobs and partying in the The Royal Western Yacht Club.

 The start of the SRBI Race was out in Plymouth Sound bounded to the south by the breakwater and to the north by anchored warships including the start boat-HMS Bangor. Mist and low cloud looked as though they would spoil the start as a spectacle but with half an hour to go out came the sun to cheer the boats on their way to Ireland. My memories of the Start of the RBI include Pete Goss storming through in his new boat to take the lead by the end of the breakwater and the close racing of the Open 40’s.

Living in San Francisco for a couple of months gives time to walk, travel on the Muni and start to feel like a local rather than a tourist. Even so, most of these photographs feature the iconic features of the city but taken from a different perspective. Maybe it comes from me having been a train spotter but I found the streetcars fascinating. Yes the cablecars are the well known means of transport in San Francisco but the street cars give a real flavour of the time and place of their origins. See the link to find out more.

The Thames Estuary challenges all yachtsmen.The East Coast has very shallow water with sand banks reaching out like fingers to ensnare the unwary, plenty of shipping, wind farms, old gunnery platforms, sunken munitions ships and strong tides. Still our band of four sailed from Ipswich down to Ramsgate, along the Thames and up the Medway, north east along the coast to West Mersea and then back home up the Wallet.

Salmon fishing on the banks of the river Tweed at Berwick circa 1967. Northumberland were hosting the National Youth Sailing Championships and I was teaching sailing in the county and so volunteered to help. One evening walking along the river bank this group of men were netting salmon as they returned to the river from the Atlantic. The photographs were printed in my darkroom that was set up in the garage.

In the northern hemisphere winter of 2006/2007 Liz and I flew off round the world to see our grandchildren. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in San Francisco with Anna and Tomas and after a little rest and recuperation in Hawaia we had two weeks in a campervan in South Island New Zealand. This section has photographs from that trip. After the van was returned we flew from Christchurch to Sydney to see Lizzy and meet Harriet for the first time.

Two weeks before Easter 2007 five of us left Ipswich in Filao bound for St Katherine’s Dock in London. The Five in a Boat were Tim, Guy, John, Steve and myself. A very cold northerly force 7 blew us quickly down to the Medway and the next day an equally cold easterly blew us up the Thames in record time. Guy’s wife, Becky, and their two children Molly and Thomas were standing at the lock to wave us in.

During June 2007 we set off to move Compromis from the Mediterranean, up the mighty Rhone to Lyon. Reter sailed with me from near Nice to the mouth of the river and then Mike took over for the trip up the river. The mast was taken down in Port Napoleon to be taken by lorry to Le Havre but a change of plan means it is going all the way to Holland. The Rhone lived up to its reputation with adverse currents up briefly to 5kt but we covered the 320km from Port St Louis to Lyon in just over 5 days.

Liz, Graham and I went back to Lyon to continue the journey up the Saone towards the Netherlands. The current was still against us but it is a more gentle river than the Rhone and the further north we went the stream became slacker, the river narrower and the countyside very rural. Tunnels were a new experience and so was mooring to stakes driven into the bank but it was a gentle part of the journey and very beautiful.

The Canal des Vosges starts in Corre and travels the 130km to Nancy and has 91 locks and the second highest summit level in France. There are some villages en route but largely you are on your own. Even in late July there were very few other boats and we didn’t meet a single perniche. Had we done so in the narrower sections I didn’t have a plan B. It is the stuff of travel books and well worth the doing.

All the locks were down, the current was with us, the river was wide and deep plus the weather was fine. Cruising down the Moselle is gentle and charming but bring your own wine as the sweet moselle wine was to none of our tastes. There are large barges but not enough to cause problems

The waters of the Rhine were turbulent for the first few kilometres after the confluence maybe as a result of the two mighty rivers colliding. A 3kt current was carrying us toward the Netherlands and there were no locks in the way but there was a lot of big barge traffic. Tankers, container vessels and aggregate barges all came in droves and the ones with blue boards out wanted to pass starboard to starboard. There are photographs of Hindeloopen--Compromis’ home in the Netherlands.