Latest Adventures
Holland cruising plans
63 Degrees North just before midnight! Back offshore, working again. At latitude 63 degrees, in the North Sea, we are almost in the land of the midnight sun, so it never gets properly dark. I have been making good use of the extra time - busy planning our first proper...
Plans are made to change!
Relaxing on the back deck Well, we never got to Shangri La this May as planned. Much too much to do regarding our new house back in Cape Town. So here I am back at sea, working. But not all doom and gloom. Great progress with the UK registry, and other certificate and...
All at sea
Sunset in the North Sea Back in the North Sea again, but working rather than messing about in boats. All part of the plan though. As someone once remarked, a boat is just a hole in the water into which you throw money! So this needs to be done. Even though we are a...
Change of plans
Zwartsluis - public jetty Well, here we are in Holland. But spring has certainly not sprung, so Shangri La will stay on dry land for a few more weeks. First part of plan went okay - hired a car and came across from UK on the ferry - brought all the linen, kitchen...
Paperwork, Paperwork and more Paperwork
View from our present house in Cape Town Belated wishes for 2013. I have been pretty quiet of late, mainly because I haven't been doing any Waterway Wandering of any sort at all. What we HAVE been doing is selling our house in Cape Town, and buying a smaller...
Roggebaai Canal – Cape Town
Roggebaai Canal - Cape Town Most people have heard of the V and A waterfront in Cape Town, but how many know there is a navigable canal and a lock as well? It's only a small canal but it does exist. The canal was built to connect the foreshore area in Cape Town city...
Back in South Africa
Shangri-La in shed for winter Been a bit quiet on the blog lately I am afraid. We have been furiously busy doing house repairs since we returned to Cape Town in October, and thus not much waterway wandering. Shangri-La (2nd from left in pic) is safely wintered in a...
Getting down and dirty in Zwartsluis
Shangri-La after a clean and polish I am back in Aberdeen at the moment, but I spent the rest of the week in Zwartluis working hard on Shangri-La. The new propellor shaft that had been supplied was rejected by the yard as it was also slightly out of true. It would...
French recollections 5 – Clamecy
Map showing Canal de Nivernaise area Back to the French recollections. I have been somewhat pre-occupied with buying Shangri-La, as you may have noticed. This is part 5 of some recollections of our canal boat holiday on the Canal de Nivernaise in 2008. I think...
Next stage of the journey
The view from Shangri-La at the repair yard in Zwartsluis Foolishly I thought that once we had bought the boat, we would simply start cruising, and I could get on blogging about our travels. The survey highlighted a lot of items that needed attending to - so the...












My love of boats goes back to my early years when I went on holiday with my parents to Knysna in the Cape.
We stayed at a hotel on stilts, and I played in rowing boats and little motor boats on the lagoon.