SV Coromandel - Welcome to our Website!

These are the tales of Linda, Andy and Coromandel – sailing around the world, even though we didn’t intend to.  After spending four months in Port Owen with brother David, we left there on 31 March and set off for the season’s sailing which will see us in Namibia, St Helena and Brazil.  We are both members of the Ocean Cruising Club, so it’s good meeting other members as we go along and getting information from both other members’ websites and that of the Club.  Take a look at www.oceancruisingclub.org

Coromandel Quest

Namibia, St Helena and Brazil - 2012

South Africa December 2011-March 2012

South Africa -September 2011

Journal Quilts

July-August - La Réunion

June 2011- Mauritius and La Réunion

April-June 2011 - Johor Straits to Mauritius

December 2010 - March 2011 Thailand and South Africa

November-December 2010  Johor Bahru, Singapore, Pangkor and Penang

October 2010, Karimun Jawa, Belitung

August-September 2010 Flores to Bali

July-August 2010 West Timor to Flores

June-July 2010 Vanuatu and Darwin

May 2010

April 2010

March 2010

January-February 2010

December 2009

November 2009

October 2009

Tonga, Vava'u

July-August 2009

June 2009

May 2009

April 2009

Feb-March 2009 Pacific Crossing to Fatu Hiva

Where have been since 01/06/07

The Hawick Quilts

Textiles

Textiles 2009

Textiles 2010

Textiles 2011

On the Sand Dunes with Braam

Welcome to our Home Page, which describes our adventures - and rather more pedestrian activities! - on board our Nicholson 35, Coromandel Quest.  We bought her in April 2006 and spent just over a year getting used to her and getting both her and ourselves ready for some long-term cruising.  Andy and I left our home port of Blyth, just north of Newcastle upon Tyne in Northumberland, on 1 June 2007.  Since then we've sailed just over 30,000 miles and are now on our way across the Indian Ocean towards South Africa.

We travelled by way of Scotland, the Orkney Islands, Northern Ireland, Eire, and quick dash back to Falmouth then on to La Coruña, Galicia, Portugal, Porto Santo, Madeira, Tenerife and La Gomera before crossing the Atlantic to Barbados.

In the West Indies we visited only Barbados, Grenada and Carriacou before heading south to Venezuela, Bonaire and Curaçao, then Panama and the Canal, south to Ecuador and Peru, spending from June 2008 to February 2009 in South America

We spent eight wonderful months travelling in Ecuador and Peru, visiting such sights as Machu Picchu and Ingapirca, and cities as far apart as Puno on Lake Titicaca and Otavalo, back north of the equator.  We also visited the high sierras, the dry forest and deserts of the coast and the Amazon rainforest.

We then left for our Pacific crossing, making landfall in Fatu Hiva before cruising on across French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga, then on to New Zealand.

After spending the cyclone season in New Zealand, doing some work on Coromandel and then cruising part of North Island, we sailed to Port Vila on the island of Efate in Vanuatu, where we spent a wonderful month among the islands.  From there we sailed direct to Darwin, having been unable to check in at Thursday Island.

At the end of July 2010 we left Darwin for Kupang in West Timor, the first port on our Sail Indonesia Rally and then spent three months cruising these wonderful islands, visiting Alor, Lembata, Flores, Sumbawa, Lombok, Bali, Belitung and a host of little places in between.  We also learned a little Bahasa Indonesia.

From there we motored to Danga Bay in Malaysia and visited Singapore before continuing on up the Malacca Straits to Langkawi, stopping at various points on the way.  From Langkawi we went to Ao Chalong on the island of Phuket in Thailand before making our way back southwards to leave Indonesia via the Sunda Strait.

We have since visited the small atoll of Cocos Keeling and then made passage across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, then on to La Réunion, which has been wonderful by way of walking and food, and the delightful feeling of being in France - the locals talk about "the mainland" as if it were the same distance from France as the Isle of Wight is from England.

From La Réunion we sailed to Richard's Bay in South Africa, from where we coast-hopped to Port Owen in the Western Cape via Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

The 2012 season will take us to Namibia, St Helena and Brazil, but we don’t yet know whether we’ll turn right or left when we get there.

 

 

Diaz Point Lighthouse