Author name: Jamie Furlong

Been a liveaboard since 2005, spending first few years living in Turkey. Started sailing a few years before when I joined my father on his retirement present we got for him: a sailing course across the North Sea! Been writing about every single trip, both on sea and on land, since that day. Take photography seriously but miss my decks.

Polaroid Pogo Printer: £20 & No Ink Required?

• Log

A colour printer for £20 that fits into your pocket and doesn’t require any ink? No, I didn’t believe it either but I have stumbled upon a palm-sized printer made by Polaroid that puts the fun back into digital photography. This product has been around for a couple of years now but the price has dropped so much it seems silly not to buy one. In this quick summary I take a look at the pros and the cons of this fun Christmas gadget. To give the review more gravitas we’ve introduced a new rating system and there’s also a quick video clip too!

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Gourmet Sailing

• Podcasts

We’re now fully into the Arabian Sea and not shopped for weeks yet Liz still manages to pull off a culinary delight in the galley. It is the perfect meal for a perfect day’s sailing, having left the wind pilot to do all the steering. THIS is the kind of sailing we love!

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Audley End In Autumn

• Photography

My favourite season is captured here in just five photographs, taken on one of my favourite walks around my home town of Saffron Walden. This is Audley End, the mansion and gardens to the west of Walden, captured on a bright but chilly October Sunday morning. They’re actually hand-held HDR images, which helps accentuate those wonderful autumnal colours.

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Into The Arabian Sea

• Podcasts

In this week’s podcast we return to the Vasco Da Gama rally where we finally leave the coast of Oman and head into the Arabian Sea. Next stop: Mumbai!

You can hear the sense of relief as we leave the convoy, but Dan on Still Dreaming, our ever hard-working net controller, spots something mysterious in the sky, and reports on further piracy attacks.

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Stellarium: Free Astronomy Software For Kids & Sailors

• Boat Maintenance & Skills

The kids are on half-term and the nights are drawing in. What free entertainment could be better than teaching them the stars? As a boat-owner with just a passing interest in astronomy I’ve reviewed a great piece of free software called Stellarium. It’s really easy to use and is perfect for both kids entertainment and playing around with in the cockpit at night.

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Our TV Interview As A Podcast

• Podcasts

Many of our podcast listeners don’t get a chance to check out our website updates so we’ve made the job easier for you. Last month we were interviewed by MarineBiz television channel about our sailing background and the interview was broadcast earlier this week. We’ve decided to turn that interview into an audio podcast, so here it is in all its glory. Finally, the tables are turned and someone interviews us!

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Hollywood Beckons: Our TV Interview

• press

Just before we left India Liz and I were interviewed by MarineBiz TV, a global television channel which has been putting together a series of programmes called ‘Sailor’s Diary’. In it each member of the Vasco Da Gama Rally was interviewed and asked about their backgrounds, experience and life at sea. We’ve managed to get hold of a copy and reproduce it here. Do please let us know if television really does put on 10lbs because I’m sure I look slimmer than I feel 😉

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Wandlebury: An Autumnal Walk

• Photography

Wandlebury is a country park in Cambridgeshire covering 110 acres and is a treat for anyone with a love of the English countryside. What with autumn being my fave season my trip back to the UK was rewarded with some photographic opportunities when Liz and I went for a wander in Wandlebury with my family on Sunday. In this set I hope to capture the essence of autumn. The slide-show only lasts a minute so I hope you get a quick moment to enjoy these shots.

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Drunken Vagrants [Explicit]

• Podcasts

[Explicit] Offensive, rude and quite un-PC. Whatever happened to those two lovely young chaps who joined the rally in Egypt? After 3,000 miles something changed and we ended up with potty-mouthed drunken sailors. In this podcast Terry of Roam II takes on the challenge of interviewing Robbie and Cillian, two chaps who met after cycling across Europe and joined the rally in the Red Sea. Not for children or the faint-hearted.

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Hallucinations

• Podcasts

We spent some weeks in Salalah and almost went stir crazy. The long wait for Indian visas and administrative red tape meant we were stuck in a country that was too expensive to explore. The only thing that saved us from going mad were the beautiful beaches and the nearby Oasis Bar.

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Turkey to India Video: A Geography Lesson For Kids

• video clips

We have put together this educational video for children aged between 5-10 but at 50 Liz was just as entertained, so we hope everyone gets something out of it.

Using Google Earth we have animated the course that we took on the rally from Turkey to India. It starts off with a few clips of the rally boats to give children an idea of what a boat looks like when it is sailing but the main part of this clip is an explanation of each country visited and where they are in relation to the UK.

We put this together to accompany the podcast we’ll be publishing in October for Nancy Lake’s class at Wybunbury Delves Primary School. Nancy’s class, who have asked us a whole range of questions about what it’s like to live on a boat, is aged between 10-11 but the commentary on this video clip is more suited to 4-7 year olds.

We hope you enjoy it. It was great fun to put together and we look forward to reading your comments.

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Back To School Round-Up: Kids Projects & Trading Secrets

• press

Got kids? Facebook this week has been awash with proud parents posting up pics of their kids in their new school uniform, compete with descriptions of teary eyes… and that’s just the adults. Liz and I have got into the new term spirit too: followtheboat is involved in a school project which might be of interest to any parent out there with young children. Some educational audio and visual treats coming soon. Also we might just be contravening some international act with our surreptitious recording of the Royal Navy trading secrets with us in Oman. That’s our exclusive podcast that comes out today. Oh and Liz got shortlisted for another writing comp but we said we wouldn’t bore you with those announcements any more 😉 Anyway, it’s all in the link below.

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What Do 7 Metre Waves Look Like…

• video clips

So what do 7m waves look like from the inside of a cruise ship? I’ve put together three video clips in this post. In the first we see the effect of a storm on a cruise ship’s passengers, crew and gear. This CCTV clip was taken from a cruise ship that hit 50 knots winds off New Zealand and makes for scary viewing! The second clip gives you a bird’s eye view of a rolling cruise ship, and the third is a small clip taken from the bridge of a commercial vessel enduring some sci-fi looking waves. Anyone booked their cruise this year?

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