Followtheboat Wins Telegraph Travel Piece

Well, well, well. Whilst I’ve been busy editing my photographs it seems someone has been secretly submitting her travel writing to the upper echelons of the world of journalism. Clearly setting her sights far higher than the sensationalist tabloid sailing blog she usually writes for, Liz has had her hard work recognised by The Daily Telegraph.

“I am delighted to tell you that your article about sailing has been chosen as the winner in this week’s competition”, Michael Kerr, travel dept editor, said in an email. “Thanks for a lovely little piece”.

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Don’t Talk. Eat!

“…that and a threesome with two lesbians”, smiled my friend Cillian as we sat in Hotel Ceylon, tidying up a delicious mushroom masala.

“Hmmm, I don’t know”, I replied. “I still think food comes out on tops”.

We were discussing the merits of food, eating and dining out. We were pretty much in agreement that the greatest pleasure in life was food.

“Did I mention that they were Swedish?”, Cillian added. OK, second greatest pleasure.

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Followtheboat Wins Its First Competition

I’ve been badgering Jamie for some time now to take his photography to the next level. I mean, some of his shots are breath-taking, aren’t they?

Having reluctantly agreed he generously allowed me to do the legwork. I decided to start by entering his work into some competitions, this would start to get his name and work known.

It seems that my nagging is starting to pay off. Firstly, we are going to be published, but more about that exciting news in a future blog. Secondly, he’s just won the first competition he’s ever entered!

Encouraged by his Auntie Chris, we decided to enter one of his photos into The Times Travel Photo Competition.

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Jaigarh – A Remote Fishing Village

We’ve been sitting pretty in Cochin for a couple of months now, but we’ve still got some catching up to do on the blog. Yep, some more snaps, this time of a beautiful, remote fishing village 110 miles south of Mumbai. The village was called Jaigarh and it was spectacular.

It was spectacular in part because of its location. Tucked up inside the mouth of a wide river that meets the sea the entrance into the natural harbour had the depth gauge nervously displaying less than 2m under the keel. The village, hidden behind an old fort wall and a big hill with a solitary temple on it, sits at the foot of an extremely lush palm forest. Aside from the parks of Mumbai this was the first time we had seen vegetation on this scale since the journey to Asmara in Eritrea, some 2,000 miles away. This was a real novelty after the deserts of Arabia, so come check out the pictures of this wonderful village…

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The Dharavi ‘Slums’ Of Mumbai In Photographs

To me photography is often about engaging with people. Despite being told to do so by our taxi driver I point-blank refused to stick my camera out the window of the car as we drove down one really poor street. Yet on my second visit, this time walking down the same street, we bothered to talk to the people I was snapping and everyone we met appeared so happy. Except one family. You’ll notice in amongst all the photographs of smiling faces are two brothers who look very sad. Why were they like this? It doesn’t bear thinking about but their eyes tell a different story and their portraits stick out like sore thumbs. It’s a stark reminder that behind all the laughter life is still damn bloody tough.

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The Drink Of Brave Men

On Sunday I’ll be publishing my shots of the Dharavi slums of Mumbai. That’s on Sunday but today is Friday, so let’s keep it light-hearted. Let’s discuss beer! Beer. The love of my life, the bain of my waist-line. A refreshment to be enjoyed at the end of the day after a hard day’s sail, a hard day’s work or a hard day’s drinking. Whatever the occassion, beer is there to help you celebrate. Here in Catholic Kerala, however, beer isn’t so understood. The booze shop is a shuttered, over-the-counter, slip-the-beverage-into-a-plain-paper-bag-before-my-wife-spots-me affair. The pubs are dirty, dark cockroach-infested holes. The imbibement of this fine libation is not encouraged like it is elsewhere in India and the mantra “alcohol consumption is injurious to health” is seen on both the labels of bottles and across the tinted windows of aforementioned grimey bars. Is ‘injurious’ actually a word? Whatever, whether you like beer or not you’ll be impressed by the sales pitch of one such beer called Zingaro. The masculine gold and red Zingaro label has an Indian, of the Native American persuasion, taming a wild horse with ‘Super Strong Premium Lager’ emblazoned across the bottom. But it’s the blurb on the back that had me in stiches…

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Mumbai: A Photographic Feast!

Liz and I have always romanticised with the idea of sailing into a city. Sydney and Vancouver are two such examples but we never thought we’d get a thrill from sailing into Mumbai, the state capital of the Maharashtra region of central India. This truly is a cosmopolitan city and if you have never been then don’t even begin to conjure up preconceptions of this place, they’ll come nowhere near to the real thing! Mumbai is an assault on the senses; it very quickly became one of my fave cities ever visited, proof of which are the many photographs featured in this extravaganza of a blog post. We have photographs galore! In a departure to the usual ‘inline’ photographs that illustrate my narrative, I have instead put together some slide-shows: the images are bigger and there are more of them! Prepare to be dazzled…

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Almost Dying For Aircon

We finally have aircon, but I very nearly paid the price of my life for this luxury. Welcome to auto-rickshaw hell. These vehicles from hell are made of corrugated cardboard, have liquorice wheels and are driven by nutters. In fact it seems the prearequisite to hold a license for one of these things is to drive like a complete arse. Just like my aircon delivery driver. Read how this ride from hell took years off my life. Today’s blog post comes complete with photographic evidence…

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Chatham Heroes In Cyclone Rescue

It seems our heroes aboard HMS Chatham have been in the thick of the action again this week, this time rescuing a vessel in a cyclone, saving 23 men from 65 knot winds and 8m waves. We befriended the boys aboard HMS Chatham when we were in Salalah, Oman, when the British Navy frigate was taking a breather from anti-piracy actitivies in the Gulf of Aden. They left just a few days before we did, heading towards Somalia. It appears they found trouble…

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The Haven That Is The Royal Bombay Yacht Club

Welcome to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, a bastion of colonial elitism where entry is by invite only. Set in a prime location in Mumbai the RBYC offered the rally participants a haven from the dodgy anchorage and searing heat of our new host country. Photography of this wonderful building is strictly forbidden, so here is the unofficial, uncommissioned, illegal followtheboat slide show of the RBYC!

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Welcome to India: T-bone Anyone?

Imagine our pride at having sailed over 4,000 miles, unassisted, without incident and without a scratch to Esper. I haven’t mentioned that our autopilot packed up early on in the Gulf of Aden, so many of the last 2,000 miles were hand-steered. That’s bloody hard work in case you didn’t know. Imagine, then, our horror when approaching the Indian coast, after our incident-free 4,000 miles, we were t-boned by the stupid dumb-ass Indian Navy!

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Now It’s OUR Turn To Answer The Questions!

What with our Through The Porthole podcasts and previous efforts at amateur journalism we’re quite used to asking questions of other people. It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, to receive an invitation to answer some questions directed at ourselves.

Livia is a sailor who has recently embarked on a project entitled ‘Interview with a Cruiser’, where she asks 10 questions to cruisers from around the world. The interviews are published weekly. Livia’s idea is to build a database of different questions and answers to help future or would-be cruisers make informed decisions on switching to this lifestyle.It was quite a treat being able to respond to some questions that we would normally be putting to others to answer.

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