Well it has been a while since my last blog.
Following the harvest of sloe berries on the trip back to Brighton, we've managed to find a cheap offer of gin to use with the sloes.

However I prefer it as a G&T myself. Is this a photo of the perfect ratio? ;-)

So what have the crew of the good ship Emerald been up to you ask? Well we've been busy renovating a house, oh no! I hear you cry, they've swallowed the anchor...........

Well no such luck, it is a rental property we have which was in need of some (a lot) of updating and maintenance. We've manged to cram 6 months of work into about 6 weeks, and have one more week to go before it is ready to rent again.

Then we shall concentrate on Emerald, who has been feeling rather neglected over the last month or so. I'm not sure we'll get the winter program of works complete this season, which is hugely annoying, but there are only so many hours in each day. We probably have a year's full time work to do on Emerald to finishe her to a standard that we are happy with, but the reality is we will only have about 3 months time before we head off cruising again (can't afford the mooring fees in rip off Britain during the summer months)

Therefore we'll have to make do and mend and cram all the gear onboard somewhere to complete everything and head out to sea.......

Where you may ask? !

At the minute we are debating between the Med and the Baltic. Leaning towards the baltic (admiral) and med (skipper); so the baltic it will most probably be. We'd likely go for the following itinery... England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, Ireland, England/France to winter in 2010/2011.


From there we'll cross Biscay and cruise Northern Spain, Portugal and into the med. Couple of years in the sun then the puddle jump to the Carib and all points west.


Right then must get back to writing the final list of work for the house,


Fair winds and gardening!
slainte skip