We have very much got used to our in-mast furling system on Mariadz, having learnt with this system ten years ago. We generally have our techniques for avoiding sail jams despite having one for the first time in years a few weeks ago. However, one of the issues with older sails is that the flap […]
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So eight years ago I signed up for a life sentence when I married Maria in a “quiet” ceremony at Great Braxted. It was definitely not a quiet party and we had a fantastic time. Despite having already been together for over six years at the time, you learn a lot about someone after you […]
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So we have had a hard week after returning from a stunning holiday. The previous weekend we returned from Antigua which you could have called a beach holiday or us doing a recce of suitable anchorages. Maria always seems to have ants in her pants and this was no exception with the holiday being punctuated […]
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We like Mariadz to look good as well as being in good working order. So she gets a regular clean from us but sometimes you feel it needs a little more. We’re not OCD (well mostly), but we think, since Mariadz looks after us, we should look after her and make sure she always looks […]
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We like having redundancy and spares on board Mariadz. One of our fallback navigation and anchor watch options is the iPad but these are power hungry apps which will run down the batteries quite fast. So, in true Mariadz style, this has led us to get a charge capability in the cockpit which will work […]
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For the August bank holiday last year, we visited Osea Island, location of the retreat that Amy Winehouse visited for rehab. This has since closed down but the island is very nice and in good weather feels like it could be in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. So with a sunny bank holiday expected, we decided […]
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Dahling, one can’t have a sundowner without ice! And so it began. The hunt for a portable ice maker that could make ice quickly and didn’t use much power. Our cruising friends have always said that ice is very unusual on cruising boats and potentially a commodity. I can see the ice maker being on […]
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We had a lot of electrical work done a few years ago and as part of this we had some extra 240v sockets added in useful places with usb sockets included. The vast amount of devices that are now chargeable by usb seemed to make this a sensible change. Unfortunately this year one of the […]
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When we bought Mariadz, the anchor windlass had only just been replaced and we laughingly have suggested that this was the only thing that actually worked properly when we got her. So it was with some dismay, that on our first weekend of the 2018 season, we tried to deploy the anchor and got nothing. […]
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Those that are familiar with our journey will know that music is important to us. One of the first things we did when we got both of our boats was install new stereo systems with Bluetooth, to access music on phones, and a remote control to allow us to control the stereo from anywhere on […]
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