Welcome to Sailing Aphrodite
After years of procrastinating I've finally registered a 'proper' URL and moved from SailBlogs to Blogger, as I felt their layout was quite restrictive. The SailBlogs mapping integration was brilliant, but after reading a post on one of the sailing forums I follow recommending the website No Foreign Land would do the same thing. That was the straw that made the decision for me and I crossed platforms, never an easy task.
I am working my way round the rough edges following the move from one platform to another and you might spot the odd howler.
The blog was created as my onboard log keeping is worse than hopeless and I wanted to develop the discipline of keeping a 'reasonable log', to this end I have also developed a paper log format that allows me to record things onboard in a way I wish to do rather than use a published log book as I find none of them suitable.
As an old IT geek I still enjoy using html and seeing a website develop. I have had some fun with tables and think I have finally got them into a format I like.
I'm very much a cruising sailor. Speed, in any form, has never interested me and I can't get my head round why anybody would want to race past a coast at anything greater than seven knots and miss all of the amazing sights and sounds that there is to be seen and heard.
In addition to sailing Aphrodite I volunteer with the Ocean Youth Trust South as Sea Staff and crew on the occasional delivery with Halcyon Yachts.
All times on the boat are UTC as this makes a whole raft of calculations a lot easier and I have kept that format here. I just need to remember to change to 'shore time' when I step on land, so not to be late for the pub. This has proved useful as on the Faro to Falmouth trip in 2022. Portugal follows Western European Time (WET) and Western European Summer Time (WEST) in summer. Spain and France follow Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer Time (CEST). I just added one or two hours when walking ashore while the rest of the crew confused themselves.
Over time the layout of posts have evolved and I'm beginning to settle on one post for each 24 hour period or part of, as I felt that having one post for a longer passage was confusing. Some posts will be long others very short.
When underway I transmit on the Automatic Information System (AIS) and can be found on the Marine Traffic Website, if I am in range of one of their receiving stations. Find me on the Location page
While I post on Instagram, see contact page, I don't do video! Once you see one wave you have seen them all and I don't have the skills to point a camera and do everything else that you need to do to safely sail.
Updated: 15/03/2025