Moonflowers and Whitehorses

 After the 5 girls: Chloe, Carrie, Cate, Hannah and Emma got Moonflower 3 safely to Gran Canaria there were some changes to be made to the crew. Hannah had always planned to head home after the delivery, as she didn't personally feel ready to cross the Atlantic Ocean yet. The 4 remaining girls could have happily handled the challenge, however Chloe had something else in mind... After having worked a few seasons with Jake Usman, and seeing his recent youtube adventure travel series he started with a couple of his mates  @thejamalonseries  she invited Jake and a couple of his documentary making pals along for the ultimate travel adventure! After a week in Gran Canaria to chill, Emma and Cate were completing their STCW with Carrie doing a refresher. We did some shopping and it was time to do some maintenance and prepare a few things for the boat and the crossing. Hannah departed and the boys arrived in the same day. We hoped the boys would be ready to get stuck into the acti...

Carloforte to Gran Canaria - Via Menorca. 24th Oct- We got up early and did a fuel run to the petrol station across from the marina and were eaten alive by mosquitos, batting away huge swarms of them whilst trying to fill up our jerrycans. We left once our tanks were full and headed out towards Menorca. Originally we were planning to sail from Carloforte straight to Gibraltar, however the weather wasn’t looking to nice so we planned to sit it out in Menorca. Bleh what a long, gruesome 12 hours. Most of us felt seasick at one point or another, we were going head into the wind with a large swell. Unfortunately we ran out of ginger biscuits, a necessity for helping with seasickness! Due to the large swell we decided to hand steer to save our autopilot. Moonflower coped really well, we had up to 27 knots of wind, big big waves breaking right into the cockpit. We finally made it to Menorca at 6pm, rather wet and soggy. Everyone was absolutely shattered, we had a blue cheese gnocchi for d...

Trogir, Croatia - Carloforte, Sardinia Before we could leave Trogir we were waiting on the installation of solar panels and AIS so we used this time to do some maintenance jobs ourselves. We fitted the life raft cradle to the coast roof, we installed the EPIRB in a case in the cockpit, we got a new hinge for the engine room door, we fitted the furler for the gennaker and tested it out. We also tidied, cleaned and provisioned the boat, all while managing to find time to die our hair pink or purple for a bit of fun!   After 6 days of prepping, provisioning and a few last minute projects we were ready to start our adventure, sailing some 2200nm to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. We set sail for Cavtat, on October 16th leaving Trogir at 18:00. We had a lovely dinner of stuffed peppers with feta cooked by Emma. It was our first night sail and the first time we got to see and appreciate the starry night sky.  We arrived in Cavtat at midday to check out of Croatia however, nobody was...

  As a charter skipper for a couple of years, I realised I could do this myself - why should I work for someone else? In order to continue travelling and working on boats, in 2019 I decided it was time to buy my own boat and start my own charter company. In late 2019 I travelled out to Croatia and looked at a few different options. Moonflower was the first boat I saw, and from the start she stuck out from the rest. I couldn't get her out of my mind, I kept coming back to her, comparing every other boat to her. She was the winner. I got her surveyed and I made an offer. At the start of March 2020 I was in Zagreb, completing the paperwork when I heard Croatia would be going into national lockdown the next day. I hired a car and immediately drove to Moonflower in Sibenik and moved aboard. I have lived on her ever since. I completed 3 months of lockdown on Moonflower, anchoring in bays and getting to know her. I used the time to complete the bits of maintenance she needed. The plan was...

My journey started when I was home and saw a friend’s story on Instagram. Chloe was looking for crew to join her sail from Croatia to Gran Canaria in October. Only having 5 weeks work that summer due to Corona and no plans for October onwards, I messaged her expressing my interest.   By some crazy coincidence, Chloe turned out to be one of the other skippers working for 1 week in Corfu, we spent the week together and I asked about her trip. She explained she was sailing her yacht Moonflower 3 down to the Canaries to cross the Atlantic in order to spend the winter in the Caribbean. I was inspired, what an incredible trip. A long trip but literally a sailors dream, spending the winter just cruising around the Caribbean, exploring new places. Turns out she had a spare crew spot for the Atlantic too. She asked if I was sure as the whole trip would take around 2 months, I had no plans and work wasn’t looking promising for the winter so I jumped at the opportunity.  Follow Cate on...

This summer, 2020, the Pandemic, COVID. How did Moonflower 3 happen? I took work wherever I could get it. No jobs in Marine Biology. Was made redundant from my cafe job for taking a sailing boat delivery. Went to Greece to host on a yacht for 3 weeks. That led to another 3 weeks where I managed to catch up with an old friend from my first season hosting. She told me about an epic sailing trip she was going on with a couple of other skippers from the company. This was Moonflower 3 and Chloe. This was a trip from Croatia, to Gran Canaria to St Lucia - across the Atlantic Ocean! After getting back home in September, making it through more job applications and trying to get back into studying online I was talking to Cate. She said one of the other girls had dropped out of the trip as she had got a job in a chalet for the winter. I jumped at this. Cate messaged Chloe (we had never met) and told her I was interested. Chloe sent me a message asking a couple of questions about me and my experi...