People everywhere are getting ready to celebrate the holidays and it’s no different aboard Picton Castle. For most of the crew, spending Christmas at sea will be a new experience and certainly a memorable one. In order to prepare to celebrate the season, Captain Moreland recently posted this note for the crew, giving a few …
What an amazing place is this Essaouria – encompassed by endless desert. When we got ashore we found ourselves immersed in and surrounded by old Moorish castles with towers and stone-works, crowded wharves, minarets, full on eye-slit only covered ladies (others in tight jeans and sweaters), most men kitted out in camels-wool hooded robes of …
Passage from Gibraltar to Morocco was a bit rough towards the end. We hove-to a couple times in small gales and large seas piled up, but we had a fine Thanksgiving Day feast while hove-to. Soon enough wind and seas laid down and we carried on our way. Essaouira is one remarkable and exotic port …
The name Gibraltar comes from Arabic, meaning Fortress of Tarik. Interesting spot, Gibraltar. First of all, sailing in from sea it is quite an astounding sight just in size and shape. It really is a huge rock rising out of the mists and sea with a geology that seems different from the land nearby. Then …
The Picton Castle was at anchor at Gibraltar after an excellent, 450 mile sailing passage from Mallorca. The ship and her crew have sailed over 8,500 miles so far on this voyage. We are surrounded by many large merchant ships anchored next to this famous rock. Dozens of anchored vessels fill this bay stretching off …
As we sailed around the corner of Cabo Raso after a fair passage from Spain, the magnificent German Navy training ship Gorch Foch sailed into view and along with the Picton Castle for few miles. She carried on towards Lisbon while we anchored at Cascais, Portugal. And just in time as the next day a …
As we have done several times on this amazing voyage around Europe, we found ourselves waiting out a gale before getting underway from a port we were visiting. Well, they have pretty protected harbours hereabouts, plenty of them and we had set up the schedule with these delays in mind so no problem. It would …
Putting into as many ports as we have in this remarkable voyage, so often going through locks just to get in, has made this crew exceptionally capable in so many acts of seamanship to do with ship-handling under power. A fine passage under sail comes as something of a reward for all the challenges of …
The humble old trawler/mine sweeper but none the less H.M.S. [or H.M.T.] Picton Castle was apparently one of 17 (or 19) vessels that constituted the first Allied surface raid on mainland Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. We expect that, being a mine sweeper, our ship was sweeping for mines. Possibly she was carrying …
From a still anchorage under the high cliffs off nearby Dale, the Picton Castle steamed up the estuary towards her old and original homeport of Milford Haven in Wales. Interesting and anomalous sights framed us on either side of the fjord that Nelson once called one of the best natural harbours anywhere. On one hand …
