Aleria's Adventures

Irelandopedia A compendium of maps, facts and knowledge By Fatti and John Burke While we are on the subject of Ireland, a great companion book to have aboard for children when cruising in Ireland is Irelandopedia. What a delightful concept for exploring the rich history of this island nation. County by county, there are countless interesting factoids, cleverly illustrated to accentuate their historical significance.  Seriously oversized and in hardcover, it is an excellent resource to help make history come alive for children and adults alike.

Sharing our passion about sailing...in Ireland. We had the great opportunity to speak about sailing the west coast of Ireland in London at the Cruising Association House last night. We had a very good crowd of about 56 attendees, all very interested in exploring Ireland.

Use your chartplotter's features to your full advantage By Daria Blackwell Don't let your boat run into the navaid that's between two waypoints.  In a companion article to the one posted last week, today I am covering the positive aspects of GPS use beyond navigation that many people don't take advantage of.  You have lots of capability in that instrument, and it pays to make full use of it.

Learning advanced navigation for the USCG captains' license - is this obsolete? Periodically, and seemingly with increasing frequency, a cruiser somewhere posts a rant about how technology has reached the stage where paper charts and traditional navigation have been rendered obsolete. Some of these cruisers are very experienced (and I would have thought they'd know better). I feel the need to put forth my proposition for why reliance on one technology that has its flaws is a really undesirable position to be in and has potentially serious consequences for the safety of the crew. It also undermines good seamanship practices.

A boat is not a simple thing. A boat is many things to different people. A fishing boat can provide pleasure or livelihood. A cruise ship provides a means to travel in style. A dinghy gives the option of racing or playing. But a sailing boat has many options of things it can deliver from racing on Thursdays to sailing off into the sunset. It delivers absolute freedom in an increasingly complex and controlled world. It uses the wind to propel us around the earth with the currents. It lets us escape the rigors of the "real world" which we quickly learn wasn't real at all. A boat is about dreams and fulfilling them. It's about being drawn out to sea to see what is beyond the horizon. Last week, we were contacted by a young man doing a research project for his dissertation. The subject he chose was studying what instigates a decision to sail offshore. We were fascinated, particularly since he was the winner of a goodie basket from the Irish Sailing Association at

Yesterday, February 20th 2016, I was a speaker at the inaugural Irish Sailing Association Cruising Conference held at the Howth Yacht Club near Dublin. My topic was 'Women at the Helm', a topic I've been writing about for some time. I wrote about it first for our website Coastal Boating , from where it was picked up by various media around the world.

  Take the quiz.  What kind of sailor are you? “We were positioning ourselves for the start sequence, with 110 other boats vying for the pole position. My heart was racing, the adrenaline rush was astronomical. The countdown was on. There’s the start gun, go go go go go.” The club racer