Sailor

When I was 12, I went on holiday to Malta with my family. We took out a boat trip out to the Blue Lagoon, the sheltered anchorage between the diminutive islands of Comino and Cominetto.

In the midst of the day trippers and cruisers, a catamaran sat at anchor, the Red Ensign hanging off its stern in the occasional breeze. I swam out to talk to the skipper, an Englishman who was taking a career break (he looked old to me, but I was 12. I think that he was probably in his early 50s). He had sailed the catamaran from England earlier in the year and was cruising the Mediterranean for the summer. I promised myself there and then that one day I would sail my own boat to cruise the Med for an entire summer.

In 2001, Catherine and I spent four months aboard Tripitaka, sailing along the French Riviera, the Ligurian coast of Italy, Corsica, Sardinia and reaching the Blue Lagoon seventeen years to the week after I made myself the promise.

Tripitaka, my sailing boat, is currently moored in Alcudia in north-west Mallorca and is available for charter.