Sentinel is a Roberts 38 steel yacht formerly owned by Andrew and Lyn. This website is a record of our travels after setting off from England in 2005, until after seven years our travels were brought to a stop in Sydney, Australia, where she was sold. We owned her for 18 years, and for most of that time she was our home and where we were married.

The pages are divided into groups. The two main groups are firstly, cruising accounts of passages and destinations, with maps, photos and tips; and second Lyn's cruising weblog, a diary of our progress and the highs and lows of the blue-water cruising life. We found ourself writing about things that don't fit into either category. The third group group includes photo-essays of excursions we took, and things we saw. The fourth consists of anecdotes and other diversions, the result of having time on our hands on long passages.

Finally, now the voyage is over, we are writing pieces about the practicalities of the cruising life. These are partly advice and partly a summary of our experiences. We hope these might be of interest to someone considering blue-water cruising.

Site last updated: 1st March 2013.

See here for our Voyage Route

Recent additions ...

► Anecdote: Want to be a LiveAboard?
► Practicalities: Provisioning for an Ocean Passage

Complete List ...

Cruising accounts

Ushant - Gulf of Morbihan - Galicia, the Coast of Death - Pooped off Portugal - Tenerife & Gomera - Cape Verde Islands - Fernando de Noronha - All-Saints Bay, Brazil - Passage to Recife - The Amazon - Devil's Island, French Guiana - Tobago - Grenada & Grenadines - The Virgin Islands - Cuba - Chesapeake Bay - Sailing up the Niagara Falls - North Channel, Lake Huron - Sailing to the Windy City - Desolation Sound, BC - San Francisco Bay - San Benito Isles, Mexico - Whale-watching on Clarion - Marquesa Islands - Tuamotu Atolls - Suvarov Atoll - Sentinel in a Tsunami - Samoa - Bay of Islands, NZ - Marlborough Sounds, NZ - Vava'u, Tonga - Fiji's western isles - New Caledonia - Sydney, Australia

Lyn's Log       Index

Animations Phantom Figurehead, Winter into Summer and Fishy Story can now be found in Lyn's log.

Excursions and Events

Wild West in Porto Santo - Sail Boats of Salvador - Salvador Carnaval - Turtles in Trinidad - A Walk on the Wild Side, Trinidad - The Yoles of Martinique - Petrolheads, Florida - Rockies Excursion - More Sentinels - Our Wedding - China Excursion - South Island NZ

Anecdotes and Diversions

Crossing the line - The story of Andrew's cold - Sentinel across the Rockies - How not to catch fish - If you are 64 - Naturist Sailing - Sudoku - Sentinel Jigsaw Puzzle - Want to be a LiveAboard?

Cruising Practicalities

Choosing a Tender - Lyn's Cooker Rant - Encounters with Sea Mammals - Provisioning for an Ocean Passage

Contacting us ...

For fear of spammers, we haven't put our regular email address on this site. If you'd like to contact us, an email to will reach us in due course, though usually quicker is via the Yachting & Boating World forum, sending a private message to AndrewB.