For a vessel to travel from Bombay to Dubai it must pass through the Arabian Sea, a sector of the Western Indian Ocean, then along the coasts of Pakistan and Iran, through the Gulf of Oman and the Straits of Hormuz and into the Persian Gulf. […]
In 1965, the Emirate of Dubai was a sleepy sandbox of a place. That year, RAF pilot Lt. Terry Michaels flew a mission there requiring him to land at its airport, a single sand strip hardened by oil sprayed over its surface. Following protocol, he made a low pass over the strip […]
What began as an inadvertent stop, required by the need to discharge some old crew and take on a few new, became one of the most memorable of the entire voyage. Here is the story of our month long visit. […]
In all of my previous blogs I have attempted to affect a carefree jocular tone that I hoped would convey to you the tone of life aboard Indigo as we disported ourselves among the world’s fun spots. Here for the first time, and I dearly hope the last time, you will find the tone lacking the accustomed frivolity, just a bit tense, maybe irritated, at some moments uncompromising and angry. […]
After clearing the western end of the absurdly misnamed secure corridor in the Gulf of Aden, we set a course for Djibouti, the name of a country and also the name of its capital town. Once a French colony, it is today an independent nation […]
Following a winter layover in Bodrum, Turkey, I returned to Indigo in early April, long before hordes of tourists descend on the area in July. Spring along the Turkish Riviera where Bodrum is located is a delightful time of year. Indeed, few places on earth are more agreeable. […]
All told, I spent nearly four months wandering around Croatia from one end to the other, visiting every part but the far northeast known as Slavonia, not to be confused with the country of Slovenia. I drove along its entire coastline and voyaged along most of it, visited many of its alluring islands […]
There is not much to be said about the city that has not been glowingly reported before. Lord Byron called it the Pearl of the Adriatic, George Bernard Shaw said it was Paradise on Earth, and a general under Napoleon dubbed it, just before capturing it, an Oasis of Civilization. […]
Off the rocky shores of this jagged coastline is the large island of Korcula, a cluster of smaller ones, including pastoral Mljet, half of which is a pristine national park, and the mountainous Peljesac Peninsula. The area produces some of Croatia’s finest wines, […]
Much of my time in Croatia, I spent in and around the city of Split with visits to nearby islands, including Hvar, said to be the epicenter of Dalmatian tourism, and Brac. Croatia’s second largest city is a remarkable town for the reason that the Roman emperor Diocletian chose to build his retirement home there, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. […]