Autumn & Winter 2009 was a busy time for us, getting ready for our move to Canada and also Willow proofing the house as she became increasingly mobile.

Swimming lessons with Daddy.

Laughing in the bath.

Skyping with Daddy when he is away at work.

Hide and Seek under the table.

Mobile & getting into everywhere!

Most of our possessions fitted into 17 of these boxes, and Willow was very keen to help.

Out for lunch.

Off for a stroll in Cirencester.

Being back in Cornwall for a few weeks means I have no excuses not to get a few waves.

The past week has had some great swell, most of which I missed unfortunately, but the weekend looks like it might be ok. This photo is at Perranporth on Thursday.

(Photo from magicseaweed)

A few weeks into my new job and I am lucky enough to be able to fly home to Antibes, and spend a few days with Vix.

Summer is just starting to make itself felt here and walking around the old town of Antibes I thought I’d take a few photos of the area where we are living.

They were all taken with my phone so please excuse the quality, but hopefully they show how nice it is here at this time of year.

In another few weeks the summer hordes will descend and it will be so busy that getting around becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.

For now though it is warm enough to walk in the evenings, and see more and more yachts arrive for the summer season.

After a very nice couple of months in Antibes and a few interviews I have now taken a new job on another yacht. It should work out that I will be able to spend a lot more time at home than on my previous boat and it will be good to get back to work after my time off.

I will also be in Cornwall for a few weeks this spring, giving a chance to catch up with friends and family, and of course enjoy a few pints of Cornish ale.

During my time in Antibes I had the chance to do quite a bit of mountain biking, mainly in the Valmasque Park above Antibes. There are some great trails there and I am looking forward to exploring further afield later in the summer.

After crossing the Atlantic and arriving in Nassau at the end of November, I left Motor Yacht Dream for the last time. I had been on there on and off since January 2003 so it has been a bit of an adjustment, but I am looking forward to some new challenges ahead.

I managed a week or so in Antibes before building up a few more BA air miles on my way back to Miami to take a MCSE bootcamp. An intensive two weeks later I was on another plane on Christmas Eve flying back to Cornwall for my first Christmas there in quite a few years.

Following the festivities Vix and I headed home to Antibes and got ready for a ski trip to Isola 2000. Isola is a ski resort in the Alpes Maritimes around 1.5 hours drive from the airport in Nice. Since January 1st all bus fares on the Côte d’Azur have been reduced to 1 euro; so from Antibes to Isola was a grand total of 2 euros each!

We were lucky enough to have good base of fresh snow fall just before we arrived and we had blue skies nearly everyday so had a great time. If anyone is thinking of heading up there try and make it during the week if you can as the slopes were nearly deserted, the weekends however get quite packed with a lot of day trippers from the coast. I have also heard that February is very busy as it is the French school holidays. I will try and post some photos from our trip there, as soon as Antonia gets back from Thailand with them.

During summer 2007 Dream covered quite a few miles. Starting in Venice we cruised the Adriatic (Croatia and Montenegro), we then visited the South of France, Turkey, Greece, Montenegro & Croatia (again) and Italy.

I have put together a few photos from our travels which were taken by Nikki Simpson who is one of the stewardesses on Dream.

This is the Croatian town of Rovinj which we visited during one of our first trips of the summer in June.

After out first few trips in Croatia we headed around to the South of France and spent a month or so in the western Mediterranean before heading south to Corsica and the city of Bonifacio which is perched on the cliff overlooking the Straits which bear its name.

At the end of July we headed East to Turkey and Greece. Starting in Gocek, Turkey we cruised the South West of Turkey including the town of Marmaris (see right); before we headed through the Greek Islands.

After Greece we headed back to the Adriatic and for another two trips in Montenegro and Croatia. Montenegro is developing itself into a favourite tourist destination, especially for Russians and the beaches and resorts are a lot of fun.

In between we had a few days in Venice which is one of the most beautiful places in the Mediterranean. I have now been to Venice a number of times and it is still one of my favourites.

We had a chance to explore some more of the canals and back streets and found some more great shops, restaurants and bars.

It was September by the time we left Venice and there were some beautiful sunsets over St Marks square and the Campanile di San Marco.

At the end of the summer season Dream headed up to San Remo for a week or two before crossing to the States. San Remo is a beautiful little town close to the Italian / French border, and of course it is also only around 40 miles from Antibes, where Vix and I are based now.

Whilst in San Remo some of the crew and I went mountain biking in the hills above the town. There are some world class trails there with the peaks rising to 1299 metres. We cheated a little and got a lift most of the way up but then rode some very technical downhill on the way back to sea level.

After leaving San Remo we headed south to Gibraltar for fuel (and fish and chips) and then on towards Ft lauderdale. Due to adverse weather we stopped in the Canary Islands for a day or two and then found our plans changed so set off from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to St Maarten in the Caribbean. About four days out from St Maarten our schedule changed again and we turned northwest to Nassau in the Bahamas. We managed to get a little bit of fishing in whilst waiting for the high tide in Nassau and then it was a great relief to tie up in the Atlantis marina on Paradise island.

With the summer starting to wind down, Dream finished up her trip through Croatia and Montenegro, then headed back around the southern tip of Italy and into the western Mediterranean (this is Dream in Hvar, Croatia).

We had a week or two before the next trip so I took the chance to fly up to France and see Vix. It happened to be whilst the Monaco Yacht Show was on, so we caught up with a lot of friends and ate far too much good food.

When I got back to Dream one of the crew had brought me an Apple iphone back from the States so I have been fiddling with that and getting it to work here in Europe.

With the weather getting a little cooler but most of the ports and anchorages nice and quiet, we have spent the last few weeks cruising from the Corinth Canal up to Kotor in Montenegro (see left).

We had a few days to enjoy Montenegro before cruising up through Croatia to Venice, around the time of the Venice film festival.

The last week has been spent on the return trip including two days in Hvar, which is one of the nicer towns we’ve been to in Croatia.

Although we only spent a few days in Turkey we got to see some beautiful spots (and some of the hottest weather we’ve had in a while). Starting our trip in Gocek we visited Marmaris and Bodrum before heading to Santorini in Greece.

Our trip through Greece was also only a few days long but we saw the islands of Mykonos, Spetsai, Hydra and Poros before dropping off our guests in Athens. I then got the chance to drive Dream through the Corinth Canal (see photo) and we headed north again towards Croatia.