Just before Christmas, a bitter wind blew in. Ice and snow descended, first in Scotland and then, on Boxing Day, across the rest of the UK. Before it could melt or the new year arrive, a second blizza

Celebrating 100 years of the BBC Shipping Forecast, Jane Russell takes us on a series of coastal cruises through the forecast sea areas, exploring some of the special places on offer in each of them

Fitting-out time is here again. Because I winter up in the Baltic where the sea still sometimes freezes, my season doesn’t really start until May. It was different when I berthed my 22ft wooden sloop

SIMON ROWELL ON MID-OCEAN SQUALLS

Photographer and keen mountain biker Andy Lloyd sails north of the Arctic Circle to Norway’s northern fjords on the cycle trip of a lifetime

The Eastern Sporades I hear you ask? You mean the Sporades as in Skiathos and Skopelos and Skiros. No – I mean the Eastern Sporades as in Khios and Lesvos and Limnos. The first group of islands of whi