Great work 1915 NM is a lot of movement. You guys are the best explorers love the cave and canyon journey. Your drone really enhances your videos. BTW great job on the bag pipes.
Thanks Jim…1915nm is too much movement! And thanks yes we love an adventure for sure, the caving was brilliant and the Camanito Del Rey breathtaking, oh and thanks re the pipes, for me it was one of the best bits of being there 👍🏻😍
Thank you…not sure the style is intentional it’s just kind of evolved that way but I’m glad you like it. And Gibraltar….yes I (Iain more than Kate) could definitely have been tempted to stay. I really miss the band they were great Gibraltar has so much that I could happily spend a long time there 😊
Followed you from day 1 as I aspire to taking my boat from Lake to the Med. Great seeing you ashore but as you seem busy prepping the Bear for sale, don't want to disturb you. Looking forward to seeing what you do next 🙂
Hi…we’ll be back and forth to the Bear in the coming week. Give us a shout if you see us. You’ll have to excuse us if we’re elbow deep in sikaflex but otherwise it’d be great to say hi 😊⛵️
A view from the UK. Oh!, now i know why you got yourself a part in the parade, you wintered here. I should have seen this vid first THEN the parade. Do keep up Rob.
Aha! Yes I forgot you didn’t know we spent 3 months of winter there as we hadn’t got to that video yet! 😂😂 It was a fabulous stop and I loved playing with the band. I wanted to upload the full parade before the episode so that I could link to it from the episode if anyone wanted to see more 👍🏻😊
It is an epic walk! Almerimar in Spain is one of the cheapest but a bit utilitarian, friends say Motril is really friendly family run and great value but never been ourselves..loads of marinas down there though so a few to choose from! Good luck 😊⛵️
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. Next we set off back towards the U.K. The videos are a long way behind at the moment as I haven’t had time to make them but things have changed a little and we’ve moved to the inland waterways on a different type of boat. I will still make the videos of intrepid bears voyage home starting soon 👍🏻😊
Just caught up with your vids as we've been cruising 'off grid' for a while. I see you're listed as being in Poole at the moment; it'll be interesting to see how you produce future vids in your new cruising grounds. It's been a rubbish season so far; we gave up on our intentions to head for Scotland this year as we've just had front after front coming through - and we're doing this for enjoyment, not endurance! Next year.....hopefully. All the very best to the both of you. Iain
Hi Iain. Yes, in real time, we are back in Poole and The Bear is on the market. Our lives and cruising will be very different going forward as any boating will most likely be power and there’ll be a lot more exploration by road. I hope to keep making videos as I enjoy doing it and it makes fabulous memories for us but the content will diversify somewhat so probably won’t appeal to our current sailing audience. However we don’t even know how our plans will pan out or how the videos will evolve going forward! We’ve still got the voyage home to produce when I get a moment but settling back in at home is proving a bit busy right now. However I will get those videos made even if it was more a delivery trip than a pleasure cruise. Thanks for your comment and support and hopefully I’ll be back to finish the chapter soon 😊⛵️
Sad but not surprising. I don’t think that people who’ve never gone long-time cruising can appreciate the subtle but considerable stresses, whether it be missing family or the constant need to be checking on weather, the next passage or the plethora of challenges a boat provides before you even raise a sail. Then you’ve had the pettiness of Schengen to cope with. Still, 3 (I think!) years of it and the things you’ve both done gives you the right to be proud of yourselves; you certainly have my respect. We’re very fortunate in having a home in Cyprus & the boat in the U.K. so we can get the best from both worlds. I hope you can find something that works as well for you both - but I’m glad you’ll be videoing whatever it is as I enjoy the authenticity. Your photography has developed exceptionally well. We send an informal blog to family & friends in the US who are amazed at the variety of the UK’s coastline, so much so that one is coming over for a cruise. Potential market for a new audience for you?!? We’re back in Gosport to rest before taking family up to St Katherine’s in London - weather allowing. All the very best to you both.
Thanks Iain, yes it’s those subtle but continuous pressures that took the edge off the fun and tipped the balance back towards a more home based lifestyle. There are so many factors that influence it but full time liveaboard cruising with no other home to go back to for a break is intense. I didn’t know you had a home in Cyprus as well….that sounds a great set up. I’m sure we’ll find the right balance for us. Watch this space! Thanks again for your support 😊⛵️
Ah, so the secret of how you come to be cruising at such a tender age is revealed … not that I’m the slightest bit envious 😲 And you carry your kilt and Prince Charlie jacket etc with you on the boat? The Lower St Michael’s Cave certainly looks worthy of a visit, not to mention El Camanito del Rey … and you demonstrate the first ‘real’ use I’ve seen of Bullet Time 😊 On the sailing side, I presume Almerima isn’t a port of entry, hence needing to go into Alcaidesa to get stamped out?
@@iainhunneybell You should definitely check out the Camanito and Lower Caves if you are in the area. Both great experiences. Bear in mind that to go from Gibraltar into Spain the border guards are sometimes being difficult and won’t let you in to Spain without proof of accommodation or onward flight. Those are the rules at any Schengen border but they are, sometimes, applying them strictly due to the ongoing Brexit border negotiations around Gibraltar. I carry a lot more than just Kilt and Argyle jacket around with me, I have full number 1 piping uniform as well (You can see what I mean in a burns night segment in ep 46 titled 100 knot storm!) We don’t have a house or anywhere else to keep things so all our worldly goods were on Intrepid Bear! You’re right Almerimar is not a port of entry so that’s why we popped in to Alcadesia. Some cruisers get the bus to Almeria from Almerimar where you can check in or out but, apart from anything else, we still had our French 6 month visa until early January so were in no hurry to check out and Alcadeisa was much easier than getting a bus into Almeria etc 😊
Many thanks for the tips @, but yes, you did mention a French visa. A Brit can get some kind of visa from France? I’d been told that due to the 90/180 concession it was impossible to get a temp visa from a Schengen country…that’s what the 90/180 rule is there for??
@ the Schengen rule is 90/180 but countries are still free to issue their own visas. The only ones that will issue visas for tourism purposes are France and Sweden (there are various wriggles others have used by applying for residency but with no intention of taking it up but that’s a grey area) The French visa is, of course, primarily intended for time in France but within that you are still allowed 90 days in other Schengen countries (as far as we were told any time spent on the visa does not count as Schengen time but some say any time outside France does…hard to get straight answers!) You have to apply in your home country and they hold your passport while processing so you need to time any application with a trip back to the U.K. We had a wedding to return for in June 2023 so it worked out well for us in that regard. On our return we cruised the south of France for a while before going across the Balearics and on to Almerimar all covered by the visa until early January. We could then have remained in Spain and used our Schengen 90 days but we went to Gibraltar not so much to reset the clock but to preserve the Schengen time to be used when we set off in the spring. We used a few Schengen days on our trips into Spain but kept plenty to get home! 😊
Very, very interesting @. Yes, I was advised by Italy so not one of your two countries. So… depending on the interpretation of the law, almost all your time was under the French visa and so didn’t count towards your 90/180? I presume time outside France but inside Schengen, is just part of a single 90/180 bucket? i.e. you can’t have French visa 90/180 Schengen days, plus ‘regular’ Schengen days? As you say, getting _clear_ unambiguous advice on this kind of thing is all nigh impossible. I used to travel to Italy every week on work and had to get down to ‘what counts as a day’ … and the bad news was landing in Italy at 23:40 counts as one day … yes, those 20 mins count as ‘1’ in your 90/180 calculation. Ahhhh
well….our understanding after a lot of research is that whilst you are travelling on the visa they are not Schengen days regardless of what country you are in (some others do take a different view of that and it’s hard to find a definitive answer) so we could, in theory, have done 3 months in France then 3 months in Spain under the 6 month visa which leaves our Schengen time intact to then have a further 3 months in Spain (or other Schengen country) if we’d have wanted to. As far as we’re aware you could even, with some very precise time management spend 3 months in Schengen on you normal Schengen days then 6 months on the visa which puts you effectively outside of Schengen so you’d reset and then follow up with your 3 months Schengen again giving a total of a year in Schengen. Matching up when you have to apply and precisely butting the various periods together would be nigh on impossible but in theory you could. That is though just our understanding you’d have to take your own advice and be comfortable with it. In reality once you’re in Schengen there are no border checks between countries so the 3 months outside France would just be something you’d record yourself…we may not have got the split exactly right! The trouble is there are so many people out there giving wrong advice that it’s often hard to find the truth. Lucinda Heikell (of the Heikells who write all the med pilot books) stated in a PBO article a year or more ago that Gibraltar was in Schengen when its categorically not (yet!) So if PBO and Lucinda Heikell are, I daresay unintentionally, putting out incorrect information then it’s gonna be a struggle to get the facts! And yes I was aware the even five minutes to midnight is a Schengen day…that really sucks! 😬😂
Thank you…we loved Gibraltar and Andalusia this past winter. We will be sad to see Intrepid Bear go but after 3 years full time living aboard and sailing too many miles we’re ready for the next adventure a bit closer to home and travelling further afield by more conventional means. Intrepid Bear needs a new crew who will take her to far flung places. Truth be told the Bear is more intrepid than her crew! 😬😂😂😊
@@russcharlotteward33 if she’s trying to get you to go sailing she’s definitely a keeper! (No doubt why you married her 😉😍) Anyway I agree with Charlotte, go today we have the perfect boat for you to buy 😉😂😊⛵️
Just an experiencial observation.....The Guardia Civil basically seem over -resourced and over-staffed, perhaps under-occupied, and seem not to spend the proportionate amount of time on difficult matters (like high speed ribs, drug and gun smuggling etc), but prefer to harrass easy, law abiding, targets? If you were in Spanish waters with your UK flag, you were lucky not to get boarded. Perhaps because they knew you were YT-ers?
A few people seem to have a dim view of the Guardia Civil but we can’t really comment as we’ve not had a lot to do with them. We were boarded at 4:00am by armed Spanish customs a couple of years ago and this interaction here and both were pleasant and polite but I know friends have found the Guardia to be overbearing and officious so we just got lucky. Don’t think they’d have known we were TH-camrs though…we’re not that big! 😂😊 It was between Christmas and new year so maybe they were just in the holiday spirit 🤷🏻♂️
Great work 1915 NM is a lot of movement. You guys are the best explorers love the cave and canyon journey. Your drone really enhances your videos. BTW great job on the bag pipes.
Thanks Jim…1915nm is too much movement! And thanks yes we love an adventure for sure, the caving was brilliant and the Camanito Del Rey breathtaking, oh and thanks re the pipes, for me it was one of the best bits of being there 👍🏻😍
Brilliant ... really enjoyed that :-)
Thanks guys….glad you liked it. Gibraltar is cool. Hope you get a chance to explore it 😊🇬🇮
That was fascinating, thank you. Im with you on the engine philosophy! Best wishes from Plymouth. James
Thanks James…Secretly I am a motor boater on a sailboat but don’t tell anyone eh? 😉😂 Glad you enjoyed the episode 👍🏻😊⛵️
We love the documentary style presentation. It's different and unique. Love Gib we nearly got sucked into staying there. Sail Safe Guys, Ant & Cid
Thank you…not sure the style is intentional it’s just kind of evolved that way but I’m glad you like it. And Gibraltar….yes I (Iain more than Kate) could definitely have been tempted to stay. I really miss the band they were great Gibraltar has so much that I could happily spend a long time there 😊
Followed you from day 1 as I aspire to taking my boat from Lake to the Med. Great seeing you ashore but as you seem busy prepping the Bear for sale, don't want to disturb you. Looking forward to seeing what you do next 🙂
Hi…we’ll be back and forth to the Bear in the coming week. Give us a shout if you see us. You’ll have to excuse us if we’re elbow deep in sikaflex but otherwise it’d be great to say hi 😊⛵️
Fantastic season, I’ve really enjoyed watching. Look forward to 2024!
It has been helluva season! It almost feels like several seasons in one! How is it only a year ago we hiked Vulcano?! 😃⛵️🌋
A view from the UK. Oh!, now i know why you got yourself a part in the parade, you wintered here. I should have seen this vid first THEN the parade. Do keep up Rob.
Aha! Yes I forgot you didn’t know we spent 3 months of winter there as we hadn’t got to that video yet! 😂😂 It was a fabulous stop and I loved playing with the band. I wanted to upload the full parade before the episode so that I could link to it from the episode if anyone wanted to see more 👍🏻😊
Yum that walk is on the list for when we lay the boat up here. We are off to Spain to look at some marina options.
It is an epic walk! Almerimar in Spain is one of the cheapest but a bit utilitarian, friends say Motril is really friendly family run and great value but never been ourselves..loads of marinas down there though so a few to choose from! Good luck 😊⛵️
A super subscriber here ! Have a massive trip ! Where's next 🤔🫡⛵️⛵️
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. Next we set off back towards the U.K. The videos are a long way behind at the moment as I haven’t had time to make them but things have changed a little and we’ve moved to the inland waterways on a different type of boat. I will still make the videos of intrepid bears voyage home starting soon 👍🏻😊
Just caught up with your vids as we've been cruising 'off grid' for a while. I see you're listed as being in Poole at the moment; it'll be interesting to see how you produce future vids in your new cruising grounds. It's been a rubbish season so far; we gave up on our intentions to head for Scotland this year as we've just had front after front coming through - and we're doing this for enjoyment, not endurance! Next year.....hopefully. All the very best to the both of you. Iain
Hi Iain. Yes, in real time, we are back in Poole and The Bear is on the market. Our lives and cruising will be very different going forward as any boating will most likely be power and there’ll be a lot more exploration by road. I hope to keep making videos as I enjoy doing it and it makes fabulous memories for us but the content will diversify somewhat
so probably won’t appeal to our current sailing audience. However we don’t even know how our plans will pan out or how the videos will evolve going forward! We’ve still got the voyage home to produce when I get a moment but settling back in at home is proving a bit busy right now. However I will get those videos made even if it was more a delivery trip than a pleasure cruise. Thanks for your comment and support and hopefully I’ll be back to finish the chapter soon 😊⛵️
Sad but not surprising. I don’t think that people who’ve never gone long-time cruising can appreciate the subtle but considerable stresses, whether it be missing family or the constant need to be checking on weather, the next passage or the plethora of challenges a boat provides before you even raise a sail. Then you’ve had the pettiness of Schengen to cope with. Still, 3 (I think!) years of it and the things you’ve both done gives you the right to be proud of yourselves; you certainly have my respect. We’re very fortunate in having a home in Cyprus & the boat in the U.K. so we can get the best from both worlds. I hope you can find something that works as well for you both - but I’m glad you’ll be videoing whatever it is as I enjoy the authenticity. Your photography has developed exceptionally well. We send an informal blog to family & friends in the US who are amazed at the variety of the UK’s coastline, so much so that one is coming over for a cruise. Potential market for a new audience for you?!?
We’re back in Gosport to rest before taking family up to St Katherine’s in London - weather allowing. All the very best to you both.
Thanks Iain, yes it’s those subtle but continuous pressures that took the edge off the fun and tipped the balance back towards a more home based lifestyle. There are so many factors that influence it but full time liveaboard cruising with no other home to go back to for a break is intense. I didn’t know you had a home in Cyprus as well….that sounds a great set up. I’m sure we’ll find the right balance for us. Watch this space! Thanks again for your support 😊⛵️
Ah, so the secret of how you come to be cruising at such a tender age is revealed … not that I’m the slightest bit envious 😲 And you carry your kilt and Prince Charlie jacket etc with you on the boat?
The Lower St Michael’s Cave certainly looks worthy of a visit, not to mention El Camanito del Rey … and you demonstrate the first ‘real’ use I’ve seen of Bullet Time 😊
On the sailing side, I presume Almerima isn’t a port of entry, hence needing to go into Alcaidesa to get stamped out?
@@iainhunneybell You should definitely check out the Camanito and Lower Caves if you are in the area. Both great experiences. Bear in mind that to go from Gibraltar into Spain the border guards are sometimes being difficult and won’t let you in to Spain without proof of accommodation or onward flight. Those are the rules at any Schengen border but they are, sometimes, applying them strictly due to the ongoing Brexit border negotiations around Gibraltar. I carry a lot more than just Kilt and Argyle jacket around with me, I have full number 1 piping uniform as well (You can see what I mean in a burns night segment in ep 46 titled 100 knot storm!) We don’t have a house or anywhere else to keep things so all our worldly goods were on Intrepid Bear! You’re right Almerimar is not a port of entry so that’s why we popped in to Alcadesia. Some cruisers get the bus to Almeria from Almerimar where you can check in or out but, apart from anything else, we still had our French 6 month visa until early January so were in no hurry to check out and Alcadeisa was much easier than getting a bus into Almeria etc 😊
Many thanks for the tips @, but yes, you did mention a French visa. A Brit can get some kind of visa from France? I’d been told that due to the 90/180 concession it was impossible to get a temp visa from a Schengen country…that’s what the 90/180 rule is there for??
@ the Schengen rule is 90/180 but countries are still free to issue their own visas. The only ones that will issue visas for tourism purposes are France and Sweden (there are various wriggles others have used by applying for residency but with no intention of taking it up but that’s a grey area) The French visa is, of course, primarily intended for time in France but within that you are still allowed 90 days in other Schengen countries (as far as we were told any time spent on the visa does not count as Schengen time but some say any time outside France does…hard to get straight answers!) You have to apply in your home country and they hold your passport while processing so you need to time any application with a trip back to the U.K. We had a wedding to return for in June 2023 so it worked out well for us in that regard. On our return we cruised the south of France for a while before going across the Balearics and on to Almerimar all covered by the visa until early January. We could then have remained in Spain and used our Schengen 90 days but we went to Gibraltar not so much to reset the clock but to preserve the Schengen time to be used when we set off in the spring. We used a few Schengen days on our trips into Spain but kept plenty to get home! 😊
Very, very interesting @. Yes, I was advised by Italy so not one of your two countries. So… depending on the interpretation of the law, almost all your time was under the French visa and so didn’t count towards your 90/180? I presume time outside France but inside Schengen, is just part of a single 90/180 bucket? i.e. you can’t have French visa 90/180 Schengen days, plus ‘regular’ Schengen days? As you say, getting _clear_ unambiguous advice on this kind of thing is all nigh impossible. I used to travel to Italy every week on work and had to get down to ‘what counts as a day’ … and the bad news was landing in Italy at 23:40 counts as one day … yes, those 20 mins count as ‘1’ in your 90/180 calculation. Ahhhh
well….our understanding after a lot of research is that whilst you are travelling on the visa they are not Schengen days regardless of what country you are in (some others do take a different view of that and it’s hard to find a definitive answer) so we could, in theory, have done 3 months in France then 3 months in Spain under the 6 month visa which leaves our Schengen time intact to then have a further 3 months in Spain (or other Schengen country) if we’d have wanted to. As far as we’re aware you could even, with some very precise time management spend 3 months in Schengen on you normal Schengen days then 6 months on the visa which puts you effectively outside of Schengen so you’d reset and then follow up with your 3 months Schengen again giving a total of a year in Schengen. Matching up when you have to apply and precisely butting the various periods together would be nigh on impossible but in theory you could. That is though just our understanding you’d have to take your own advice and be comfortable with it. In reality once you’re in Schengen there are no border checks between countries so the 3 months outside France would just be something you’d record yourself…we may not have got the split exactly right! The trouble is there are so many people out there giving wrong advice that it’s often hard to find the truth. Lucinda Heikell (of the Heikells who write all the med pilot books) stated in a PBO article a year or more ago that Gibraltar was in Schengen when its categorically not (yet!) So if PBO and Lucinda Heikell are, I daresay unintentionally, putting out incorrect information then it’s gonna be a struggle to get the facts! And yes I was aware the even five minutes to midnight is a Schengen day…that really sucks! 😬😂
Great video, lovely part of the world. Its a shame your selling Intrepid Bear 😥
Thank you…we loved Gibraltar and Andalusia this past winter. We will be sad to see Intrepid Bear go but after 3 years full time living aboard and sailing too many miles we’re ready for the next adventure a bit closer to home and travelling further afield by more conventional means. Intrepid Bear needs a new crew who will take her to far flung places. Truth be told the Bear is more intrepid than her crew! 😬😂😂😊
@@FollowIntrepidBear my wife is trying to get me to leave and retire 3 years earlier so we can buy a boat and sail!
@@russcharlotteward33 if she’s trying to get you to go sailing she’s definitely a keeper! (No doubt why you married her 😉😍) Anyway I agree with Charlotte, go today we have the perfect boat for you to buy 😉😂😊⛵️
@@FollowIntrepidBear ❤
@@FollowIntrepidBear not sure my lump sum will stretch to cover Intrepid Bear unfortunately
just spotted you in Poole harbour!
Back home 😍⛵️
Good naja..
Usual great footage but rather you than me on the trail !! Yikes🙃
Thanks Robin…the trail actually felt a lot more solid underfoot than you’d think but it’s not for everybody…we loved it though 😍
Just an experiencial observation.....The Guardia Civil basically seem over -resourced and over-staffed, perhaps under-occupied, and seem not to spend the proportionate amount of time on difficult matters (like high speed ribs, drug and gun smuggling etc), but prefer to harrass easy, law abiding, targets? If you were in Spanish waters with your UK flag, you were lucky not to get boarded. Perhaps because they knew you were YT-ers?
A few people seem to have a dim view of the Guardia Civil but we can’t really comment as we’ve not had a lot to do with them. We were boarded at 4:00am by armed Spanish customs a couple of years ago and this interaction here and both were pleasant and polite but I know friends have found the Guardia to be overbearing and officious so we just got lucky. Don’t think they’d have known we were TH-camrs though…we’re not that big! 😂😊 It was between Christmas and new year so maybe they were just in the holiday spirit 🤷🏻♂️