Now You See It – Now You Don’t A couple of months ago I delved into the mysteries as to why a concrete or metal ship will float. If you remember it...

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Viking, Forties, North Utsire… This year is the 150th birthday of the Met. Office, believed to be the provider of the longest running continual forecast in the world. The first forecast was...

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They Don’t Come Much Bigger Than This! In the Lookout on one of those all too rare sunny and calm days this summer my eye was caught by a distant speck about...

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Eureka… Why do boats float? We see dozens of yachts, dinghies, canoes etc while on watch in the Lookout and never question why they don’t sink. Likewise we accept that the huge...

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What About Pluto Then? When man first started travelling abroad he had great difficulty in contacting the family back home or the boss to get instructions. There was no e-mail, no telephone,...

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There Is A Reason For Everything Our last training exercise involved the identification by photograph of the rigs of sailing vessels, which we see from our Lookout. These were mainly yachts but...

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‘Sir Ralph The Rover Tore His Hair – And Cursed Himself In His Despair’ Last month I wrote about lighthouses. This time I want to write about the other signposts of the...

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Lead Kindly Light Sometimes at night, with the right conditions, from my bedroom window I can see the loom of the Lizard light as it swings, reflected in the sky. I know...

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Where the Hag of Winter Washed Her Plaid Between the islands of Jura and Scarba in the Hebrides lies the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. It is the third largest whirlpool in the world,...

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