Fond memories of the straits of gibraltar - had fantastic scenery and an air of adventure when in Morocco - and dolphins and flying fish - and Sotogrande near the Polo club has to be seen to be believed.
Also had some great times in the Channel Islands/Normandy and S. Brittany.
All down to personal choice I suppose, but, apart from Wales and the South West of England, I don't really have much ambition to sail down south. We were sailing to the Scilly Isles a couple of years ago, but, delightful as Wales, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles are, we called it off at Arklow, preferring to sail round Ireland instead. Rumours that this was a Sgeir navigational error are entirely without foundation. The area from west Cork/Kerry up to Donegal is pretty amazing, beautiful. We were astonished at how few yachts we saw after Mizen Head.
The Clyde's a top area imho, but not a patch on the west coast of Scotland - for sheer scale, variety, scenery, sailing challenge, it wins hands down every time in our book. But it's full up I'm afraid.
west coast of scotland and hebridian islands
denmark and danish islands, (aeroskobing,marstal etc)
carrick roads and surrounding tributaries.
strangford lough
south coast of ireland
east coast of uk, has some attraction for me also, maybe visit on my future round britain voyage, on my retirement, in many years to come...
Some places I would like to sail to, based on hearing such wonderful stories about them :
The Azores,
West coasts of Ireland and Scotland,
The Scillies (passed by them twice in a Fastnet race, and would have liked to stop for a look-around, but the skipper was not keen...)
Some nice places I have sailed to :
Worlds End Reef, out on its own to windward of the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines - all of the Grenadines are a nice cruising area in fact,
Bermuda - a nice stopping off point before either heading for the Azores or New England,
New England, in particular Maine - lovely anchorages and nice people. I am sure that the Chesapeake must be rather special as well.
Southern Ireland (Glandore for their Classic Yacht Regatta), SW England (Falmouth estuary),
Brittany (Douarnanez)
And there are still many other nice places I would like to sail to, one day!
3 of the 50 are in Maine, 2 in Massachusetts and 1 in Chesapeake and 10 others in mainland USA plus Hawaii and Alaska plus several Caribbean, you can see where the centre of world sailing is! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Do we care? No /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
The best place for me to sail is in my boat /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif