Nick Coghlan
@nicholascoghlan.bsky.social
Recovering Cdn diplomat (posted in Mexico, Colombia, Sudan, Pakistan, South Africa & South Sudan). Sails, writes books, treks; opinionated on both Sudans. Home is Salt Spring Island BC. Sailing blog www.bosunbird.com Also at (X) @NicholasCoghlan
📚💙It's not quite the NYT bestsellers' list...but Under Wide & Starry Skies is getting there! (Amazon today)
December 12, 2025 at 4:59 PM
📚💙It's not quite the NYT bestsellers' list...but Under Wide & Starry Skies is getting there! (Amazon today)
📚💙Looking for a Christmas gift for a fellow globetrotter? Under Wide and Starry Skies should check the "exotic" box...And if you're wondering if it's actually any good, peruse these extracts and reviews: www.bosunbird.com/under-wide-a...
December 9, 2025 at 1:39 AM
📚💙Looking for a Christmas gift for a fellow globetrotter? Under Wide and Starry Skies should check the "exotic" box...And if you're wondering if it's actually any good, peruse these extracts and reviews: www.bosunbird.com/under-wide-a...
It's been raining heavily all morning on Saltspring Island BC 🇨🇦. These two guys have showed up by our deck and have so far been waiting two hours for an invitation to come in...😀
December 8, 2025 at 7:44 PM
It's been raining heavily all morning on Saltspring Island BC 🇨🇦. These two guys have showed up by our deck and have so far been waiting two hours for an invitation to come in...😀
📚💙If you aren't there already, it's time to start thinking about Christmas gifts! If your loved one likes to dream of distant and sunny places as winter sets in - try this. Review from San Francisco's Latitude 38 #sailing magazine. www.latitude38.com/issues/decem...
December 5, 2025 at 7:01 PM
📚💙If you aren't there already, it's time to start thinking about Christmas gifts! If your loved one likes to dream of distant and sunny places as winter sets in - try this. Review from San Francisco's Latitude 38 #sailing magazine. www.latitude38.com/issues/decem...
📚💙If you happen to be in the vicinity of Salt Spring Island 🇨🇦this Saturday December 6, come along! One of the destinations I'll be highlighting is in what may be the Least Travelled sea of all today: Om Dom (Crocodile Island), Blue Nile, #Sudan.
December 3, 2025 at 11:49 PM
📚💙If you happen to be in the vicinity of Salt Spring Island 🇨🇦this Saturday December 6, come along! One of the destinations I'll be highlighting is in what may be the Least Travelled sea of all today: Om Dom (Crocodile Island), Blue Nile, #Sudan.
💙📚 "... it’s all covered with such aplomb. Incidents, narratives, stories, people met, lobsters traded, wood carvings acquired, weather and waves.. all here in technicolour." Lovely book review from no less than Oxford University alumni mag www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/off-...
November 27, 2025 at 11:57 PM
💙📚 "... it’s all covered with such aplomb. Incidents, narratives, stories, people met, lobsters traded, wood carvings acquired, weather and waves.. all here in technicolour." Lovely book review from no less than Oxford University alumni mag www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/off-...
📚💙#OTD fifty years ago, the Gales of November Came Early, and the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in eastern Lake Superior 🇨🇦. Running here under sail, in fairer winds off Michipicoten Island; as featured in Chapter 47 of "Under Wide and Starry Skies."
November 10, 2025 at 6:13 PM
📚💙#OTD fifty years ago, the Gales of November Came Early, and the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in eastern Lake Superior 🇨🇦. Running here under sail, in fairer winds off Michipicoten Island; as featured in Chapter 47 of "Under Wide and Starry Skies."
Spending the morning searching out pix for an illustrated talk that will touch on the colonial era in #Sudan: General Gordon's Last Stand in the Palace; Sir Herbert Kitchener; the gunboat HMS Melik, HQ of the Blue Nile Sailing Club (est 1926)
November 5, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Spending the morning searching out pix for an illustrated talk that will touch on the colonial era in #Sudan: General Gordon's Last Stand in the Palace; Sir Herbert Kitchener; the gunboat HMS Melik, HQ of the Blue Nile Sailing Club (est 1926)
📚💙 Overlooked again by the Nobel Committee, but still hopeful for the Sailor's Nobel.... 😀
October 23, 2025 at 3:51 PM
📚💙 Overlooked again by the Nobel Committee, but still hopeful for the Sailor's Nobel.... 😀
💙📚After six years in exile, Napoleon died on the South Atlantic island of St Helena in 1821 and was buried here. #OTD in 1840, his reputation rehabilitated, his body was repatriated to France and now lies in monumental splendour at Les Invalides (Paris).1/2
October 18, 2025 at 9:34 PM
💙📚After six years in exile, Napoleon died on the South Atlantic island of St Helena in 1821 and was buried here. #OTD in 1840, his reputation rehabilitated, his body was repatriated to France and now lies in monumental splendour at Les Invalides (Paris).1/2
📚💙#OTD in 1815, the defeated Emperor Napoleon arrives at St Helena to begin his exile, writing in his diary: "It is not an attractive place, I should have done better to remain in Egypt." One of 50 locations featured in "Under Wide and Starry Skies."
October 15, 2025 at 4:18 PM
📚💙#OTD in 1815, the defeated Emperor Napoleon arrives at St Helena to begin his exile, writing in his diary: "It is not an attractive place, I should have done better to remain in Egypt." One of 50 locations featured in "Under Wide and Starry Skies."
📚💙To Fulford Village Hall on a dark & foggy evening, to hear the legendary @kenroth.bsky.social, ex-Director of @hrw.org . What a life well-spent - and an inspiration to me throughout my career! The night ended with a well-deserved standing ovation from the awed audience of 200. 🙏👏
October 11, 2025 at 3:12 PM
📚💙To Fulford Village Hall on a dark & foggy evening, to hear the legendary @kenroth.bsky.social, ex-Director of @hrw.org . What a life well-spent - and an inspiration to me throughout my career! The night ended with a well-deserved standing ovation from the awed audience of 200. 🙏👏
October 9, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Autumnal fog in Trincomali Channel as the sun comes up this morning over BC's Coast Mountains; you can hear the ships' foghorns.
October 7, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Autumnal fog in Trincomali Channel as the sun comes up this morning over BC's Coast Mountains; you can hear the ships' foghorns.
Haven't done a jigsaw since I was a kid - this 500-piece painting (🇲🇽 artist Jose Maria Velasco) was harder than I thought it would be🫤. To help, found a photo of the same mountain - Orizaba; 5747m - which I climbed back in 1994.
October 5, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Haven't done a jigsaw since I was a kid - this 500-piece painting (🇲🇽 artist Jose Maria Velasco) was harder than I thought it would be🫤. To help, found a photo of the same mountain - Orizaba; 5747m - which I climbed back in 1994.
Favourite books of 2025...
shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...
shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...
October 5, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Favourite books of 2025...
shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...
shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...
Ever since independence (2011), #SouthSudan has been bedevilled by the same issues: corruption, the oil curse, inter-ethnic tensions, aid dependency. "Collapse of a Country" focuses on 2012-16, but is still a primer for today. Now in paperback (cheaper😉) www.mqup.ca/collapse-of-...
September 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Ever since independence (2011), #SouthSudan has been bedevilled by the same issues: corruption, the oil curse, inter-ethnic tensions, aid dependency. "Collapse of a Country" focuses on 2012-16, but is still a primer for today. Now in paperback (cheaper😉) www.mqup.ca/collapse-of-...
📚💙 We did some work on our #sailing blog...Take a look at some of the fifty exotic destinations featured in Under Wide and Starry Skies, at www.bosunbird.com/under-wide-a...
September 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM
📚💙 We did some work on our #sailing blog...Take a look at some of the fifty exotic destinations featured in Under Wide and Starry Skies, at www.bosunbird.com/under-wide-a...
📚💙If you buy a book on Amazon (and you like it...) please leave a star rating (same for Goodreads). It makes a big difference in how the title appears in searches, and in sales 🙏
September 17, 2025 at 3:25 PM
📚💙If you buy a book on Amazon (and you like it...) please leave a star rating (same for Goodreads). It makes a big difference in how the title appears in searches, and in sales 🙏
OTD 40 years ago...The crew (admiral?) looking happy as we sail under San Francisco's Golden Gate after our first offshore passage (800nm from Victoria). Spoke by radio with the outgoing USS Nimitz, who kindly asked us to "take appropriate evasive action" 🫤 #sailing
September 15, 2025 at 6:05 PM
OTD 40 years ago...The crew (admiral?) looking happy as we sail under San Francisco's Golden Gate after our first offshore passage (800nm from Victoria). Spoke by radio with the outgoing USS Nimitz, who kindly asked us to "take appropriate evasive action" 🫤 #sailing
It's the fall of 1973...After a summer working as a Camp Counsellor (first time in North America), the friends I've made take me for the day to NYC. I remember this crazy lady in the Battery; and of course, the Twin Towers. Taken on an Instamatic.
September 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
It's the fall of 1973...After a summer working as a Camp Counsellor (first time in North America), the friends I've made take me for the day to NYC. I remember this crazy lady in the Battery; and of course, the Twin Towers. Taken on an Instamatic.