Monday is work day: Gui, me and the kids march towards Fare Ute, Gui continues to the customs where she will negotiate the ‘Papeetisation’: If a ship changes owners here in french Polynesia, 26% of the value of the vessel have to be paid as a tax. But the Rancho Relaxo couldn’t be sold and we will give her as a present. Thanks to the persuasion of Gui and a very helpful agent we can lower the Papeetisation to next to nothing. It would be totally in Moitessier’s sense: We were extremely lucky when we had our crash landing and thanks to the help of so many friends and our families we got a second chance. Now we help somebody else and give our old ship without anything in return.

In the meantime I walk in that order to: ACE hardware 1, ACE hardware 2, dive shop, tool shop, Nautisport, Yamaha dealer, Sing Tun Hing Marine. At noon we meet for lunch as most shops and offices are closed. Afterwards we again visit: ACE1, ACE2, Nautisport, Sing Tun Hing, steel shop, AS Systems, Ocean 2000 und fully packed we get back to the ship. That’s really something. Marching the whole day in tropical heat with two children through the town without the little ones complaining even once ! At the ship we unload everything, put the new shortwave antenna on deck and only minutes later we’re on our way south towards the Taina Marina.

Tuesday, early in the morning I bring Gui ashore where she continues her oddysee: Papeete again to deliver papers to the agent, later to pick up my new sunglasses then all the way down to Taravao in the south of Tahiti where she orders new mast steps for the Suvarov, then to pick up seeds and two seedlings of the ‘Magic Tree’. In the mean time Christoph the new owner of the Rancho arrives and we show him the Rancho and start working. We have to repair the bilge pumps, replace the leaking stuffing box, check the fuel, start the engine, repair the steering and the kerosene stove and bend the sprayhood back to it’s original shape. We install a spare anchor at the bow and clear the deck, etc. At 18h the Rancho is ready and we’re all wrecked. We meet ashore to have a shower and a beer and call it a day.

Wednesday morning, Gui again travels to Papeete to finally pick up the fabrics for Coquito, while I get the Suvarov ready to leave and Christoph removes ten months worth of mussels and green stuff from the hull of the Rancho. At ten in the morning Gui arrives and we meet at the gas station where we get 120 liters of Diesel, Christoph brings the bottom part of Rancho’s old Mast on bord and we store about 50kg of fabrics. We set back out into the mooring field where we go alongside the Rancho and fill her tank with 20l Diesel and put the kayak on bord so Christoph has something that floats – just in case. At noon we’re ready and travel through the lagoon towards Papeete, followed by the Rancho. Christoph is at the steering and smiles like a child at christmas as we exit through the pass and find ourselves out on the Pacific again. For once the weather report was correct and indeed we have no wind and nearly no swell. We run under engine with five knots towards Moorea, the Rancho always 100m behind us. As we start dreaming of Tonga and Fiji and can’t think how it could get any better, a huge whale jumps out of the water just 200m in front of us ! Seconds later a younger whale follows and splashes back into the sea. We stand at the bow, shout ‘Uuuuh !!’ and ‘Aaaah !’, while we slowly pass the whales. What a crazy day ! Soon later two other whales follow us a bit towards the Cook’s Bay. At 16h we enter the Opunohu Bay and find ourselves surprised how much we think of this anchorage as our ‘home’ now. We throw the anchor while the Rancho is tied to the mooring that was prepard for her right in front of Christoph’s house.

The next months he will slowly restore the Rancho to her old beauty. And as both he and his wife are sailors the chances are quite good that soon the Rancho Relaxo of the Seas will set out for another amazing journey. Oh, wow. We’re sooo happy !!

Bruno didn’t mind – he was just too happy to have kids around that talk english that’s already quite something. So only minutes later they set out with the sailing dinghy and weren’t seen until late in the afternoon.

Yesterday, we’re installing the new membrane for the watermaker as I see yet another green steel ketch enter the bay. This time it’s no drill. It IS the Supermolli !! Bruno and Viola stand on the foredeck and start chanting while I make a few pictures. As soon as the anchor hits the ground we’re in the dinghy and on our way. Last time we saw each other was in Germany, two years ago. And that also was quite a coincidence – as is the whole story of our boats: It was us who actually wanted to buy the Supermolli in 2009 ! But then things developed differently and we started our voyage with the Rancho Relaxo.

Well now we can stop reading and commenting each others blog posts for a few weeks, I guess.

The evenings I spent on the internet looking for spare parts and stuff we need, organizing the trip and trying to get in touch with friends. Oh I hope, somehow I could manage to see them all. So anyway, my schedule is Berlin for the first days, then to my family in Austria. The third week of May I should be back in Berlin from where I leave on the 21st towards our home in French Polynesia.

Although the conception of our trip was not completely wrong, it still came a lot different than we thought. One and a half oceans later we wrecked our beloved Rancho Relaxo and are still in the process of settling in on the Suvarov. The paperwork is done and the austrian flag again decorates the back of the boat. Most of the work on the new boat is now finished.

The main problem right now is the Rancho. She’s still rusting away on a mooring in Taina Marina and costs money every month. Now that work on the coquito webshop is finished, we finally have time to put all the remaining stuff online for sale. And although we don’t try to have any illusions we still hope that we can find someone who wants to live on board the Rancho. Maybe even repair her and sail again… There’s still time. Gui’s visa will expire on the 30th of May and thus the date of our departure is set. A fact that I’m actually glad about because it’s really time we get away from here.

Not that I wouldn’t love these paradise-like islands and the wonderful polynesian people. But as everywhere there are also some downsides. Right now it’s the never healing wounds that drive me crazy. Even the smallest cut will get infected, swell up and take forever to heal. My ankle is showing a nice purple/black/red cut that has been there for a month now. Antibiotics and daily cleaning doesn’t seem to help much – it’s still swollen and hurts. This seems to be a general problem as most of the other sailors have had the same issues and the bodies of the lokal people also show remains of those cuts and bruises. The other thing I’m looking forward to is to finally visit some english speaking islands again and have better contact to the local people. An issue that is completely alien to our kids. Although they ‘only’ speak german, spanish and english, they have absolutely no problem communicating with the local kids. A fact that is best demonstrated by Viola who joined the local kindergarden a few days ago. She doesn’t mind at all that she has to get up before sunrise or that the other kids speak only tahitian and french. The only thing that counts is the many new friends she has and the new games she plays with them.

Oh – and yes. We’re all happy together again. The first day after the LosLocos returned, we sailed back to Moorea again. And here we’re right now enjoying the beach, the palms and the beautiful water while being happy to be together again. Soon I’m gonna post some more pics and stories. – Yes, many things happened already….

Also in the parcel: Our very first self written article in a printed magazine. The Austrian sailing monthly Yachtrevue printed it in Dezember 2012. Although I wasn’t 100% happy with a few of the minor edits, the final story is quite good. Here’s the article as PDF, sorry – german only.

The Rancho is completely empty (except the front cabin) and all the gear I need to work on – solar panels, watermaker, SSB is on board the Suvarov. Our slightly degraded, deflatable dinghy is tied to Rancho Relaxo and Bruno’s Pinguin swimms in the back of the new boat. The mooring for the Rancho I paid for up until new year – I’m actually ready to go.
Weren’t it for the crates, bags and baskets of stuff in between those piles of clothes, tools, music instruments and books. Somebody has got to clean up that mess before we head out into the ocean tomorrow ! I have a feeling that I should get up early tomorrow if I plan to leave around noon.

Uh, and it’s gonna be the first sailing with the new boat. Also first time singlehanding – even more exciting ! Yay. But I’m soooo looking forward to that, I can’t tell you ! After having spent soo much troubling days and weeks here in this anchorage in Tahiti, I’m really ready for a change of landscape !
Also, I wanna see if the christmas present from home arrived yet …

Happy christmas everybody !!

But still- half of the Rancho is already empty. I also switched the toilets the other day. – One of the only things that will actually profit from the rain.
After a sundowner with my neighbor Chico, I emptied the last crates with things from the bathroom. Tomorrow I’m gonna get the rest. Yay !

I only have pictures of rain. Sorry.

Boring ? Well, in between yotties it’s not just smalltalk – it’s it’s pretty essential to discuss weather issues. It’s about whether the anchorage is safe or it becomes a trap. It’s about swell, wind and rain and the possibility to take the tender and get to (dry?) land. Or in my case if it’s possible to bring stuff from our old boat to the new. Every day in the morning there’s about 15cm of water in the dinghy. And as soon as it’s bucketed out, the next shower will fill it again, it seems. Not exactly helping if you have to transport clothes, food, spare parts and tools. So I’m trying to occupy myself reading instruction manuals for all the gadgets that are on the new ship. I’m discovering hoses for the engine ventilation and try to make sense of all the cables that disappear somewhere underneath floorboards or behind cabinets. Yesterday I was searching for about 30 minutes to discover a switch for the light in the engine compartment. I guess, it’s gonna take some time until I fully understand our new ship.

Next ToDos are the replacement of the leaking toilet (our old one was actually newer and nicer) and the preparation to install the water maker. But right now I should actually not think of things to do but rather get our stuff moved. It’s bad enough that I look over to the Rancho Relaxo a hundered times a day. I’d rather only have to take care of one boat. So hopefully we’ll get a little less rain the next days so I get something done.

Unfortunately I’m not getting much done these days. The weather is quite nasty. It’s raining a lot the last days and the wind is quite strong. This makes the dinghy rides between the boats a really wet exercise. But I got the most important things and the rest I will move as soon as the weather is improving (which will not be soon as it seems). In the meantime I’m trying to figure out all the switches, buttons, cables and hoses and make lists of things todo and to improve and to move… Uff. Enough work for months… But what else would I do ?

It’s a very sad moment. Using the stove a last time, brushing my teeth in the little bathroom a last time… But hey: Tomorrow I’ll be all the more happy. Especially as this weird, fast movement will have an end. The swell is still increasing and we’ll get a whopping 3.8m tomorrow. I’ll rather sleep on a ship with a mast by then.

Well. More tomorrow…

Tomorrow in the evening Bruno (the owner of the Suvarov) will fly to Europe and I will start moving our stuff over ! I can’t wait….. Ouuu yeah !!

YES ! We found our new ship. It’s a Caroff Sterven MKII from 1995. 12.3m long and 4.3m wide, built in steel of course. She has a LOT more room than the Rancho Relaxo of the Seas. She’s not a sleek looking ship but she’s big enough for me to walk around without constantly banging my head – which I’m looking very forward to.

You’ve seen the list of work on the Rancho Relaxo and although it’s really hard to let go, the decision to rather invest into a new boat is a good one. The comments on the last post were pretty much spot on: We can’t spend a year on a shipyard in Polynesia. That’s not the life we want to live. Especially not with the kids. So I’m gonna spend the next months moving all our fancy gear from the old to the new boat and prepare everything to set sail when the new season starts in April 2012. YEEEEEEAAAAH !!!!

After our rescue, the pilots of the helicopter spent half a day finding help to salvage our ship. Now they took a day off to invite us to the Navy base, have a BBQ together and show the kids all the equipment on the base ! Absolutely amazing !! For us it’s a very welcome distraction from our depressing bord life but for the children it’s very important to see the pilots and the chopper without the stress of a rescue. Bruno and Viola could climb through the helicopter, inspect the airplanes and play with the winch that lifted us off the reef.

The heat on the landing strip was like hellfire but the kids didn’t even realize. They were fully absorbed by all that fancy machinery, the interesting helicopter with all it’s screens and buttons. For hours they asked questions without end and of course had an amazing day. – Who wouldn’t ?

We also are extremely happy to have had that opportunity as we think it’s really important for the kids to associate some positive feelings with the helicopter and the people involved in the rescue operation. Yeah, and guess what Bruno want’s to become when he’s grown up ?

Sorry I’ve not been posting too much during the last weeks but I hop that will change soon. Today I’ve also started to answer all those nice emails we got and finally the inbox looks a little less chaotic. Oh – spaeking of writing. Together with the Yachtrevue an article is coming into existence. It should be published in the december issue.

The trip with the speed ferry only takes a little more than half an hour and we get picked up by car. The ride along the coastline has some magnificent views and we soon enter cook bay and continue towards the center of the island. Here we pick up the birthday girl and her sister Heilani who spent the day at a horse ranch. The energy of the soon to be 12 year old seems to be endless as we first drop her off at the jazz dance class before we finally get to their beautiful little house. The garden is typical for the area and has mangos, papayas, bananas and of course cocos and underneath all that green we see chicken and rabbits enjoying themselves. The weekend on the ‘countryside’ is a perfect change for us as we finally stop thinking about the Rancho Relaxo but have endless talks or (try) to repair an old motorcycle.

The time passes rapidly and sunday in the evening we’re back in Tahiti. Monday morning we suddenly find ourselves surrounded by the amazing number of TWO austrian ships: The ‘Chi’ arrived from the Tuamotus and the ‘Optimist’ came back from Moorea to do some last minute repairs before finally leaving for Fiji.

We’ve talked to many people, asked for prices and looked at used masts but it seems to be a fact: The Rancho Relaxo can not be repaired by us. We have tried to be as objective as possible but in the end that’s really difficult. The Rancho Relaxo is not just an object but our home and we had many thrilling and beautiful moments together. Saying good bye will be incredibly hard but a repair would cost us more than we could expect to ever get back by later selling the boat. After all we try to see the positive side of this: The market for used boats is really bad right now and we’re what you could call at the end of the world. So it is right here that we have actually good chances to find a new yacht. This and the financing of this new boat is what we were focussing the last days. And in both areas there have been extremely positive developments !
It seems quite surreal but only two weeks ago we were on the reef and thought that we would loose everything. Now it seems as if we will continue our journey with a new boat in the next year. This is possible because we have the support of both our families and they not just approve of our lifestyle but encourage us to finish what we started. Many friends helped us and want us to continue our journey. And that is exactly what we will do, although it will not be with the Rancho Relaxo of the Seas – and it will mean more work for us in the future. But that should not take the fun out of it and we are extremely happy about these amazing developments of the last days !!

It is absolutely amazing !!! We’re can’t believe how many friends reached into their pocket to support us. And even more surprising is the amount of (until now) anonymous blog readers that step into the light and support us financially or by writing a few nice lines to make us smile again. To all of you: Many, many thanks and a big hug from the whole family !!

As soon as we can think a little bit clearer, I’ll write more but right now I’d probably only spread confusion.

What changed our mind in the end is that we would have no problem at all to accept hands-on help to work on the boat. But as we’re stuck here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this is not an option. So why would we refuse donations ?
We have created that little Paypal donate button on the side and right there you will also be able to find the details for our german bank account. The decision to write this really wasn’t easy. We are thankful for every cent that will help us to move on ! Thank you all for your support (monetary or otherwise) !

We would also like to officially thank our austrian friends Hannes and Christine who took us in on their catamaran ‘Optimist’ while the Rancho was still on the reef.

We are discussing different options to repair the boat and today we will go to Port Phaeton to look at a used mast that supposedly should be the right size for our ship. In the evening we had long discussions as to whether we should try to continue immediately or if it would be better to fly to Europe, get a job and earn money for one year. Either way there’s a lot of things to do and even more stuff to think about.

On the positive side: Yesterday we built a little roof to protect ourselves from the sun and the kids love it. I also tested the engine and it has no damage, going forward & backward works, as does the steering. So we now consider ourselves the owners of a heavily damaged an incredibly slow motor boat. Heh.

Oh and as some comments and emails go in that direction: We are NOT insured ! We’ll have to pay the salvaging of the boat and the repairs ourselves. Luckily the heroic helicopter rescue is free.

Then we tried to get into the internet at the marina bar but because they have a party tonight, they turned off the hotspot. So we went back to the boat to eat and that was when I found out that I couldn’t stick my foot in between the saloon bench and the mast-support. We knew that because of the bent hull the saloon bench is 3cm higher but that couldn’t be it. No it was the mast support that is bent about 5cm !! This (nearly) let me loose my appetite. So it seems that the Rancho Relaxo has more damage than we thought ?

Tomorrow I will first try to build a sun protection above the cockpit. Then I will think about how and why the mast support was bent. Maybe I’ll also inspect the engine for any water damage (the exhaust was on the side where the waves kept running in). At least the propeller is turning and the rudder is working – which really amazes me.

During the hours we spent on sea we made scetches and discussed possible ways to get the boat off the reef. When we finally arrived just before sunset we saw that she was actually nearly on dry land. The images I made just before we got into the helicopter showed a different picture. So there was absolutely no way we could pull her off the coral, we need to get a crane or a – excavator. And luckily Ti Ai Moana by coincidence also had a special excavator on exactly this island. And it can go through 2m of water ! After we got the permission (this island is private and owned by the son of Marlon Brando) next morning this big yellow beast made its way through the lagoon while Yann and Sebastian were tying ropes around the Rancho Relaxo.

With the help of the digger and the 1500HP of the Vaimiti 9 the 12-ton Rancho Relaxo finally started moving. And when her back was already touching the water and the excavator only needed to retreat – it happened. The arm touched the mast and it immediatly broke. Now we had a new challenge: To get the broken rigging of our ship on the deck before the waves again put her onto the reef. The wires and ropes were cut and the pieces of the mast and boom put on deck. And finally with extremely violent motion the Rancho hit the water – and stayed afloat.

On the inside the ship was a mess but nothing was broken. The rigging was gone, so was the boom, our handrails, the sprayhood and many other little things. But it had no hole – after spending two nights on the reef.

Right now we’re back in the Marina Taina in Tahiti. We try to get some order into the chaos on deck and calculate our options. It probably will take a few days for us to get to a decision as how to move on. Luckily nobody got hurt. And lucky us we have this amazing tank like ship that keeps us save.

We were on our way from Moorea to the Tuamotus when we hit the southern reef of Tetiaroa at around 3am local time. It took only a few seconds and the ship was thrown onto the rocks. Everything went very quick. The kids got lifevests on, I used the VHF to send out a MAYDAY with our position and situation. As soon as we knew that help would come (in the form of a Navy helicopter) we started to gather our most important things and prepared to abandon ship, I got the sails down and closed all windows just to be sure.

One of the best moments of our life – seeing the searchlight of the helicopter appear in the middle of the night. Followed by one of the scariest things we ever did: Leaving our home, our ship, all our posessions behind and jump into the dark ocean to climb onto the reef with the kids on our arms.

The crew of the helicopter did a fantastic job and got us up in the air in no time, fatigue setting in when we saw our shipwreck from above and escaped into the night to be brought to Papeete….

Click the image to get to the story.

Yesterday Dan and me took the dinghy towards the reef where the wrecked yacht is bouncing in the surf. There were already a few sailors from the anchorage helping the owner get all stuff from the boat. We got all the sails down and into the dinghy to transport them towards the beach. The accident happened when going through the pass of the reef under engine where the propulsion suddenly stopped. Whether it was the gearbox or some failure with the propeller we don’t know. But it certanly was too late to get sails up and the yacht hit the reef only a minute later. The keel and rudder broke off instantly and the ship filled with water. What a sad story and how shocking to see how fast and easy something like that can happen !

In the afternoon we discovered that the small shop close to the beach is also selling burger meat ! We got the big pack and left it in the sun to defrost while we took the sailing dinghy for a ride through the lagoon.

Right before sunset we met back at the beach and Dan showed the kids how to start fire with a firestone and some dry coconuts. The short ones were fascinated !! We had a beautiful evening and everybody fell into the bunks like a stone. Good to be out in the nature again !

The anchorage at Maeva beach is known to be very calm but still we were surprised to find ourselfes in a force six after just a few minutes running north. We had to wait for a landing airplane at the airport of Faaa before we were able to continue our journey. After passing the runway we set sail in papeete harbour and left the island with the small genoa. The passage was very fast and quite pleasent. It really was a good thing to be on the move again after such a long time at anchor. Our joy was a bit shortened bya a mayday call from a polynesian yacht that hit the reef in the Passe Tareu – that’s the entrance to the Baie d’ Opunohu which was our goal !
A few hours later we were already sailing along the reef of Moorea and passed the gorgeous Baie d’ Cook. Only two miles further west lies our entrance and we could already see the wrecked yacht. I don’t know yet how this shipwreck happened as the pass is a few hundered meters wide and pretty much without current but maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.

Right now we enjoy the silence of this little bay – no city, no airport and only a handful of boats here. And our kids are on the neighbor boat so we have the Rancho Relaxo all for ourselves ! Yay !

We visited Tahiti Nui and Tahiti Iti with Zac, Sylvie and Dan from the SY Ustupu. They rented a car and Dan managed to drive us all around, and although I wouldn’t say he forgot how it works, I’m sure he did that a little smoother while living in Canada. Together we went looking for fruits near the streets and checked every surf spot of the island… They also started surfing in Galapagos and we where all keen to have a look at Teahopu, the legendary break. On that day the waves where not as impresive as during the Billabong Contest, but it was nice, there are very positive vibes on that whole area. I’m shure I’ll be back some day…. but it could take a little while…

The last time I  took my board I got such a mighty wave, that it made me think about my kamikaze nature. It went rrrreally fast and was a massive fun the first seconds ! I was enjoying the speed with all my body and soul, but at the moment I realised I should start getting up and try to get out of there, I saw the reef aproaching. Coming in … three… two… one… SHIT !! I crashed full force into the coral and the only thing I could do was to grab my board as tight as possible and hope for the best. Well, I’m not dead, and got only a few scatches, so I guess it did went for the best ! Yeah, that was a wild ride. So, let’s face the facts. My next surf is going to be at a SANDY beach, with little waves. No harm done.

It’s the same as in the caribbean sailing season there is during the northern winter. Most sailors try to escape the hurricane season when the summer comes. The taifun season in the Pacific officially starts in January and ends around beginning of May. The timing tough is not as strict as in the caribbean. The season is actually only the time when the occurrence somehow peaks. Also the islands in the east are usually quite safe whereas the central Pacific definitely gets some decent storms now and then. So it’s no surprise that most of our friends who will spend the summer in the south have already left and are now in Tonga or in the Cook islands. After having changed our plan for a couple of times we finally came up with something that sounds reasonable: We’ll sail to the Tuamotus and spend the next weeks there. Then we get back to Tahiti at the end of November and my family will leave with an airplane towards South America. I will sail back to the Marquesas solo and we will be united two months later. Sounds good to me.

So why did we spend such a long time in Tahiti where most of the surrounding islands are much more beautiful ? Well, first we had a lot of friends that we met here and as one never does know if and when we could meet again, we had a few farewell parties. We were hiking and explored the island by car, later I was out of order for one week because of my infected toe. The last week we spent mostly in town, searching for missing parts. It’s not as easy as we’re low on money and the shops are quite but not always expensive. A 20l jerry can is 46 USD here but anti fouling paint is actually cheaper than in Europe. The record must be a little 12V piezo beeper that I bought in Panama for 40 cents. Here I found one for 42 USD. (A stupid BEEPER !) But now we got our sails repaired, we got spare parts and new hoses to redo the salt water installation and the bilge pumps, we got paint for the whole ship, new rubber for the windows, screws, filters and hoses for the engine and a hundred more things. On monday a man will come and refill our compressor fridge. After that I will probably spray half of the fridge full of foam to increase the insulation and decrease it’s size. I hope that will help a little. On our next visit I will also buy wood to do some enhancements to the interior and redo the cockpit floor. There’s gonna be enough to do when I’m alone on the boat.
Well if everything works out, we’ll be gone by the mid of the next week. It’s time.

Right now I just wanted to announce that we’re still here and that I update our website slightly. I’m gonna write another blog post soon. Promised.

But in the meantime we ran into a lot of our friends that we met along the way. The Papillon arrived, we last saw them at Galapagos. The Red Sky Night arrived which we last saw in Fatu Hiva. And just yesterday I discovered the ‘Armatura Borealis’ that we ran into in Gran Canaria – a year ago !

So we spend a lot of time hanging out with friends, doing BBQ, the kids playing together, hichhiking to the city to get boat parts, etc.

We will stay for a few more days to wait until my toe gets better. – After climbing the mountains barefoot for two days, I managed to hit my toe on the way from the Carrefour to the Marina. Needless to say, the toe immediately got infected and my leg swollen. So now I’m enjoying antibiotics for the first time since we left Berlin….

Thanks to my parents we took notice of some good development in Somalia. It seems the country is heading towards having a government and the piracy rate during the last year went way down. There’s still a lot of danger in those waters but we immediately started plotting a possible new course through the read sea. Oooo if that would be possible it would be really nice. I’d not think twice of skipping that long crossing of the Indian ocean and then the Atlantic crossing from south to north for a nice, short ride throught the med. Well, in one year’s time we’ll know what to do…

So we took the bus around midday and arrived at Pirae at 13h. We walked past the village and asked our way through towards the Belvedere, a small restaurant at 700m where the actual trail will start.

It took us quite some time to get there and the walk on the paved road was quite exhausting but once on the trail I removed the shoes and we finally walk through nature. One of the better things is to walk barefoot and feel the moist, stony, muddy ground. The beginning of the trail follows along the side of a valley until it reaches the ridge on which it stays for quite some while. Actually most part of the trail is right ON the ridge with both sides being quite steep and usually leading a few hundered meters down.

Just before nightfall we reached the first hut on 1400m and we had a nice dinner with Couscous, vegetables, soup and coffee. The night was chilly and windy and we were glad that the backpack Zac got from the SY Ustupu would fit perfectly into the empty windowframe. That way it was much more comfortable and after having fun with our headlamps and the long-exposure mode of the camera, we slept until eight in the morning.

On the second day we continued our way up through the clouds and a wild, dripping wet rainforest full of fern trees and with everything covered with moss and lichen (old man’s beard). The air is damp and completely saturated and the scene might change on the next corner after which we might find ourselves out of the clouds and surrounded with pine trees and walking on dry grass.

After a short stop at the hut on 1800m we leave our backpacks and continue towards the summit. The path gets slightly more difficult and we reach the peak shortly after midday. A little snack and a few photos later we’re already on our way down where we soon again find ourselves surrounded by the clouds. Unfortunately those are now over-saturated and it starts to rain around us. It will continue to be wet until we reach the end of the footpath.

That of course means that a big part of the hike downwards is quite slippery and gets very tricky as much of the ground is composed of red clay. But we reach the Belvedere just before sunset and are very lucky to get a ride down to the village. And as we already know the polynesian way, we’re not surprised as one of the guys who is riding with us in the back of the pickup truck offers to get us to the marina. He just has to get back home and get his own car. The local people are extremely friendly and helpful and are not shy to drive two dirty, sweaty aliens around the island.

All of the above photos were made by Zachary Shane Orion Lough. You can find more pictures on his website.

First we had new friends arrive: The SY Tamora went on a mooring right next to us. For a welcome we did some barbequeue (Carrefour for the win !) Next day, we started the pizza oven on board and it finally was time for the famous Rancho Relaxo all-you-can-eat pizza !

Sundays the girls did an excursion to the horse party in Papeete while the boys made a big mess in the ship and repaired the watermaker. Luckily the membrane is not cloaked. The problem was a high pressure valve that got stuck. But with the help of Mr. H2O (Hr. Braeuer) and the really excellent instruction manual, we got it working again. We also cleaned all the filters and now it’s working great again.

In the meantime Gui and Viola enjoyed the visitor’s day in the hippodrome of Papeete where Viola found horses of all sizes to cuddle with and ride on. Looks like they had a lot of fun there.

We also did a big walk through all of Papeete in the heat of the midday and visited tht chandleries and tool stores. Unfortunately we didn’t find what we were looking for. On the same day the long overdue SY Papillon arrived with her new and improved besan mast (pic will follow). And on tuesday/wednesday Zac and me did a big mountain tour up Mont Aorai which I will describe in another blog post.

Gerade wenn man Kinder hat, kommt immer frueher oder spaeter die Frage nach dem eigenen Aeffchen aber das ist dann immer so kompliziert mit den Quarantaenevorschriften, gerade wenn man die am Strand einsammelt. Auf der Rancho steht ein Gecko bei den Grossen hoch im Kurs waehrend es bei den Kindern ein Huhn waere, das die Eier fuer den Kaiserschmarrn liefert. Dies sind natuerlich alles praktische Ansaetze, man muss sich aber auch Gedanken ueber die artgerechte Haltung machen. Spaetestens hier scheiden die meisten Mehrzelliger aus, denn welchem hoeher entwickelten Lebewesen wollte man schon eine solche Seereise zumuten ?

Nahrungsbeschaffung ist fuer die segelnde Familie eine anstrengende und zeitraubende Angelegenheit, da will man sich nicht unbedingt Sorgen ueber die Lieblingsspeise der kleinen Salzwasserkrokodile machen muessen, welche die Kinder als Experiment in der Bilge zuechten moechten. Auch ist der durchschnittliche Fahrtensegler ein eher traeges Lebewesen, womit die Verpflegung des idealen Haustieres idealerweise kaum bis keine Zeit beanspruchen sollte. Um hier der Seglergemeinde mal helfend unter die Arme zu greifen mache ich hier eine kleine Liste mit ein paar gesammelten Erfahrungen. Aber keine Angst, viele der Tipps funktionieren genauso in einem Zuhause, das nicht schwimmt !

Wir haben oder hatten in den letzten Wochen mehr oder weniger gute Erfahrungen mit den folgenden Tierarten gemacht. Es sei mir verziehen, nicht die korrekten lateinischen Namen rausgesucht zu haben, das ueberlasse ich dem oben angesprochenen, aufmerksamen Leser:

• Mehlbewohner: Wir haben sie zuallererst in der Getreidemuehle entdeckt, spaeter aber auch bei gekauftem Mehl. Ca. 0.5-1mm lang und roetlich bis hellbraun. Harmlos und geschmacksneutral, wird durch regelmaessige Benutzung der Getreidemuehle und besseres Verpacken von Mehl (in Flaschen) konstant auf maessiger Population gehalten.
• Ruesselkaefer: Zuerst entdeckt in einer noch geschlossenen Nudelpackung aus Gran Canaria. 2-3mm lang, schwarz und sehen aus wie eine Art Baby-Hirschkaefer. Sie haben die Faehigkeit durch Plastikverpackungen zu bohren und lieben Nudeln ueber alles – am allerliebsten Spinat-Lasagne. Werden ausgesiebt oder auch mitgekocht und vom Nudelwasser abgeschoepft. Ebenfalls geschmacks, aber nicht konsistenz-neutral. Geht aber als Pfefferschrot bei den Gaesten durch. Wir probieren zur Zeit eine Uebernahme der Rancho Relaxo durch doppelt-Verpacken in starke Ziploc oder Umfuellen in Flaschen mit grossen Oeffnungen zu verhindern. Lorbeer hilft hier auch.
• Kakerlaken. Wir versuchen seit Spanien welche an Bord anzusiedeln, doch bis auf ein paar Einzelgaenger, die wohl als Botschafter oder Erkunder bei uns an bord schon nach kurzer Zeit verendeten, haben wir bisher leider keine Erfolge aufzuweisen. Es mag an dieser gruenlichen Paste liegen, die wir in den Dunklen Ecken mittels Spritze ausgebracht haben. Es ist ein ausgezeichnetes Lockmittel fuer diese widerstandsfaehigen Alleskoenner (die *richtigen* Kakerlaken koennen fliegen !) allerdings hat es den Nachteil, dass es stark toxisch ist und wir somit einer Besiedelung schon von vorneweg schlechte Chancen gaben. Wir sehen es allerdings als eine Art Darwin-Test und sortieren einfach die nicht-resistenten aus. Wir wollen super-Kakerlaken zuechten, die auch mit diesem Gift zurechtkommen.
• Ratten: Wir hatten einen kurzen Versuch in Galapagos gemacht. Man kann sie ganz leicht an Bord ansiedeln, in dem man einen Kartoffelsack mit Kokosnuessen am fruehen Abend fuer eine halbe Stunde an den Strand legt und dann mittels Dinghy an Bord bringt. Nun hat man im Normalfall eine kleine Population an Bord, welche sich ueblicherweise in den Zwischenwaneden und -decken eine Art Haus mit Tunnelsystem durch die Isolierung frisst und sich hauptsaechlich von gesundem Obst und ungesundem Dacron ernaehrt. Letzteres war dann auch der Grund, weshalb wir heute keine dieser Nager auf der Rancho Relaxo haben. Vermutlich vertragen es die Ratten einfach nicht.
• Kopflaeuse: Haben den Vorteil, dass sie mobil sind und man so nicht nur an Bord von ihnen profitieren kann. Man kann sie ueberallhin mitnehmen und sich an ihrer Gesellschaft erfreuen. Die Capitana hatte nach einigen Tagen aber festgestellt, das dies doch nicht ‘ihre’ Tierart ist und sie mit einer Tinktur und Kamm entfernt. Scheinen einfach unbeliebt zu sein.
• Termiten: Wenn man eine Yacht mit viel schoenem Holz hat, bietet sich diese Tierart an. Sie schicken ihre befluegelten Schwaerme am Abend aus und fallen ueber ihr neues Zuhause regelrecht her. Es ist kein Problem nach nur einem Abend eine dauerhafte Koexistenz mit diesen ueberaus interessanten Tieren zu etablieren. Sie finden in jeder Ritze ein neues Zuhause und umschwirren die stolzen Besitzer der Yacht fortan an diesen lauen Abenden in Polynesien. Wenn man (wie wir) nicht an diesen Tieren interessiert ist, zieht man am besten in einem Notmanoever den Anker aus dem Korallensand, waehrend man bereits mit Vollgas durch das Morringfeld ans Aussenriff fluechtet, wo die Tiere zwar dennoch, aber nicht in derartiger Anzahl anzutreffen sind. Eine endgueltige Entscheidung bezueglich der Aufnahme in unser Privatbiotop haben wir noch nicht gefaellt. Sie moegen Licht, aber keine offenen Flammen wie Bunsenbrenner oder Loetlampen.
• Motten, Ameisen, Mosquitos, Spinnen, Tintenfische und fliegende Fische haben sich nicht bewaehrt bzw. gehalten und  Toelpel oder Sturmvoegel waren nett, aber nur kurz an Bord.
• Entenmuscheln und Seepocken konnten wir in der letzten Zeit gut ansiedeln. Hier hilft es, wenn man sich Muehe gibt und versucht, in den ersten eineinhalb Jahren moeglichst 10000 oder 15000 Meilen zu segeln, damit das Antifouling runter ist. Dieses hemmt den natuerlichen Besuchs enorm und sollte am besten mit grobem Schleifpapier entfernt werden, wenn man zum Beispiel eine Moeglichkeit hat, das Schiff trockenfallen zu laessen. Wenn in genuegender Zahl vorhanden, stellt so eine Entenmuschelzucht einen nicht zu verachtende Menge Notproviant dar, waehrend die Seepocken eine Art Schutzschild um den Rumpf bilden.
• Menschen: Haben wir gerne und in zahlreicher Anzahl an Bord. Es haben sich sowohl junge als auch aeltere Exemplare gut bewaehrt. Die beste Unterhaltung hat man, wenn man versucht moeglichst viele verschiedene Kulturen und Nationen im Cockpit oder am Vorschiff zu versammeln. Obwohl wir sehr gute Erfahrungen mit kurzen WG-artigen Experimenten gemacht haben, konnten wir bisher nur vier Menschen dauerhaft auf der Rancho Relaxo ansiedeln. dies wird wohl an der nicht artgerechten Haltung liegen. Wir arbeiten aber weiter daran !

Yesterday we had visitors from Germany who flew into Tahiti and will buy a boat here to sail it towards Australia during the next year. A very clever and interesting idea. So we had an endess talk and did a (quite late) bbq on the Rancho Relaxo. Also when taking them to the dinghy dock of the nearby marina – and then racing back through that enormous anchorage, two people shouted at me because our engine is really loud …and really broken.

There seem to be quieter days but revently it seems that at least once a day something really important breaks. Yesterday it was the membrane of our watermaker (we don’t have replacement and will have to order it from somewhere abroad) and today it was the outboard engine. It was our friend Guenther who fixed the outboard when we were in Bequia but now it finally broke completely.

We didn’t use the big dinghy or the outboard during the last months but now we need it as the dinghy dock is quite far away and there’s no wind to sail with Pinguin. So we needed to repair it. As the shaft cannot really be fixed I just bent two pieces of  threaded rod around it and mounted the engine onto the holding clamps. Now we cannot move it up anymore but – who cares ? We also change the gear oil and cleaned the evaporator. Now it’s going full speed again. Yay !

But during that work I really went nuts. When bending that brass rod around the engine I smashed my left thumb with the hammer after which I ran through the ship (towards the first aid box) shouting and kicking everything. So I broke both doors of the tools locker who happened to be in my way….

I’ll fix them tomorrow.

Initially we planned to sail directly to the Maeva beach to drop the anchor. But we didn’t get permission to sail past the airport so we had to moor up at the city pontoon in the centre of Papeete. Not bad. Water and electricity is something we didn’t have for a long time !

The next good thing: just beside us is the austrian yacht ‘Shambala’ and opposite is our friend Zac with the SY Panache. Also there’s a french catamaran with two kids and Bruno and Viola immediately made friends with them.

The next morning, Gui and the kids went to town and came back with baguettes, croissants, butter and fresh milk. We had a real french breakfast and after doing laundry and clening up the boat, the kids and Gui went to the cinema.  I used that opportunity to head out to the brewery together with the SY Anaconda und Zac to sample some local beer. Needless to say, the next day was quite unproductive.

Next day was internet day and we finally uploaded all pics fom the last islands. The only thing left to do was to go shopping. And Gui came back with a car full of groceries from Carrefour while the kids spent the time playing with the waterhose on the pontoon.

Yesterday we finally moved away from the city pontoon and sailed the five miles south to Maeva beach. Needless to say, we arrived in darkness.

So today the first look around was – well – slightly disapointing. No beach here. Just looooooots of yachts. The anchoring is difficult because of the depth and all good spots are taken by moorings that the nearby marina put there. I guess, we’ll stay for two or three more days and then we’re off to Moorea.

An hour later (now that I’m sending this) a front hit and we finally have some wind.

LATITUDE: 16-19.34S, LONGITUDE: 148-02.46W, COURSE: 239T, SPEED: 4.8, WIND: ESE 4, DISTANCE: 114nm

Bruno ist mit grosser Begeisterung beim Lesen. Seine aktuelle Lieblingslektuere: ‘Tahiti et ses iles’. Ein Tourismus-Fuehrer fuer franzoesisch Polynesien. Er studiert wahrhaftig stundenlang die Karten, findet raus, welche die hoechsten Berge sind und wo man Gelaendeautos mieten koennte. Und waehrend Bruno also im Cockpit liegt und dahinsinniert, vernehmen wir von unten aus dem Salon ploetzlich Viola’s Stimme: ‘M…A…U…P.’ – ‘MAUP…I…T…I….’ – ‘MAUPITI !!!’ Verdutzte Blicke bei den Grossen – irritiertes Kopfdrehen bei Bruno: VIOLA KANN LESEN !!

Nein, nicht nur ein Wort. Sie liest beinahe alles, was man ihr vor die Nase haelt egal ob nur Gross- oder auch kleine Buchstaben*. Und ganz auf Viola’s Art hat sie dies mit ihren zarten vier Jahren ganz still und heimlich selbst entwickelt. Zeitgleich kommt natuerlich auch das Schreiben mit. Und da beide in den letzten Wochen eine riesen Entwicklung in Sachen Malen gemacht haben, werden die Kunstwerke auch immer genauestens Beschriftet und mit Pfeilen und Erklaerungen versehen.

Auch sprachlich geht’s ordenlich ab. Da wir die letzten Wochen immer wieder mit englischsprachigen Schiffen unterwegs waren (SY Papillon – USA, SY Red Sky Night – Australien, SY Panache – USA), haben beide Kinder angefangen relativ ungeniert englisch zu sprechen. Natuerlich sehr rudimentaer und mit vielen Fehlern, aber dafuer mit umso mehr Begeisterung.

Der ‘Sachkunde-Unterricht’ steht auch nicht hintennach: Voegel und Fische werden mit Begeisterung bestimmt und Dank Buechern wie ‘Dangerous marine animals’ wissen die Kinder ganz genau, welche Tiere gefaehrlich sind. Ueber Schiffe und Segeln wissen die beiden sowieso langsam alles, was aber nicht weiter verwundert – ist es doch ihr zuhause.

Der Geographie-Unterricht hat sich mittlerweile zum Hauptfach etabliert und wir koennen uns nur wundern, wie jemand mit 6 Jahren Beobachtungen ueber Wind- und Himmelsrichtungen, Reisedauer und Zeitverschiebung machen kann. Sternbilder sind zu spaeter Stunde auch immer ein Thema. Die Kinder kennen das Kreuz des Suedens, Skorpion, den Schwan, die Leier und auch Planeten wie Saturn und Mars werden am Nachthimmel gefunden. Orion und Jupiter werden zur Zeit leider vermisst, da sie erst spaet in der Nacht erscheinen.

Das Wichtigste bei all diesen ‘Lernerfolgen’ ist vermutlich die Motivation. Die Kinder wollen alles wissen und sie wollen es selbst entdecken. Niemand korrigiert staendig oder zwingt sie etwas zu lernen, das nicht interessiert. So geht die natuerliche Neugier nicht verloren und die Kurzen sind Stolz, wenn sie Papi von unten die genaue Position oder die Geschwindigkeit ueber Grund zurufen koennen. Fuer Seglerkinder mag Schwimmen die wichtigste Faehigkeit sein, doch im allgemeinen glaube ich, ist es das Lesen.

Eine Eins mit goldenem Sternchen fuer Bruno und Viola ! (Hahaha. – Noten kennen die beiden nicht.)

*typische Kinderfrage: Warum heissen die eigentlich kleine Buchstaben, wenn viele gleich gross sind wie die ‘grossen’ und manche (f) sogar noch groesser ?!?

Und nochmal unsere Buchempfehlung: ‘Learning all the time’ von John Holt !!

LATITUDE: 15-34.92S, LONGITUDE: 146-38.90W, COURSE: 269T, SPEED: 4.9, WIND: E 3, DISTANCE: 205nm

But THEN we arrived ! And Tony, the son of Alfre and Pauline put the (free !) mooring line into our hands and greeted us with a big polynesian smile. Bruno and Viola liked him at first sight and wanted to go to shore immediately. So they left for the motu while Gui and me had a shower and a nice swim around the ship in turquoise water.
One of the better – if not the best – landfall we had so far.

LATITUDE: 14-50.24S, LONGITUDE: 145-47.20W, COURSE: 227T, SPEED: 3.4, WIND: ESE 6(7), DISTANCE: 39nm

LATITUDE: 13-40.42S, LONGITUDE: 144-20.50W, COURSE: 248T, SPEED: 6.5, WIND: ESE 6, DISTANCE: 173nm

LATITUDE: 13-26.47S, LONGITUDE: 143-57.36W, COURSE: 225T, SPEED: 6.7, WIND: ESE 5, DISTANCE: 199nm

LATITUDE: 12-09.02S, LONGITUDE: 142-11.25W, COURSE: 233T, SPEED: 6.2, WIND: ESE 5, DISTANCE: 329nm

Taohata war ein wirklicher Traumaufenthalt. Der Strand ist sensationell und die Unterwasserwelt bietet unzaehlige kleine Fische, Mantarochen und Haie. Da wird das Schnorcheln nicht langweilig ! Und obwohl ich weiss, dass die Haie die Menschen nur aeusserst selten angreifen, bekomme ich dennoch immer Herzklopfen, wenn so ein Schwarzspitzen Riffhai an mir vorbeischwimmt. Waehrend unseres dreitaegigen Aufenthaltes haben wir auch das Schiff halbwegs fit gemacht und der Motor laeuft …. NOCH IMMER ! Langsam glaub ich fast schon dran, dass wir nun das Problem behoben haben.
Kulinarisch ging’s dann auch noch ganz gut weiter. Nach Gui’s indischem Abend versorgte Zac von der SY Panache uns am naechsten Tag mit selbstgemachten Gnocci – ooou yeah ! Und weil unsere Bananenstaude nun doch langsam die Farbe wechselt, gab’s heute einen Bananenkuchen nebst selbstgemachten Vollkorn-Baguettes und Rosinenbroetchen.

Tjo und nun, da wir aus Lee der Insel raus sind kann ich sagen, dass es auch seglerisch fesch dahingeht. Wir fahren einen Halbwindkurs, Rtg. 235 Grad und haben Genua und Gross im ersten Reff gesetzt. Sehr angenehmes und flottes Segeln. Sollte wohl auch so bleiben, da fuer die naechsten Tage dann noch zunehmender Wind vorhergesagt waere. Schoen ! – Dann sind wir in fuenf Tagen am Ziel. Das waer’ mal ein schoener, kurzer Trip. Aber mal abwarten. Das Wetter hatte bisher noch beinahe auf jedem Toern eine kleine Ueberraschung fuer uns vorbereitet.

LATITUDE: 10-01.27S, LONGITUDE: 139-17.85W, COURSE: 236T, SPEED: 5.4, WIND: ESE 4, DISTANCE: 541nm

I promise, I’ll write more tomorrow. But we just had such a great dinner that Gui made – indian style with three different dishes and fresh bread – I’m tired.

Oh – und wir sind draufgekommen, dass hier im Pazifik wohl unser Spot-Messenger nicht mehr funktioniert. Deshalb gibt’s ab nun nur noch Positionsmeldungen via Winlink.

When going towards shore for the first time, we took a bottle of rum and exchanged it for a big bag of fruits. Fantastic grapefruits, oranges, lemons and bananas. Finally – after many days without fresh food.

Next day we made friends with Zac from the SY Panache and took a little stroll through the village and into the forest, in search for a waterfall. Unfortunately we couldn’t find it. But we still had a bath in a small river, we encountered.

One day later the SY Red Sky Night arrived and together we made a second try. This time we found the waterfall and had a nice bath in the pool at the foot of it. This island really is one of the most beautiful ones we’ve ever set foot on. No wonder nearly everyone who does the pacific crossing stops here.

After three nights at anchor in the bay of Hanavave, we lifted up the anchor to sail to Hiva Oa, the main island of the Marqueas. Details on that exciting trip will follow in the next post.

There are a number of reasons why we hit those rocks and that was what I was thinking about during that trip to Hiva Oa. So I was silent while Gui wanted to speak about what happenend. That of course led to an argument between us but – hey – there are limits to how personal I’m getting in that blog here. Anyway… It’s really risky to be sailing without a working engine and that was the main reason why during the stay at Taohata, I spent nearly two entire days in the engine room. Now we’re heading towards the Tuamotus and those are even riskier islands. Until a few years ago many sailors still sailed around them because of the many little reefs and currents that make this archipelago that dangerous. But we’ll only do one stop for now and that should not be a problem.

As for the passage to these islands – it’s running great !! We expected to have very light winds during the first two days and we had very little wind during the last night. This prompted the appearence of the Blister right after breakfast – but now we have nice and steady wind with enough power to push us along with 5 to 6 knots with just the small Genoa and the main in the first reef. Wonderful sailing with agreeable movement and beautiful blue sky and sea.

LATITUDE: 11-04.56S, LONGITUDE: 140-29.96W, COURSE: 231T, SPEED: 5.9, WIND: ESE 4-5, DISTANCE: 447nm

Ich war vorne an der Ankerwinsch und sehe wie wir uns doch auf einmal mit vier Knoten Richtung grosse schwarze dichte Wand bewegen. Spooky. Ich fange an zu schreien “drehen, drehen, DRE-HEN!” Aber bis David die Genoa raus hatte (um das ueberforderte Grosssegel auszubalancieren) waren wir nur noch ein paar Meter vom Fels entfernt. Und dann waren wir schon da. Ich habe uns erstmal weggeschoben, da haben wir angefangen zu drehen, alles knapp 20cm weg vom Stein… ich dachte, uff ! – Wir schaffen es. Aber nicht. Es gab noch ein miserables Stueck Stein an der Wasseroberflaeche … Krach ! Krasses Knacken. Das war nicht gut. Das war echt nicht gut. Kurz habe ich gedacht, mmmmm, jetzt geht es ab nach Hause :( Aber unsere Rancho Relaxo hat uns mal wieder gerettet. Wir haben nun zwei schoene Schrammen und eine nach innen gewoelbte Beule am am steuerbord Bug – aber Loch gibt es keines. Hey, jetzt freue ich mich, dass wir ein Stahlschiff haben !

So hat unsere Reise nach Hiva Oa angefangen. Danach war alles ok, ausser dass David den ganzen Tag nicht gesprochen hat. Wir sind dann -natuerlich- in der Nacht angekommen, und David hat den Motor waerend des Trips wieder zum Leben gebracht um hier rein zu kommen – zum Glueck, da es die letzte Meile in den Hafen rein ueberhaupt keinen Wind gab. Wie es sein muss, in dem Augenblick als die 20 Meter Kette runter waren, hat sich der Motor von selbst wieder verabschiedet. Der Anker hat gluecklicherweise sofort gehalten. Spaeter hat
David noch den Heckanker und 35m Leine ausgebracht. Aber eins ist klar: ohne Motor gehe ich in keine weitere enge Bucht rein !

Am folgenden Tag sind wir ins “village” gewandert und haben uns Steaks, Salat, Burger, Eis und M&M’s gegoennt … ouhh yeah ! Ah ! Und wir haben auch Alec mit dem gruenen Pick up getroffen. Ich habe schon so viele unglaublich schoene Tatoos gesehen… dass ich getraumt habe, ich haette eins wie ein Liane vom Fuss bis zum Hinterkopf.

LATITUDE: 10-34.20S, LONGITUDE: 138-30.36W, COURSE: 266T, SPEED: 3.6, WIND: E 3, DISTANCE: 18nm

LATITUDE: 10-05.96S, LONGITUDE: 137-05.85W, COURSE: 245T, SPEED: 4.7, WIND: ESE 4, DISTANCE: 97nm

During the day I cleaned the fridge and found five (!!) leaking beer cans. The beer in central america comes in incredibly thin-skinned cans that break when you just look at them firmly. After nearly four weeks of motion in the fridge a lot of them were done for of course. And that made a big mess that I had the pleasure to gt rid of.
I also did a little check on the engine: In the past weeks it was running about three hours to load batteries. Everything fine. Today I tried it with the gear in (with stress so to say) and the engine went out after only three minutes. I again found air in the second fuel filter and (maybe) found the cause: One of the screws for venting the ignition pump had a broken seal. The original copper seal was lost in the depths of the engine room when I was working on it in Galapagos, so I replaced it with one made of rubber. This one was torn and leaking. So I replaced the replacement with a couple of meters of teflon tape and gave it another try: The engine was running without gear for 1.5 hours and with gear for another 10 minutes before I turned it off. Until now it looks good. But we’ll only see if it really works once we’ve been running under engine for an hour or so.

After a few squalls went past us during the late afternoon we now have finally some wind. If it stays like that, we could make it in two days. Yay-woo !!

LATITUDE: 09-46.40S, LONGITUDE: 135-55.78W, COURSE: 224T, SPEED: 3.7, WIND: ENE 2-3, DISTANCE: 167nm

Genau diese fehlt uns schon etwas. Jaja. Langweilig. Echt. Aber das war auch nicht anders zu erwarten. Immerhin sind wir zu viert und die Gefahr, Selbstgespraeche zu fuehren beschraenkt sich maximal auf einsame Nachtwachen und lautes Fluchen, wenn bei einem Manoever mal wieder was hakt oder sich die Schot in der Ankerwinsch verfaengt. Richtig gut nehmen’s die Kinder. Die beiden spielen von Tag zu Tag besser miteinander, sie beschaeftigen sich stundenlang mit Legos, Buechern, Asterix, Musik, etc. Urspruenglich hatten wir das ganz anders erwartet: die Kurzen, die ganz klassisch noergeln, wann wir denn endlich da sind und die Grossen, die dann Ausfluechte finden. In Wirklichkeit ist’s gaenzlich umgekehrt.
Aufmunterug brachte heute morgen eine riesige Schule von Delfinen, die in Gruppen zu drei, vier und mehr Tieren um’s Schiff schossen. Es muessen wohl ueber hundert der sympatischen Meeressaeuger gewesen sein. Immer wieder zischen auch riesige Schwaerme fliegender Fische aus dem Wasser, was im grellen Sonnenlicht und ueber dem tiefen Blau des Pazifiks wirklich atemberaubend schoen anzusehen ist. Seit heute nimmt auch die Zahl und Variation der Voegel stark zu. Mittags haben wir die ersten Fregattvoegel gesehen. Das Land ist also schon nah !

LATITUDE: 09-07.93S, LONGITUDE: 134-59.97W, COURSE: 245T, SPEED: 4.9, WIND: ESE 3-4, DISTANCE: 231nm

Today we had rain. Lots of rain – the whole day was gray and wet. But also nice wind coming from ESE, E, ENE, NE and finally NNW. So right now we’re sailing a course on the wind doing incredible 2.3 knots. – The rain front passed and with it the wind. So now we’re waiting until the wind turns back towards a more easterly direction and (hopefully) also increases in force so we can continue our course with bigger, lighter sails.
Other than that, nothing happened here. Everybody is getting a little excited about the nearing landfall…. Only 396 miles to go. WIND ! We need wind !!

LATITUDE: 09-35.19S, LONGITUDE: 132-02.09W, COURSE: 284T, SPEED: 1.6, WIND: NNW 1-2, DISTANCE: 395nm

** Stark riechende Voegel aller Art **
koche in einem Sud aus Wasser mit Pfeffer, Liebstoeckel, Thymian, trockener Minze, Sellerie, Nelken, Honig, Essig, Wein, Salzlake, Oel, eingekochtem Most und Senf. Doch werden sie saftiger und wohlschmeckender und bleiben fetter, wenn du sie mit Mehlteig in den du Oel hineingearbeitet hast, umhuellst und in den Ofen schiebst. Es empfiehlt sich auch, die Voegel mit zerschnittenen frischen Oliven zu fuellen und diese vor dem Anrichten zu entfernen.

LATITUDE: 08-25.034S, LONGITUDE: 129-18.36W, COURSE: 247T, SPEED: 3.1, WIND: E 2, DISTANCE: 568nm

LATITUDE: 07-55.94S, LONGITUDE: 128-08.82W, COURSE: 255T, SPEED: 3.7, WIND: E 2, DISTANCE: 642nm

In der Bordkueche gab’s heute eine der Spezialitaeten des Skippers: Rosmarin-Risotto – leider ohne Lammstelzen, aber trotzdem lecker. Gui ist gerade am Brotbacken und die untergehende Sonne laesst die Gischt der Pazifikwellen und das kleine, weisse Segelboot nochmal kurz rosa aufgluehen, bevor sie dann die Buehne den Sternen und Sternschnuppen ueberlaesst. Wir haben zwar schon lange alle Wuensche 10-fach deponiert, dennoch freuen wir uns noch immer ueber jede einzelne Sternschnuppe.
Der Segeltag war heute wenig ereignisreich. Den Ganzen Tag mit Genua und Gross gesegelt, leider etwas zu langsam, aber doch zu viel Wind fuer den Blister. Morgen soll sich das dann angeblich aendern, dann flaut der Wind weiter ab und wir werden wohl auf die Leichtwindbesegelung wechseln. Kein Regen, keine Squalls und den ganzen Tag wunderschoene Passatwoelkchen. Super !

LATITUDE: 07-20.40S, LONGITUDE: 126-43.86W, COURSE: 229T, SPEED: 4.9, WIND: E 3, DISTANCE: 732nm

Danke, Guenther fuer die aktuellen Noaa Infos ! Klingen etwas vage, aber es koennte uns also doch ein El Nino ins Haus stehen. Mist ! El M. waere mir lieber (Gruesse an selbigen !)

LATITUDE: 06-42.01S, LONGITUDE: 124-57.07W, COURSE: 249T, SPEED: 5.6, WIND: ESE 4, DISTANCE: 845nm

LATITUDE: 06-04.59S, LONGITUDE: 122-47.01W, COURSE: 250T, SPEED: 4.6, WIND: ESE 3, DISTANCE: 980nm

LATITUDE: 05-37.17S, LONGITUDE: 120-50.60W, COURSE: 259T, SPEED: 6.0, WIND: ESE 4, DISTANCE: 1099nm

LATITUDE: 05-10.33S, LONGITUDE: 118-56.42W, COURSE: 273T, SPEED: 5.0, WIND: ESE4-5, DISTANCE: 1216nm

LATITUDE: 04-56.02S, LONGITUDE: 116-56.45W, COURSE: 261T, SPEED: 5.1, WIND: ESE4(5), DISTANCE: 1335nm

Update at 0245h: Couldn’t send that email earlier as it wa impossible to get a connection to our ‘mailservers’. So we had a fast day with big waves and right now we’re preparing a Lasagne to celebrate the middle of the Pacific. The wind is slightly less now.

All downhill from here !

LATITUDE: 04-33.19S, LONGITUDE: 114-46.58W, COURSE: 274T, SPEED: 5.9, WIND: ESE 5, DISTANCE: 1466nm

LATITUDE: 04-06.36S, LONGITUDE: 112-11.00W, COURSE: 259T, SPEED: 7.1, WIND: ESE 6, DISTANCE: 1623nm

So haben wir heute also gesammelte Botschaften der letzten Tage bekommen. Vielen lieben Dank an: Die Crew der Nubia (schon wieder in D angekommen ?!?) und an die Charisma (nein, Bergfest kommt vielleicht morgen um diese Zeit) an Christoph (Danke fur die Bananen-Rezepte !) an die Crew der SUPERMOLLI (Wo treibt ihr euch denn eigentlich rum ?) an Tarek (Schoen, dass du den Weg ins Internetz gefunden hast. Hehehe) an Jens (fuer technische Hilfe – was hast du dann gemacht ? Abgedichtet ?) an Christoph (nein, die anderen werden vom 15′-Alarm nicht wach, die schlafen wie Murmeltiere und der Wachhabende ist ja meist im Cockpit. Auch ist’s am Schiff wegen unserer unglaublich schnellen Fahrt recht laut (Welle, Wind, geklimper) da geht ein Funkgespraech beinahe unter) an Guenther, der uns beinahe taeglich schreibt und natuerlich an meine Eltern !!

LATITUDE: 03-34.42S, LONGITUDE: 109-42.89W, COURSE: 263T, SPEED: 5.6, WIND: SE 4-5, DISTANCE: 1786nm

LATITUDE: 03-08.73S, LONGITUDE: 107-37.97W, COURSE: 265T, SPEED: 6.1, WIND: SSE4-5, DISTANCE: 1902nm

LATITUDE: 03-08.50S, LONGITUDE: 105-17.91W, COURSE: 274T, SPEED: 6.4, WIND: SSE4-5, DISTANCE: 2037nm

LATITUDE: 02-48.25S, LONGITUDE: 103-07.76W, COURSE: 252T, SPEED: 3.7, WIND: SE2-3, DISTANCE: 2168nm

LATITUDE: 02-15.80S, LONGITUDE: 101-12.67W, COURSE: 258T, SPEED: 7.2, WIND: SSE5, DISTANCE: 2288nm

0000h: Start of my watch, Gui and the kids are off to bed around 30 minutes later. Wind: SSE4-5 course: 270, sails: Main and Genoa.
0050h: Wrote a small blog post and uploaded via HF, position report sent.
0300h: Start of Guenther’s Pacific Net on shortwave radio (14135USB). Many friends of us are on air and we exchange position, news, weather, etc. The SY Mares tells the story of three wrecked ships at the easter island (one of them german) !
0515h: I wake up Gui to switch watches and go to bed.
0830h: I am awakened by a change in the ship’s movement. (Yes, after one year on the boat that’s quite common.) The wind has increased, I get some clothes on and get outside. Together with Gui I put in a reef in the main sail. Wind now at a steady force 5, the Rancho Relaxo doing constant 6.5 knots towards 260 degrees.
0900h: Gui made a dough during her watch and now she puts the bread into the oven and goes to bed, my watch starts.
1000h: I get the bread out. Also I put the alarm to repeat every 15 minutes and take short naps in between looking for other ships. Again we have an unbelievable starry night. Three days in a row we had crystal clear air and no clouds. The milky way is clear as a cloud during daylight and the stars are fantastic !
1200h: Still dark, but the sun will come up shortly. I put the position into the logbook and record a daily log of 141 miles. (Nice !) As we also carry paper charts, so I plot the current position while smiling and thinking of coffee.
1230h: Sun comes up with a blasting orange sky. Two minutes later, Viola is in the cockpit and cuddles beside me. Bruno follows 10 minutes later.
1300h: Breakfast with fresh bread, coffee, nesquick, honey, butter – and of course: bananas.
1400h: Doing the dishes, the kids have books in their hands. Put the sunsail over the cockpit.
1430h: Collecting 13 squids and 6 flying fish on deck. One squid made a big mess on the foredeck another one I find hanging down on a rope at the mast ! We really had some big waves last night. Otherwise those animals will not fly 3 meters up in the air. I download weather information via shortwave radio.
1500h: Gui gets up and has breakfast. I’m doing some laundry – takes me 1.5 hours for one bucket. I notice the swell changes direction from SW to SE, now matching with the wind waves.
1700h: Big fishing trawler portside, a few miles away. It will circle us for the next hours.
1715h: With enough sun and wind, the batteries are completely full. I’m starting the watermaker for 1.5 hours, making about 45 liters of fresh water.
1800h: Cleaning the bathroom.
1900h: Having lunch (poissant cru). Later doing dishes. The kids listen to music and look at books.
2100h: Playing Guitar. The kids flee and watch a movie downstairs (yes, they also take advantage of the full batteries !)
2200h: I’m doing siesta, Gui takes the watch.
now: My watch again, writing blog post, listening to Pacific network…. Back to start.

LATITUDE: 02-03.56S, LONGITUDE: 098-59.45W, COURSE: 253T, SPEED: 6.2, WIND: SE4-5, DISTANCE: 2420nm

LATITUDE: 01-49.93S, LONGITUDE: 096-15.24W, COURSE: 262T, SPEED: 6.4, WIND: SSE4-5, DISTANCE: 2583nm

LATITUDE: 01-45.41S, LONGITUDE: 094-03.90W, COURSE: 271T, SPEED: 4.3, WIND: S3-4, DISTANCE: 2713nm

LATITUDE: 01-33.40S, LONGITUDE: 092-13.68W, COURSE: 247T, SPEED: 3.9, WIND: SSE2-3, DISTANCE: 2823nm

LATITUDE: 01-13.43S, LONGITUDE: 091-17.38W, COURSE: 251T, SPEED: 4.1, WIND: SSE2-3, DISTANCE: 2879nm

The island is quite different from San Cristobal. The streets are unpaved and the houses much nicer, the nature is even more meager.  The Iguanas are much smaller and the nice and bright beach is interrupted by black lava rocks. Those are the same rocks that we found in the entrance to the anchorage. It’s quite interesting to navigate in between those obstacles and I guess at night it’s quite dangerous. The anchoring is not that nice here as there is quite some swell entering and the weather is mostly misty – bad for our energy input.

Continuation of the above entry at 7:30pm: Finally in the early afternoon the port captain found some time for us and we could present our case. He told us to get going as fast as possible and repeated everything all the other people of the office already told us. Thereafter we found ourselfes in a small office where another officer took about two hours to type the protocol, make a copy of our passports, ask stupid questions while we studied a copy of the ecuatorian maritime law that lie on a table. In the end we were back at the Rancho Relaxo around 3pm and I could finally fix the engine. (Replace the fuel filter again.) So it’s working now but noone knows for how long. But for sure long enough to exit the harbour.

Tonight we’ll have the crew of the SY Red Sky Night from Australia aboard our ship and we’ll have a drink or two. They will also start towards the Marquesas in a few days and as they got a faster ship than ours, we’ll probably arrive around the same time.  Tomorrow after the breakfast we’ll be going….

Oh ! And I nearly forgot: Today we also saw Penguins !! Unfortunately we didn’t have a camera with us.

Last thing: During the voyage our satphone wll be turned on every day at 18:00 UTC for one hour.

So we’re now at Isla Isabela and we will later have to go to the Capitaneria to explain ourselves to the port captain. We’ll see, how long we’re allowed to stay. But usually it should be the 72 hours that are granted by maritime law. We’ll have to replace fuel filters (again) and maybe we have a chance to see the penguins or the land-iguanas….

Oh – and again we had problems updating our blog from underway. The posting I sent yesterday in the night, I had to post manually. Cheez. I hope we’ll not again run into problems with our website – we would be unable to post from underway….

For more details, click the image or ‘The route’ up in the menue.

Well, we’re moving our house again. Somehow sad because Galapagos was really fantastic. But we already gave away our passports to get the necessary stamps and tomorrow we’ll pull the iron out of the sand and set sails.

Towards the Marquesas (yes, that destination is now clear !), across the “Big Blue”. – 3000 miles without stop. And without the possibility of a stop. But we’ve done good shopping and I’ve got two new fishhooks. Should be good.

The day after tomorrow we’ll might do another posting with pictures from the Isla Isabela (if we find internet there). Otherwise there will be our daily posts via shortwave radio as soon as we start the crossing.

Sensitive people and rat lovers: Don’t klick the last picture !!

The day passes with a lot of music. As planned, the skipper started to learn Guitar when entering the Pacific. The kids accompany his first musical steps with melodica and E-piano. All that while in the aft, the capitana arches because of her stomache cramps.
But this night we have a different plan: As Elvis obviously enjoys a very healthy diet, we’ll put a piece of banana in the trap and place that on the saloon table. To help the crew get sleepy we finally do a movie night – it’s been a long time. At 22hrs everybody is in the bunks and fast asleep.

At around 03h in the morning, the always watchful skipper awakenes and has to pee… – As I weasel through the dark saloon I noticed the trap has moved slightly ! And in the faint moonlight I thought I could see something small and round beside the trap. Maybe Elvis isn’t all that clever and we… I turn on the light and see the rat run to the far side of the saloon table. He again managed to get the food out of the trap and he only lost ONE whisker (!) when the trap snapped ! But now he’s behaving like most Galapagos animals and shows no fear of humans. He just sits at the table and stares at me while I – without turning away my eyes, I reach behind my back to get the machete we used the evening bevore to open coconuts. I lift it above my head – one stoke ! And I put a 1cm deep cut into our saloon table – and Elvis does his last twitch. I throw our former crew member over bord and hear the capitana sigh in her sleep. Next day her stomach ache is gone.

What I find funny about this somehow morbid story: The Galapagos are some of the strictest islands when it comes to quarantine rules. It’s pretty impossible to enter these islands with an animal aboard. Even to bring fruit or vegetables is not always easy. But it is exactly here that we and the SY Mares managed to get a rat on our ships. Hmmm. Maybe we should reverse those quarantine rules to protect the sailors ?

The last days were dominated by farewells. First the SY Papillon – a beautiful 57″ ketch from the states started towards the Marquesas. Next day the SY Tamora weighted anchor. Dieter and Silke made a short stopover at the Isla Isabela and now are underway to the Gambier Islands. The day before yesterday our swiss anchor – neighbor set sail. Esti, Mario and Laura also started with destination Gambiers but they might try to make a stop at the Easter islands, if the wind is favorable. Especially the last parting was very hard for our kids as they were good friends with Laura. Bruno was extremely sad when she finally got into the watertaxi and went home aboard her catamaran.

I think we’ll stay a few more days here at San Cristobal but slowly it get’s a little to cold. Funny. We’re as close to the equator as you can get but it’s cold. That’s the Humboldt current. The water temperature was 31 degrees in Panama and Costa Rica. When we reached Galapagos we had 26 degrees but that dropped to a chilling 22 degrees during the last week ! First it’s too hot, now too cold. It’s really not easy to get it right for the LosLocos. Hehehe.

And it was a good decision ! The camping site was wild and lonesome – the beach of Puerto Chino is completely isolated and we had it all for ourselves. Only us, plenty of animals and the sea that smashed it’s waves onto the beach. The most beautiful music to fall asleep.

The kids had lots of fun with the white/grey sand and with the big waves that were fun to play with. We climbed the small hill nearby, searched the surroundings for animals and watched the pelicans feed their young ones.

On the way to the beach we climbed up the volcano and saw the lagoon in it’s crater and we visited the station where they care for the giant turtles. On the way back we stopped at a giant tree with a house in it’s twigs. – There is also another room down in between the roots. One has to climb down a ladder through a hole. The kids loved it ! – And we had a great weekend AND Gui could test her surf board. More pics on that in another blog post…

I didn’t put any pics of Iguanas and Sea lions as we already had enough of them.

So we made Pizza and had a few drinks and next day Gui was REALLY lucky and managed to organize her birthday present: A surfboard !!!

At first we thought it would be impossible since new boards are too expensive for us. But we found a used one for 90USD and of course immediately made the deal. Sunday we’ll go camping for one night to Puero Chino and then Gui will give it a first try ! Yay !!

Thanks to the dirty Diesel it is that a few days ago we had to enter the anchorage of San Cristobal without engine. The main sail was just put away and we were about to turn portside into the harbour when the engine died. We quickly got the Genoa out and put up the main sail again, after which we came about and set a course upwind, passing the first reef and closing in on the second shoal. After passing that one, we steered hard on the wind to get to a good position in the anchorage. Passing in between the many charter boats. – Should be ok. But what’s that ? Why is that ship (at anchor !) moving forward ?!? No, now we can’t pass in front, whe have to go behind it. But will we have enough room to get to our anchor position ?

So we pass at the stern. And we hardly have enough room to pass the SY Mares. But it’s ok. We remove the Genoa, continue for a few meters, luff up and throw the anchor. It grabs ! We lower the sail and open a beer. Yay ! We made it to Galapagos – action included !

And tomorrow I’ll again have a look at our fuel filters. Probably they are again cloaked with bacteria-mud.  What can we do ? Maybe a few bottles of Grotamar82 will fall from the sky ? Otherwise, we’ll try to use the engine as little as possible and try not to depend on it. Maybe I can install a little 3-way-valve and put a small 10l tank above the engine. That should be enough for emergencies and is easier to clean – and keep clean. Let’s see, whether I can find the parts for that here on Galapagos.

Thanks, SY Mares for the pictures !

After our dramatic arrival in the anchorage (a blog post with pics of that will follow !) We soon were greeted by an agent and the authorities. Soon after we missed about 600USD but had clearance for staying 20 days at the island. As the whole archipelago is a national park, everything is quite restricted and one can not sail around with his own ship. On can’t even take the dingy to the beach ! But – well, there are boat taxis for 1USD per (grown up) person.

The first day we went to the beach, together with the crews of SY Tamora, SY Mares and another sailing vessel with two kids aboard. The beach was fantastic and we finally were snorkeling again – after more than two months without touching the ocean. Unfortunately on that day we had quite huge waves and thus the underwater sight was poor. No turtles for us. – Only a few sea lions in the water. And those were more interested in the fish…

But it was great anyway. Everywhere you look, you see beauty. The black, grey and red volcanic stones at the beach for example. Together with the bright green bushes it makes a fantastic background for any kind of picture. And the marine iguanas – well I could take hundreds of photos. Amazing creatures, scary looking but harmless and they are everywhere !

Just as the sea lions. They are everywhere. Everywhere in the town, on the benches, in the boats and dinghies, at the beach. Luckily our boat has no bathing platform and also a high freeboard, so the sea lions cannot enter. But all our friends already had them in the cockpit or on the foredeck. Hehehe. Today I took the sailing dinghy to town – hopefully no sealion sleeps inside, when I get back in a few minutes.

As you can see, I also posted all the missing blog posts of the last week. Our f****** server again managed to screw with us. Really frustrating !!

LATITUDE: 00-17.32S, LONGITUDE: 089-08.21W, COURSE: 223T, SPEED: 4.8, WIND: S5, DISTANCE TO DEST: 46nm

Woohoooo !!! We just crossed ‘The Line’ ! At 18:31h UTC we crossed the Aequator at the longitude of 88 degrees and 44 minutes. The countdown was a lot of fun because we told the kids that on the south side of course everything is the other way around and you’re with the feet on the ceiling an the head is downwards. Although the kids did not really believe that nonsense but nonethless prepared themselfes, lying down at the floor with the feet up in the air – just in case.
Up until now everything is quite the same. The water still turns the same way when we flush the toilet and we still walk with our feet on the floor. And it seems, tomorrow we’ll be in Galapagos. Yay !

Gut geplant ist halb verloren. So geht doch der Spruch, oder ? Na auf jeden Fall haben wir heute verloren – ein kleines Privatrennen mit einer anderen Segelyacht, die wir heute im Morgengrauen an Backbord querab hatten, welche aber schon eine Stunde spater vor uns am Horizont verschwand. Tja. Dafuer haben die keine private Muschelzucht mit ! Wir schon – immer wenn uns nach Krustentieren ist, muessen wir nur schnell mal unter’n Rumpf tauchen und schon haben wir genug Eiweis fuer eine Mahlzeit beisammen. Dass uns das auf dieser Reise sicher 1-2 Tage gekostet hat, das muss man als Delikatessenliebhaber halt hinnehmen.
Mal eben ein franzoesisches Butterkeks in den Kaffe getaucht. Mmmmhhh. Also zur Planung: Diese war fuer diesen Toern echt mal gut gelungen ! Gestern hatten wir die letzte Banane, heute haben wir Avocados und Gurken aufgegessen und fuer morgen und uebermorgen gibt’s noch Tomaten, Zwiebeln, Kartoffeln und Limetten. Letztere werden dann fuer’n Anlege-Drink wichtig. An diesen denken wir immer oefter. Der Wind ist uns naemlich treu und so sehr kann uns unser Privatriff am Kiel gar nicht bremsen, dass wir nicht uebermorgen ankommen ! So sind’s zur Zeit noch 155 Meilen, bis San Christobal und der Kurs passt haarscharf. Auch hier nochmal gut geplant. Also das Aufkreuzen nach Sued und den anschliessenden Kurs, der eigentlich anfangs noch etwas zu hoch war. Aber die geniale Langzeitplanung beinhaltete einen kleinen Winddreher auf Sued bzw. Suedsuedost und dieser kam auch heute, somit fahren wir genau auf’s Ziel zu.
Ein wenig einsam sind wir hier. Haben noch kein einziges Kommentar auf unsere Blogeintraege bekommen. Und am Satphone ruft auch niemand an. Kann ich aber verstehen, ist einfach zu teuer… So. Jetzt suche ich noch ein schoenes Bildchen raus und hoffe, dass uns jemand eine Zeile schickt…

Ah, zum Bild, welches unser Webmaster hoffentlich nachtraeglich einfuegt: Wir hatten nachts Besuch an Bord. Ein ‘Red-footet Booby’ (lat.: Sula Sula) ist um 04h morgens auf der Reling am Bug gelandet und blieb dort die ganze nacht sitzen. Erst zum Fruehstueck, welches um 12h Bordzeit stattfand, hat er sich wieder hinfortgemacht. Und auch wenn wir ja gaaar nicht aberglaeubisch sind, aber ein Vogel an Bord bringt nun mal Glueck. Da freut man sich !

LATITUDE: 00-51.32N, LONGITUDE: 087-45.62W, COURSE: 227T, SPEED: 3.9, WIND: S3, DISTANCE TO DEST: 153nm

LATITUDE: 01-41.60N, LONGITUDE: 086-44.22W, COURSE: 257T, SPEED: 3.6, WIND: SSW3, DISTANCE TO DEST: 232nm

LATITUDE: 02-38.81N, LONGITUDE: 084-32.41W, COURSE: 241T, SPEED: 3.2, WIND: SSW3, DISTANCE TO DEST: 371nm

LATITUDE: 03-06.81N, LONGITUDE: 083-25.81W, COURSE: 247T, SPEED: 3.2, WIND: SSW3, DISTANCE TO DEST.:442nm

My brother will post the previous blog entries, so I don’t have to write everything that happened during the trip. So we’re still far away from Galapagos and we don’t get much closer despite trying really hard. The wind is blowing from SSW – which is exactly the location of the islands. The current comes with 1.3 knots from the west, so it seems we’re already in the aequatorial counter current. Our idea is to try to get as far south as possible to maybe escape that current and then sail westward towards our destination.
We saw a couple of dolphins and the first birds from Galapagos: Swallow tailed gulls (Larus furcatus) to be precise. We also have followers: a small group of rainbow runners is swimming alongside the Rancho Relaxo. But despite all tries of Bruno – with different baits. These fish won’t bite ! As we were quite hungry we then had the excellent idea to use the harpoon and shoot them, as they’re only half a meter in the water. But no luck. And after we’ve been trying for about an hour, the line of the harpoon broke and we lost the dart !
But even when this trip is a little frustrating, everyone is well (again) and we still have hope to reach San Christobal in time to see the crews of SY Tamora and SY Mares again.

LATITUDE: 03-35.58N, LONGITUDE: 083-13.34W, COURSE: 138T, SPEED: 4.0, WIND: S3-4, DISTANCE TO DEST: 468nm

LATITUDE: 05-56.34N, LONGITUDE: 083-14.06W, COURSE: 135T, SPEED: 3.8, WIND: S3-4, DIST TO GALAPAGOS: 560nm

LATITUDE: 06-36.12N, LONGITUDE: 083-32.74W, COURSE: 356T, SPEED: 0.6,
WIND:0, DISTANCE TO DEST: 577nm

LATITUDE: 07-05.69N, LONGITUDE: 083-18.93W, COURSE: 160T, SPEED: 3.5, WIND: SW3, MILES TO DEST: 609

]]> http://www.loslocos.org/2012/06/20/erster-tag-auf-dem-weg-nach-galapagos-3/feed/ 0 7.0948334 -83.3154984 http://www.loslocos.org/2012/06/19/off-we-are-towards-galapagos/ http://www.loslocos.org/2012/06/19/off-we-are-towards-galapagos/#comments Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:48:22 +0000 dafdaf http://www.rancho-relaxo.at/?p=2879 Continue reading →]]> Ready to go. We finally were able to clear out and do all the paperwork. We got about 20 kilos of fresh fruits and vegetables, the kids had a final ice cream and now that the the tide is turning, it’s time for us to get going.

We’ll try to get rid of the green stuff that started growing around the Rancho Relaxo during the last weeks so we’ll maybe be a little faster. The wind will not be *that* bad. It seems we’ll have a force 3 from west for the first days. That way we’ll go south as far as possible and then head west for the islands. Well, we’ll see…. We’ll keep you informed.

Today I posted a couple of not so nice photos – showing some of mine mosquito stings. (And these are NOT the worst I’ve got !) These nasty little creatures somehow don’t get along well with our european blood. The stings get infectious and red and we have little wounds that excrete water and stay for more than one week. Only Bruno, Viola and me have these – it seems Gui’s got antibodies. It also only started when we came to Costa Rica; we didn’t have problems in Panama. Another reason to get going quite soon. Because even with smoke coils, sprays and mosquito nets we still get bitten sometime.

Today I spent most of the time up the mast and pulled the radar cable out to reconnect it. But without success – the radar antenna still isn’t working. I checked and measured the connections of our ST40 gyro-compass that’s also mounted up the mast. But we’ve only got readings in between 0.5 and 1 Megaohm. The resistance should be: Red to Green: 4-10 ohm, Red to Yellow: 4-10 ohm, Green to Yellow: 8-10 ohm, Screen to Blue: 8-10 ohm, all other combinations OC.
So I take, the compass is also dead&gone. Which means 66% of our Raymarine gear stopped working after one year. Well, well. We’ll manage without…

When we pulled the radar cable up the mast we damaged the LAN-cable of our wireless antenna on the mast, so I had to re-solder that as well. While doing this, our soldering iron broke. Not exactly a successful work day, eh ?

To put an alarm to counter this natural requirement would feel wrong somehow. But it also makes me think: Maybe it’s the heat during the daytime that’s soaking up all our energy ?

Anyway. Soon we’ll be at sea again and then our watches will bring order to our sleeping habits. We’ll be at the lookout for other ships and trimming the sails while the other one will be dozing downstairs. That way it’s a maximum of six hours of solid sleep during the nighttime and the kids’s will take care that we don’t get too much rest during the day. ;-)

The mast-climbing action was delayed because today we don’t have cloud cover and I’d probably get burnt by our black anodized mast. But nonethless we managed to do something useful: We took the Rancho Relaxo to the neighbouring marina and got 205 Liters of the (allegedly) finest Diesel. As our fuel tank was nearly empty we now finally know it’s capazity: 125 Liters it is. And another 80 Liters we carry in jerrycans. That will enable us to motor for nearly three days straight. Not too much as we’ve got 720 miles to cover with the current and wind against us – but comforting nonethless.

After half a day of work the cable was finally where it’s supposed to be and it also seems to work. Although we’ve still have to test it with an active Radar in the vincinity. I also installed a pre-filter in the seawater system to protect the pump in the kitchen and the watermaker from bigger parts entering through the hose. We put the bolt holding the forestay that keeps moving to the starbord side back to where it belongs, we put a new switch for the electric bilge pump, refilled engine oil, etc.

Yesterday I also took the kerosene stove apart and cleaned everything so now both flames work perfectly again. Tomorrow we’ll try to repair the electronic kompass, reconnect the Radar and fix a couple of other minor things…. But then, I guess on monday we’re finally ready to leave ! Yay !

Yesterday – against all odds, we managed to aquire all needed parts for our new tank ventilation and fuel outlet. We got five pre and five fine filters for the fuel and ten bottles of anti-bacteria treatment. We also installed the new fuel gauge that’s connected to our blue sea battery and tank monitor. Now all’s set. Tomorrow we’ll do another few little improvements and replace a leaking screw in the fine filter but hey – the bigger part is done. Uff ! Now I’m gonna relax with a beer in my hand and the view over Golfito bay.

Since there is not much to do here in Golfito, exept for buying parts for the boat… well, we stayed inside quite almost the whole time. Every evening we had a little chat on the bench in the terrasse, wondering what do people actually do in this lost corner of the world, at the border between Costa Rica and Panama, with heavy humidity and heat the whole day and the whole night. But the good thing is, we worked a lot on my label Coquito the time we where together… we discussed new ideas for the coming collections and skyped a lot with Annette, our college in Berlin.

And of course, Bruno and Viola where extremely happy to have her near and spend 24h/24h with their “memé”. That made also the farewell a little sad, and they cryed a lot, saying they wanted to go back to Argentina with her – their plan was that we would come and pick up them a couple of days later-  :) So, mum, it was great to have you here, even you didn’t put a foot on the Rancho Relaxo this time !

I then disconnected all hoses and openend our fuel tank to have a first look. Definately bacterias. And lots of them ! I pumped the rest of the dirt into the jerrycans and swiped the whole tank clean. Then I started dismounting the fuel in- and outlets and cleaned all these parts. I discovered that the fuel outlet was a pipe-in-a-pipe and only held in place by a piece of rubber !! – And the fuel meter, which is stainless steel was mounted inside an aluminium (!!) pipe. How anyone doing business with boats would put an aluminium pipe inside a stainless stell tank is a mystery to me. I just think of it as another solved legacy problem.

I also discovered the reason for our mess: It was the diesel we got from the Flamenco Bay Marina ! (Thanks guys !) When I looked into the jerrycans, we filled in the marina, there was about half a liter of diesel left. After a week in the sun, one clearly could see the mud/bacteria seperating down at the bottom. Our problems during our last journey also only started after we put that diesel into our tank. Well, well…..

Now I’m gonna go into town to look whether the new fuel filters have arrived, thereafter I’ll put everything together again.

ps: Yes, we consistently use anti-bacteria additive for our fuel. Unfortunately not the good Grotamar 82, because it’s not available here…

There’s everything there from Cabo Verde and the Atlantic Crossing, our whole trip through the Caribbean up until our last trip towards Costa Rica. Enjoy.

So it’s to no one’s surprise that we forget birthdays and not even realize that we’ve been underway for one year and five days already ! And thus it’s time for a little résumé.

But where should I begin ? As always, a few numbers will get me started: Since we left Berlin on the 2nd of June 2011, we’ve been sailing on 137 days and stayed at anchor on 228 days. In that time, we’ve covered 8843 nautical miles – or 16377 km – which is about a quarter of our planned route around the globe.

Many things have changed since we left. In the beginning it was quite hard for us to be comfortable with such little space and limited ressources. But now we’ve got used to this permanent living in camping-style.  We learned to cook with exoctic foods, learned to fish with the line or the harpoon and can fix things with improvised tools. Gui and me reallocated some of our body-fat and transformed some into muscles. So we didn’t really loose weight but feel a lot more fit and healthy. With the kids that’s not an issue but they are very happy and balanced and are never ill anymore. They enjoy being in the nature with the family and friends but they (and we) miss our family a lot and of course also our friends at home.

But the most change we experienced is in our sailing abilities. Gui and me both just have the minimum sailing-license and only had 2500nm (me) and 500nm (Gui) of sailing experience before we left. If it would’ve been 100nm, the difference wouldn’t have mattered because all we think to know about sailing, we learned on this trip ! A voyage of 50 miles was a long one when we left – now when we sail, say, from DomRep to Panama (800 miles) we hardly do any preparations. We leave as we are and don’t give it much thought, as we’ll be there in a week anyway. In the beginning we only felt safe and comfortable when we were in a marina or harbour; now we try to stay at anchor whenever we can. One has more privacy, doesn’t have to pay, the wind always comes from the front and one can jump into the water if it’s too hot.

If you would beam us back to Berlin right now – what would we do differently ? Well, we still would leave with all the chaos and a half-prepared ship as there is plenty of time underway to fix and improve things ! We would probably stay on sea until we reach La Coruña, maybe make a stopover in Morocco but then spend 4-5 months in Senegal, Gambier and Guinea Bissau ! Europe we’d skip entirely. There’s nothing new there – we know the culture, the cities, the people. It only got really interesting once we reached Cabo Verde. And  this archipelago really was one of the highlights of our journey so far.  The trip through the Caribbean was great, but we’d skip Barbados, Antigua and the DomRep and would spend a lot more time in Grenada and the Grenadines, probably go down to Tobago (not Trinidad !), Venezuela and Colombia. Yeyeye. Would, should, had…. Anyway: Afrika rocks !

In the end the route is not too important since most people will discover their real preference while underway and everyone will have different experiences. We had friends that we’ve saild with for quite some time and although we seem to get along very well, they sometimes hated a place that we loved and the other way around. I guess, everyone will discover different things, even in the same countries. Plans increasingly become subject to change, the longer one is underway. I think it’s good to have a general idea when one would like to be where, but don’t get too specific. The longer you’re underway, the more vague the plans get. Right now we’re thinking of spending the taifun season in the Tuamotus and plan for a work-stopover in New Zealand. Although we initially didn’t want to go there at all. What’s really gonna happen, you will probably be able to read here on this blog.

We would definately want to do the trip with the Rancho Relaxo of the Seas again ! The ship is absolutely amazing ! It’s got enough space for us and our things, sails not as slow as one would think and is strong as a tank – in short, we love it !

Obviously those two were taken by me:

After spending another night adrift just outside of the bay of Golfito, the wind picked up in the morning. We sailed towards our destination slowly but steadily. While entering the golf, the wind shifted to southwest and we got the Blister up to increase speed. The tide was still with us and kept pushing with 1.5 knots from behind – but soon it would turn around and we would sail backward.

Both wind and current stayed with us right up to the entrance of Golfito – and exactly here the tide turned and the wind died. We were pushed outwards, back into the golf again. What to do ? Well, get the dinghy and outboard into the water and try to pull the Rancho Relaxo into the bay. But this was way harder than imagined. With the small dinghy and a four (!) hoursepower engine, we only made 0.4 knots. Two fishermen in a bigger dinghy were close by and we asked them for help. Two minutes later we were underway, doing two knots and feeling safe again.

Dorian and Heiner turned out to be not only helpful but absolutely amazing guys ! After pulling our 12 ton vessel for half an hour, they refused to take any money and only wanted fuel for the outboard. And after staying and chatting for a while, they even gave a big bag of camarones and a few fish for us !! Now that’s a lovely welcome, isn’t it ?

LATITUDE: 08-17.99N, LONGITUDE: 083-06.79W, COURSE: 008T, SPEED: 3.2, WIND: S 2

LATITUDE: 07-47.24N, LONGITUDE: 082-39.16W, COURSE: 333T, SPEED: 1.6, WIND: SSW 1-2

LATITUDE: 07-27.57N, LONGITUDE: 082-06.02W, COURSE: 302T, SPEED: 2.9, WIND: SW 2-3

LATITUDE: 07-08.80N LONGITUDE: 080-54.37W COURSE: 272T SPEED: 4.4

We hope that our paths will cross sometime in the future – with Bas, who will be in Europe now and with our friends that are now underway towards French Polynesia. The latter suffer the same problem we will have tomorrow: no wind. But at least we have the advantage that we’ll sail along the coast and we also will probably make a stop somewhere. Maybe the Isla Cohiba. Let’s see…. Maybe the forecast is wrong and we can sail. But otherwise we definately have not enough diesel to cover the 360 miles that lay ahead of us.

The rest of today we spent searchinf for new oars for our dinghy, shopping for fresh vegetables and fruits as well as a birthday present for Bruno, who will turn six in a few weeks. Probably we’ll re-schedule the celebration to party together with his grandmother, who will come and visit us in Golfito.

Well, there’s not much more to say. Next time I write, we’ll hopefully be underway towards Costa Rica.

I’ll not write much as everybody is quite tired and we’ll have a farewell-dinner with Bas tonight. Tomorrow at this time, he’ll already be in Amsterdam and I guess after one week he’ll start missing the Caribbean. ;-) Too sad the time has passed that rapidly, we would have loved to have him on bord a little longer…

Uuuuh, and I forgot to mention something really important: VIOLA CAN SWIM !!! – She started swimming (dog-style) when we were in the Shelter Bay marina (in the pool). And now that we were in salt water again it of course worked way better. Oh, we are sooooo glad that now both our kids can swim – probably the most important thing for a family that’s living on a sailboat.

The little village is really beautiful and quiet and everywhere it smells of flowers. Right now we’re at Ted’s Aqua Sol Villa and enjoy the fastest internet connection we’ve had in months. Tomorrow we’ll go at the beach again (after four weeks without) and on the 27th we have to be back in Panama City to bring our friend Bas to the airport.

Tomorrow we’ll finally have a day at the beach again – after four weeks that’s gonna be a real treat – especially for the children.

Sailing south towards the Galapagos islands means light to no wind. Going east brings no wind or headwind and this is where the next passage will lead us to. So we’re waiting for a little change in weather which is quite unlikely as we’re already in rain season. Towards Golfito in Costa Rica we’ve got to sail 350 miles. With a nice wind we would cover this in three days but right now you can only make use of the current and the land and sea breeze . This also would mean many stop overs and short trips in between. A way of sailing we’ve stopped to do since we left europe. After the first longer passages we discovered that it’s better to do longer trips but also stay put in one place for a few weeks instead of days or mere hours. Where ‘one place’ doesn’t have to mean one anchorage; for example, we consider Kuna Yala as ‘one place’.

Right now we’re anchored right in front of Panama City – I cannot stop looking at the skyscrapers with all their lights. Quite impressive to see and even more so after having spent many months without ever anchoring in front of a real city. But this skyline comes with a cost: the quality of the water here is really bad. Some go swimming – either because they have to or because one is clumsy – but usually that’s not a good idea. Skin irritations and little wounds that get infected are sometimes the price to be paid. There are a few places to eat and a shop down near the ‘dinghy dock’. I’ll definately have to take pictures of this amazing piece of craftsmanship: The dinghy dock is connected to the island by ‘ferry’ (a little red dinghy that you use to reach the stairs in the wall. Hehehe. The Island on the other side is connected to the mainland by a long road but there are no buses. As taxi is the only way to reach the city, we haven’t seen much of it until now, but maybe tomo rrow we’ll set out to get some of the things we’re in need of.

Here some quick unsorted pics from the passage. Big thanks to Stephi for the screenshots of the Miraflores webcam !

Tomorrow I’ll do a SPOT-message right in front of the Miraflores locks, so if somebody watches on the webcam, please do a screenshot for us, yes ?

The skipper could no longer idle around and grabbed screwdriver and steel brush to open around fifty little rust nests around the ship. Everything was taken care of with anti-rust and paint and three days later the ship looks a lot better. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish with the cover paint as today it was raining nearly constantly. – Well, this will have to wait, then…

Tomorrow at 13:00 we will be in the ‘flats’ to wait for our advisor. We should be in the Gatun lake tomorrow in the evening where we plan to have a barbecue on the mooring buoy. On monday sometime around 13-14h we should be in the Miraflores locks where you can see us on the webcam.

I get up in the middle of the night and go to take a cold shower. Afterwards I grab the camera and try to make a few night shots. But the mosquitos impede any attempt to keep still for longer than a few seconds. After a few pictures I flee back on our ship and try to find sleep before the temperature starts to rise again.

So we play a little with the water and empty our cans with water from Kuna Yala. We’ll fill them up again, when we reach the Gatún Lake.

Every day some boats are leaving for the Pacific and new ones arrive. tires and panama-lines are wheeled through the marina daily. And one always meets new and interesting people. Just as yesterday when we ran into Sabine and Heinz from Hamburg. They already sailed around the world once and are now on their second journey. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for the ship’s name, but I’ll do that today.

And now Bruno and me are gonna deflate the dinghy and maybe – if there should be no rain – we’ll do a little rust cleaning later on…

Friday we get ready and give our kids to the SY Mares, while Gui and me get aboard the Tamora to go to the ‘flats’ (the anchorage in front of Colón) where the advisor is to come aboard. We’re in a hurry as the time for the passage was moved from 16h to 14h and we still have to get some fuel. Bas, the fourth line handler could not be found in the hurry and was replaced by Marissa from the SY Tevakenui, who only had five minutes to prepare. :-)

We drop the anchor in the flats just in time and hand over Gui to the Kira that arrived yesterday. Thus all line handlers are on their ships and everybody is ready. Only the advisors are absent. It’s getting 14h… 15h…. 16h… we call the channel authority’s scheduler and get a big shock: We’ll not get through today, they re-scheduled us for tomorrow 16:00 ! Usually that wouldn’t be bad, but every ship has three additional crew aboard and we gave our kids to friends which makes things a little more complicated…  But we can’t change it and it has the advantage that we’ll be able to celebrate Tim’s 29th birthday on the Gatún lake, in between the Atlantic and Pazific !

Next day at 16:00h a big pilot boat closes in and drops of a very friendly advisor. Just two minutes later we’re on our way to the Gatún locks, where just in front of the first one, we go alongside with the Kira to form a pack of two ships. A big freighter from the Philipines is going into the lock in front of us and seconds later the monkey fists are thrown towards us. We connect the lines to ours and get into position in the first of three locks on the atlantic side. The lines are pulled up and as soon as they are tied up, the lock closes and water flushes in.

Everything runs smooth and we’re through all three locks just before sunset. We drive a few minutes into the Gatún lake and tie up to a big mooring buoy. The Kira goes alongside and only minutes later we jump into the lake to have our first bath in a sweet water lake since a long time.

We have a excessive birthday party and when the advisor arrives at 06:15h in the morning, nobody has had any sleep. :-) With small eyes covered under sunglasses, we enter the ‘Banana Cut’ (a shortcut) and sail slowly in between little islands covered with rain forest, while we try to catch up with our sleep. At around noon we arrive at the first lock on the pazific side and again everything runs smooth while we go down the three locks together with the Kira.

Big smiles on all faces as the last lock is openend and we slowly enter the Pazific ! Silke gets out some champagne she brought from Germany especially for that occasion. We sail around Balboa and drop the anchor in between SY Kira and SY Thor, in front of the amazing skyline of Panama City. Soon after we start our voyage back with the bus and arrive in Colón just before sunset. We are greeted enthusiasticly by our kids, have a final beer in the marina bar and fall into the bunks very early in the evening. In a few days we will do the passage again, this time with the Rancho Relaxo. Hope that everything runs just as smooth.

We pay a visit to a beauty saloon and the captain looses about 0.5kg of hair and looks like a human again. Viola also gets a haircut and her nails done and Gui enjoys a pedicure. Now we go back to the hotel and have a nice dinner together with Gui’s father.

Next day we start our search for a competent optican to get new optical sunglasses for me. The last pair, I got anew in the canaries but lost them while crossing the Atlantic ocean. As we’re already here, the kids also get their eyes tested and everything is ok !

The city itself we don’t like too much. Although we used to live in big cities the last years, right now we’re quite overwhelmed by the noise, the dirt and the stress in this city. Ok, we didn’t visit the nicer parts of Panama City but still, I’d rather do without air conditioning but hear the birds sing and the monkeys howl in the djungle, instead of the constant honking in the city. The traffic is actually quite amazing: Despite us being quite used to the latin american way of driving, the way the buses plow through the streets is still frightening. It’s a fight for every place at the traffic light and people in smaller cars better stay behind, otherwise they’ll loose…

Back in the marina, we meet Dieter and Silke from the Tamora, who felicitously prepare for their passage tomorrow. I’ll be on their ship as a line handler and Gui will go with the Kira on the same day. The kids will spend two days on the SY Mares in the mean time. Beside the Mares is a free space now: Laura Decker also took her SY Guppy into the Pacific. And I’m reading on the web that our friends from the Hitch-Hike-Heidi started their voyage back across the Atlantic. The Roede Orm reached the mainland of Europe again and the Chiloe is about 600nm away from Uruguay.

And of course we again changed our plans for the next days. With the weather like it is all paint jobs are impossible and so we’ll have to do without antifouling until we reach a place that is a little dryer. While the small rust patches along the waterline we might be able to do when there are a few hours of sunshine and no water movement… Someone mentioned a possibility to haul out the ship in the Tuamotus but we don’t yet know where that is exactly. Maybe somewone who knows could drop us an email…

Yesterday the SY Mares arrived and Bruno and Viola were extremely contented to see Laura again. The three spent the whole evening chasing crabs on the jetties and swimming and diving in the marina pool until 23h in the night. Right now we’re doing school and afterwards we’ll visit Laura to probably go to the pool again. Hehehe.

After seven months that we spent on islands we’ve now put our feet on a continent for the first time since leaving Portugal. Right now we lie in the Shelter Bay Marina where our kids spend the day in the pool and the djungle begins right after exiting through the marina door and one can hear howler monkeys and lots of birds all day. There are crocodiles (!!) in the harbour water and we meet many sailors that we ran into on other islands in the Caribbean. All discussions are about the channel, the date when to leave and what is still to be done at the ship. Really pleasent to be with many other sailors again.

And we’ve been very busy since arriving: We’ve done all paperwork for the passage, the ship is measured and fenders and panama-lines are rented. We also did our biggest shopping until now and got groceries for about 900 dollars on board. Enough to last until Tahiti we hope. Gui was at the doctors and got antibiotics for her otitis of the middle ear – so in the next weeks there’s medicine instead of snorkeling…

Tomorrow we’ll leave the marina and sail towards Portobello where we’d like to persuade the Kira to follow us into the Rio Chagres. And as soon as we know the date for the passage into the Pacific, we go back to Colon to get the Rancho Relaxo out of the water and do new antifouling and take care of a few little rust patches on the waterline. Mmmmh.

We’ve been to the Cayos Limón, Cayos Holandes, the ‘pool’, back to Cayos Holandes West and back to Cayos Limón. We went hunting with the speargun and had nice fish for dinner, we saw big rays and we saw our first shark while snorkeling ! – A nurse shark with about two meters length; it’s not dangerous, they say.

On another day I helped an italian skipper to get out a grouper with about 35 kilos. Amazing fish and very tasty !!

Too bad, our friends have no more time. Today the sun is blasting again and we could stay for another while. – but – we will leave for Porvenir today, to clar out of San Blas. Tonight or tomorrow we’ll sail towards Colón to get our ship out of the water and do anti-fouling and fresh paint. After that we’ll prepare for the canal passage.

We have two guests for holiday and they are thinking of filing a complaint with the panamesian tourism board: The weather is unusually BAD !! Since they two arrived, we’ve got one day of sun, the rest was *very* windy and rainy. Dark clouds run past us and the wind is howling in the rigging. (It rains so much, the dinghy is 50% full after one night !)
From Cayos Limon we went to Cayos Holandes West, where we spent the last few days waiting for better weather. As the swell went too big and the movement of the ship got uncomfortable, we drove through the rain towards the ‘pool’, where we are now at anchor, safely covered with reefs around us, so no big waves here.
We’re doing watersports, going sailing with Pinguin in 6 Beaufort with two grown ups aboard, going snorkeling in the rain and generally opening and closing all windows of the ship 20 times a day. Well, the Kunas on Turtle Island say, the weather’s gonna improve after two more days of rain, so Andy and Yoko might be lucky and see these amazing islands in sunlight again.

The last two weeks were beautiful. – Being together with our friends, diving together, having parties or just talking about everything there is… But now all started to go west towards Portobello and Colon, to start the tiresome paperwork connected with the canal passage. We on the other side will have visitors and we’ll stay two more weeks in these beautiful islands of Kuna Yala.

So right now, we’re not doing much and hang around in the Cayos Limón. Tomorrow, we’ll sail to Carti where Gui will leave with a 4×4 to go to Panama City, where she’ll pick up her brother and his girlfriend.

Otherwise there isn’t much happening here. – The wind has disappeared again and it’s incredibly hot and moist. The only chance to not go crazy is to spend as much time as possible in the water. Heh.

Right now we’re back in the western, ‘civilized’ part of Kuna Yala and are at anchor at the Cayos Limon. And there’s a little bar at the beach that has satellite connection and internet – unbelievable.

Well. Enough talk… Here come a few pics from our crossing of the Caribbean Sea:

Anfangs war die Anchorage ja etwas voll und vor allem haben die Generatoren der groesseren Schiffe uns genervt. Nun aber gehoert der Platz zwischen den drei Inseln uns alleine und das diesige Wetter der letzten Tage wurde von einer leichten Passatwindbrise weggeblasen. Die Passatwoelkchen stauen sich im Gebirge an der Kueste, wo es im Dschungel taeglich regnet.
Dorthin sind Gestern auch SY Kira und SY Thor aufgebrochen, nach Nargana. Dies ist die einzige Insel, welche nachts beleuchtet ist. Somit die einzige mit Stromanschluss. Angeblich soll es dort ja sogar Internet geben, bislang haben wir von unseren Freunden aber noch keine Bestaetigung bekommen. Die Insel selbst ist im Vergleich nicht schoen und das Wasser wegen des nahen Rio Diablo natuerlich nicht so klar wie hier, sondern gruen und voll mit Leben aus dem Dschungel. Wir bleiben also erst mal hier, denn bei den Temperaturen, die nur Nachts mal kurz unter 30 Grad gehen, muessen wir viel Zeit im Wasser verbringen. Anderenfalls wird man bekloppt. Dazwischen machen wir Ausfluege mit Pinguin zu den Nachbarinseln – Gestern hatte ich die ‘zwei-Palmen-Insel’ mal begutachtet. Die hat einen Durchmesser von ca. 15 Metern und es stehen – zwei Palmen – drauf. Sonst ist da nix. Irre !!

Jeden Tag gibt’s mal ein Gespraech ueber die Schoenheit der Inseln, wie schwierig es ist, sich als Indianervolk behutsam an die westliche ‘Zivilisation’ anzunaehern und vor allem, dass dies wohl einer der schoensten Orte unserer gesamten Reise sein wird. Denn auch die Inseln im Pazifik werden dies nicht um viel toppen koennen und angesichts solcher Vergleiche fragt man sich dann auch schnell mal, warum man ueberhaupt weiter fahren sollte und wohin diese Reise denn fuehren soll.
Warum sind wir auf dieser Reise und was versuchen wir zu finden ? Diese Fragen gehen uns oft durch den Kopf. Und die Antworten fallen je nach Gemuetsverfassung stets anders aus. Eines ist auf jeden Fall sicher: Fuer eine junge Familie und vor allem fuer die Kinder ist eine derartige Reise eine unglaubliche Bereicherung. Alles andere ist sekundaer.

Am Aussenriff liegt ein eindrucksvolles Schiffswrack, welches vermutlich auch fuer die Oelklumpen am Nachbarstrand verantwortlich zeichnet. Nach einem kurzen (10 Minuten !) Rundgang um die Insel hatten wir die Oelklumpen an unseren Fusssohlen nicht bemerkt und haben so unser Dinghy ordentlich versaut. Aceton hat’s aber wieder gut gemacht.
Und wie’s manchmal so kommt, landeten Gestern dann irgendwie alle Freunde aus der Anchorage auf der Rancho Relaxo. Nach Sonnenuntergang trafen die Crews der oben beschriebenen Boote, sowie von SY Amigo, SY Bora und SY Quizas bei uns ein. Zwei Guitarren und ein Schifferklavier, mehrere Flaschen Rum, sieben verschiedene Nationen und fuenf verschiedene Sprachen sorgen fuer einen lustigen Abend. Und das Cockpit der RR. war mit 15 Personen auch mal richtig gut befuellt.
Katerstimmung kam am naechsten Tag nicht auf, gegen halb acht am Morgen wurden wir von einem Gewitter geweckt und der Skipper huschte wie ein Blitz um’s Boot, verschloss in Windeseile die Luken und begann die Kanister mit dem kostbaren Nass zu fuellen. Trotz amateurhafter Technik haben wir in wenigen Minuten ueber 60 Liter Regenwasser aufgefangen und im Dinghy stehen nochmal so viel bereit zum spaeteren Waeschewaschen.
So und jetzt gibt’s erst mal Fruehstueck.

** So, hier muss man sich dann acht voellig unglaubliche Bilder von den traumhaftesten Inseln ueberhaupt vorstellen. Leider kann ich hier keine schicken, aber IHR habt ja Internet und koennt sie euch trotzdem auf Picasa oder wo anschauen. Ah ! Ich im uebrigen auch. Muss nur vom Bildschirm aufblicken. Hahaha. **

Das Ankommen war traumhaft. Mit gut fuenf Bft. im Ruecken sind wir die letzten 180sm nur mit Genua gesegelt und hatten zuletzt folgende Etamale (Seemeilen von Schiffsmittag bis Schiffsmittag 12h UTC): 120 – 120 – 120 !!! Nicht der perfekte Koerper, aber dennoch wie ein Lottosechser. Hehehe. Wir haben uns bis auf den zweiten Tag nicht besonders verausgabtund haben dabei (bis auf das mittlerweile reparierte) Deflatable auch nichts kaputtghemacht. Den Salon haben wir am vorletzten Tag nochmal ordentlich mit Salzwasser gewaschen. Die Decksluke im Salon war offen und wir hatten mal wieder ein paar hundert Liter wasser geschoepft, dass von einer Seite des Dann zur anderen schwappt, wenn das Schiff kraengt. So macht man das !! Tja. Alko putzen ist sowieso angesagt, genau so wie das Thema Tiere an bord. Dazu ein ander mal mehr. Hahaha.

Ok wo war ich ? Ach ja. ganz huebsch hier. Bloedsinn !!! Voellig fantastisch ist das ! Fast wie eine Zeitreise die dann auch noch zufaellig an einen der schoensten Orte der Welt fuehrt ! Wir sind heute mit dem Segeldinghy die naechsten drei (!) Inseln abgefahren. Alles super kleine Schmuckstuecke, die man mit dem Beiboot schnell mal besuchen kann. Die Kuna sind aeusserst freundliche und offene Menschen und obwohl die Inselgruppe um El Porvenier auf keinen Fall zu den schoeneren unter im San Blas Archipel zaehlt, faengt einen die voellig andere Kultur mit den Frauen in ihren unglaublichen Trachten, der Haeuser aus Holz und Palmenblaettern, den Kanus, der Landschaft, den vielen Kindern einfach sofort ein. Das alles ist, wie aus einem alten schwarzweiss Film – nur halt in Farbe und 3D !! Aber das sind ja erst mal nur erste Eindruecke. Morgen werden wir nochmal mit dem Dinghy zwei Inseln weiter duesen und Obst holen, sofern’s denn welches gibt und dann segeln wir mit der Rancho Relaxo mal weiter Richtung Suedosten, dort s ind die naturbelasseneren Inseln. Wir haben schon Handys gesehen, aber Internet ist hier nicht. Leider gibt es also erst mal keine Bilder in naechster Zeit. Ich hoffe, da faellt uns was ein – Brieftauben mit Polaroid oder so…

El Porvenir ist ja auch einer der beiden Inseln, auf denen man hier einklarieren kann und hier kommt man normalerweise auch wegen des Flughafens her. Aber die Landebahn (auf der gerade mal etwa 600m langen Insel !!!) wird gerade mittels Saugbagger und Muschelsand etwas erweitert und so ist kein Flugverkehr bis mindestens Ende Mai (haha). Der Flughafen in Carti ist im uebrigen auch gesperrt, weil die Landebahn immer mit PKWs befahren wird (!!) und so wollen sie einen Unfall verhindern. Aber man kann mit dem Auto hierher, es gibt Kuna Taxis, die einen recht guenstig aus Panama City (oder nach !) bringen koennen. Ach ja – und wir haben schon gesehen: Die Entscheidung, Landfall gen Mittag zu machen war angeberacht ! Das Gebiet ist gespickt von kleinen Korallenriffen, Felsen, Sandbaenken und die sind teilweise so klein, da hat man kaum eine Chance. Uns hat’s heute mit dem Pinguin fast ‘aufgestellt’, als wir so eine seichte Stelle mit einem Brocken drin passierten. Viola ist bei dem Aufprall vom Bug ins Wasser gefallen, wurde aber einenhalb Meter weiter wieder aus dem Wasser gefischt. Ah – und Bruno ist heute das erste mal alleine, ohne alles in ‘tiefem’ Wasser geschwommen, also neben dem Schiff.

So. Das reicht mal fuer’s erste, jetzt kommt der verdiente Schlaf nach 861 Seemeilen.

LATITUDE: 10-12.05N LONGITUDE: 077-52.93W COURSE: 236T SPEED: 5.3 WIND: N4-5

Fischglueck hatten wir heute auf eine andere Art: Zuerst sahen wir jede Menge Fische – vermutlich Tunas – aus dem Wasser huepfen, was Bruno veranlasste den Tintenfischkoeder gegen einen ‘Plug’ (Koederfisch) zu tauschen und kurz darauf hatten wir zum ersten mal seit Barbados Delfine als Begleiter ! An der europaeischen Atlantikkueste waren ihre Kunststueckchen schon zum Alltag geworden, hier haben wir – und vor allem Bruno und Viola sie nach langer Abwesenheit ueberschwenglich begruesst und standen lange am Bugkorb. Sonst ist alles im Lot, das Bordleben hat sich eingespielt. Wir warten noch auf den grossen Schiffskonvoi richtung Panama-Canal, den werden wir vermutlich am Vormittag erleben. Bislang ist hier zum Glueck nicht viel los. Aktuell haben wir noch 162 Meilen bis Panama, sollten also in ca. eineinhalb Tagen ankommen.

LATITUDE: 11-17.97N LONGITUDE: 076-46.43W COURSE: 218T SPEED: 5.0 WIND: NE4-5

LATITUDE: 12-42.34N LONGITUDE: 075-56.36W COURSE: 228T SPEED: 5.1 WIND: NE4 Dist. to El Porvenir: 273nm

Auch kann ich berichten, dass gleichzeitig mit dem Stoppen der Rollbewegungen die Energie der Crew zurueckgekehrt ist ! Kann auch sein, dass es am beruehmten 2. Tag auf See oder an der erfrischenden Seewasserdusche lag. Auf jeden Fall haben die Kinder heute gemalt und gebastelt wie die Wilden. Bruno hatte einen MahiMahi an der Angel, der aber leider beim Einholen entkommen ist. Dies hat dafuer gesorgt, dass Bruno dann eine Stunde lang geschimpft hat. – Da kennt er keinen Spass ! Versoehnt hat er sich dann, in dem er zuerst ein Buch ueber Tropenfische und dann sein Lieblingsbuch: ‘The cruiser’s handbook of fishing’ durchgeblaettert hat. Vermutlich hat er sich neue Ideen fuer morgen geholt. Hehehe.

Zwei Schiffe haben wir heute auch gesehen ! Ein Tanker an Backbord und ein Frachter an Steuerbord. Beide haben uns mit ca. einer Meile Abstand passiert. Man merkt schon, dass wir uns dem Panama-Kanal naehern. Sonst ehen wir nie ‘so viele’ Schiffe.

LATITUDE: 14-05.11N LONGITUDE: 073-39.10W COURSE: 241 SPEED: 7.2 WIND: ENE4

POSITION: LATITUDE: 15-39.20N LONGITUDE: 071-51.60W COURSE: 234T SPEED: 4.6 WIND: NE4

POSITION: 16-52.36N, 070-28.78W, COURSE: 228, SPEED: 5.8kn, WIND: NE5

The trip is roughly 800 nautical miles and should therefore take us 7 or 8 days. We’ll have our sattelite phone turned on every day at 12:00 UTC while sailing and we will update the blog via shortwave radio. As we now should be able to receive comments some kind of communication should still be possible. But don’t expect an answer on the same day. Hehehe.

Details about the communication can be found on the page ‘Contact’ – but only for logged in users !

Something quite mysterious happened while we were away from our ship: The stern of the Rancho Relaxo was full with dead bees. And the dinghy was full of them ! Hundreds, maybe a thousand dead bees, all cut in half or somehow else destroyed. We have no idea what might have happened but we’re quite lucky that we weren’t aboard when the massacre took place.

Next day we saw a beautiful tall ship in the anchorage and I immediately recognized her as the ship that we saw in Las Palmas in November. Back then it vanished before we could have a closer look but this time Bruno and me took the dinghy and entered immediately !

The first thing that amazed both of us was that they have cannons on board ! And not only that – we were greeted by two boys in full pirate costume – with real daggers. The second thing that I found quite astonishing: This ship is actually just two years old ! Has been built in Egypt and is now cruising the seas as a school ship that also takes charter guests. The vessel is running under the flag of the Czech Republic which is as uncommon as the austrian flag, hehehe. The friendly crew showed us around and we spend mazbe two hours on this beautiful sailing vessel. Nice !

I joined her on her first dive in the ocean and took a few pictures. Unfortunately the site wasn’t that exciting and the visibility was not too good. But we had a lot of fun and there are cannons, anchor and other things from a ship lost in 1752 down there. We saw lion fish and lots of other colorful little creatures.

After four wonderful days in the hotel together with Gui’s parents we’re back in Bayahibe and started to prepare ourselves for the crossing towards Panama. It’s not yet decided but I think we might leave on tuesday after checking out in Casa de Campo. Our friends on the SY Kira are right now underway to Cartagena in Colombia and the timing seems good to meet them in the Islas san Blas in a week or so. And the hopes are high to also meet with the SY Tamora and the SY Thor since both of them are right now in Bonaire and wait for good weather to go to Panama, too. Sounds like there’s gonna be a big party soon !

And for me it’s difficult to find a beginning. As always – many things happen at the same time. My family is back. And they brought along the grand parents with whom they spent a week in Miami. Now we’re enjoying a holiday in the midst of our holiday-like journey. Gui’s parents invited us to spend four days together in a wonderful hotel near Bayahibe.

The Rancho Relaxo is alone at anchor in front of the Marina de Guerra who promised to keep an eye on our floating home and our dinghy while we enjoy the all inclusive club and have Campari-Soda and Caipirinhas at the pool.

Today Gui started her PADI diving course and tomorrow we’ll go diving together somewhere out on the sea. I don’t know exactly where, but it’s gonna be fun and I’ll bring along the GoPro to make pics and videos ! That’s all for now. It’s been a long and eventful day and I’m the only one awake right now as all the others fell asleep right after sunset.

Not much has happened the last days. I got about 20 kilo clothes washed, dried and stowed away. Today I cleaned the ship on the inside and repaired a few little things. Finally I found the little crack in a waterfilter that got replaced, a vent of the engine broke and was repaired. And the funniest thing: Just before leaving Viola or Bruno put a lock-code on my iPod ! – Couldn’t use it anymore. ARRR !! The only chance would be to connect it to the computer it was first synced with (which doesn’t exist anymore) or to erase and reprogram it – resulting in the loss of about 55GB of good music. So I tried all of the 9999 possible combinations to the lock. Since Bruno mentioned that it was something with nines, I started from the back.

Now guess what the code was ? Eh ? Well…. 0003. Maybe I should have started from 0000 that would have been faster. But – hey – I got my music back ! Rock’n'roll !!

I wish, I could tell some amazing stories of the lonesome sailor in Domrep but actually I’m quite bored and feel lonely. As said before, there isn’t much to do in Bayahibe. I’m cleaning the ship, got two gigantic bags with laundry to the shore and now I’m in the net, trying to get an old website of a friend to work.

Gui and the kids are up early on the 3.3.2012, decorating table and cake and drawing a nice birthday card. The skipper is 38 and gets a massage under palm trees for his back. Bruno tries the first piece of cake and – CRACK – what was that ?!? Bruno’s first milk tooth just came loose. Bruno is extremely happy as now he is ‘older’. Loosing the milk teeth was one thing he was waiting for with great excitement.

After breakfast we leave for the beach and have a wet landing thanks to a little swell that developed during the night. Viola’s life vest got a little too wet and – PFFFFFFF !!! – transforms from a little red thing in a big yellow one. Well, at least we know that it’s working. Heh.

There are more photos on our Facebook-page. I hope my repaired Macbook will be back soon, then I’ll upload a ton of pictures on our gallery.

Ja, so wuerde man sich im allgemeinen die schoensten Seiten der Karibik vorstellen. Bounty-Werbung pur ! Das heisst, wir ankern auf 3m Wassertiefe und koennen die Steine am Grund zaehlen, der Strand ist beinahe schneeweiss und gesaeumt mit Kokospalmen. Absolute Ruhe. Wir sind Gestern um ca. 16h hier angekommen, als die letzten Ausflugsschiffe gerade zurueckfuhren nach Bayahibe. Sofort haben wir das Dinghy gestartet und den Strand erkundet, sind unter den Palmen entlanggelaufen und haben mal wieder versucht, die eine oder andere erfolglos zu erklimmen. Der Strand ist voll von Korallenbruchstuecken und Muscheln, kleine bunte Fische im Wasser und viele seltsame Voegel, die merkwuerdige Laute von sich geben. Es soll ja auch Affen geben auf Saona, vielleicht werden wir diese heute entdecken… Den Sonnenuntergang haben wir uns vom Strand aus angesehen, doch eine dunkle Wolke hat uns auf’s Boot zurueckgescheucht. Umsonst – denn der Regen zog an uns vorbei und nach wenigen Minuten funkelten schon die Sterne auf uns runter. Voellige Ruhe. Der Strand glaenzte im Mondlicht und wir sassen noch lange im Cockpit und quatschten, waehrend die Kinder nach einer Gute-Nacht Geschichte schon friedlich dahinschlummerten. Eine leichte Brise aus Ost-Sued-Ost laesst den Windgenerator die ganze Nacht leise dahinsaeuseln und tagsueber knallt die Karibiksonne auf die Solarpanele. Da die Batterien randvoll sind, starten wir taeglich den Wassermacher und so ist auch der Tank beinahe voll. So laesst sich’s aushalten. Am Strand gibt’s ein paar Huetten und Liegestuehle fuer die Touristen, die in kuerze hier mit grossen Ausflugskatamaranen und Schnellbooten einfallen werden. Leider ist dies auch die Schattenseite, denn dank der vielen Urlauber findet man am Strand ueberall kleine, weisse Plastikbecher und auch die eine oder andere Colaflasche. Tja. Ist zwar ein Naturreservat, doch eben auf DomRep-Art. Vielleicht kommt irgendwann mal ein Vertreter fuer Pappbecher vorbei und macht den Deal seines Lebens. Die Tier- und Pflanzenwelt von Saona wuerde sich sicher darueber freuen. Und natuerlich gibt’s hier kein Internet – hier kommt mal wieder unser Amateurfunkgeraet zum Einsatz. Ach, ja: Und eigentlich sollten wir Kommentare nun auch ueber Funk empfangen koennen, wer’s gerne mal probieren moechte, sei eingeladen hier mal zu antworten. So. Jetzt aber auf zum Strand !

Tomorrow in the morning we’ll leave for the Isla Saona to spend two or three days there before we’ll separate for a week. And I just found out that the Isla Saona “…is promoted amongst European visitors as the setting for the famous Bounty chocolate bar adverts…” Great !

So now we are in Bayahibe – just five miles east of the marina but it’s much nicer to be at anchor again. Although the village here doesn’t provide much. There is a small shop and a few restaurants, a cyber-cafe (where I’m at, right now) and a dive shop. The beaches are crowded with large skiffs with huge outboard engines. Those drive the tourists to the Isla Saona that’s around the corner. This island will be our next stop. It must be beautiful as every day hundereds of people are going for a trip there.

What else ? Well there are only six days left for Gui and the kids until they leave for Miami. Huh, then I’ll be alone here in this little village – just me and the Rancho Relaxo. Well – could be worse.

We spent a nice afternoon at the beach where we found a palm tree perfect for beginners. Everybody tried to climb and saw how difficult it is. We didn’t even get to half of the height, but still we managed to do a few quite good pictures. Hehehe.

And then we were doing something we never did before: We CLEANED the Rancho Relaxo and her tenders ! While most of the boats around us are not sailed but only cleaned, we usually do ot the other way around. We sail a lot and let the spray and the rain do the cleaning. But since the water in this marina has too much chlorine to put it into our tanks, we used it (a LOT of it) to make the deck and cockpit white and shiny again. We also cleaned our two tenders and finally found the little hole where our deflatable has been loosing air the past two weeks.

After that much work we took Bruno’s little ‘Pinguin’ for a ride. We left the marina and went out to sea. But not very far as our destination was the river Chavon which we sailed up for about an hour. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any nice pics as I was busy handling the boat and the two kids at the same time. But it was a lot of fun and both kids enjoyed it very much.

So here are a few pics. Not too many as there wasn’t much happening during the trip. The kids did some artworks using batting and glue while Gui and me were handling the sails. And this we did quite often. It’s amazing how the Rancho Relaxo changes during a few minutes. Passat sails up, down, Blister to starboard or to port. And the last night we were sailing on the wind. Especially our batteries liked these last hours. The wind generaor was working hard and the energy supply of our ship was filled up during those hours.

Which brings me to the next mood point about that marina: Of course they have different power connectors in the Dominican Republic but why don’t they provide adaptors for us poor european sailors ? Well, the sun is shining every day and the solar panels should do for now.

As for our trip – it was interesting because as so often the weather report was totally wrong. We should have had easterly winds most of the time and with a force 4-5. In reality we had it for the first few hours, but had pretty much no wind during the last day. Now that we’ve passed Puerto Rico (Isla Mona is to the starboard side right now), we’ve got wind from north. So we’ve been sailing with passat sails, blister to port and starboard side, genoa and now under main and genoa. Lots of maneuvers these last days… The trip so far has been one of the better ones. The weather was very nice and warm – or rather hot and everybody enjoyed the quiet and smooth sailing so far. – So far… As right now we’re sailing on the wind and it’s getting a little shaky. But that’s only the last night as we expect to arrive in La Romana tomorrow around noon. Yay !

Wir planten also Gestern um 1730 lokaler Zeit die Ausfahrt aus der Simpsons Bay, doch wider Erwarten macht die Klappbruecke, die uns den Weg in die Freiheit versperrt am Samstag schon um 17h auf. Die Kinder waren noch bei ihren Freunden, als Gui und ich Hals ueber Kopf ankerauf gingen und mit zwei Dinghies im Schlepp und unter Vollgas auf die Bruecke zurasten. Doch schon war die Ampel auf rot und unsere Kinnladen hingen tief. Erst nach einem Anruf via UKW-Funke lichteten sich die Gesichter wieder. Wir muessen den Gegenverkehr abwarten, dann duerfen wir raus. Also doch noch geschafft und kurz vor Sonnenuntergang warfen wir dann den Anker gleich hinter der Bruecke und vor dem Strand. Und das allererste was zu tun war ? Ins Wasser huepfen !! Nach einer Woche in der Lagune ein absoluter Hochgenuss. Dann noch das Schiff startklar gemacht und schnell den Plan geaendert: Nein, heute wollen wir nicht mehr los. Wir fahren morgen frueh ! So haben wir noch gnaz entspannt die Kinder abge holt und sind dann am Morgen nach dem Fruehstueck los.

Tja. Und hier sitze ich nun mal wieder – in meiner Nachtwache, mit der Stirnlampe am Kopf und den Laptop unter den Haenden. Die Sterne funkeln, das Meer leuchtet, Fock und Genua sind ausgebaumt und wir rauschen mit 5-6 Knoten suedlich an St. Coix vorbei. Morgen werden wir Puerto Rico rechts liegen lassen und einen geoerigen Abstand halten – nein, nicht wegen des fehlenden Visums, aber die Insel nimmt uns sonst den Wind weg. So fahren wir einen schoenen grossen Bogen und kommen ca. 360 Meilen spaeter hoffentlich gut in La Romana, DomRep. an.

Alles relaxo auf der Rancho.

So tomorrow we plan to leave. I’ve got to pick up the newly wielded davit and Gui is going to the supermarket but otherwise we’re pretty much set. At 1700 the bridge will open and we’ll leave for the Dominican Republic which is about 360 miles away. So we’re out on the sea for three days and pass the BVIs and Puerto Rico on the way. At last a longer trip again after all that short and exhaustive runs in between the islands.

As soon as the Nutella buns are swallowed, Bruno and Martín are up in the cockpit with their life vests on. And faster than me they climb down into Pinguin, Bruno’s new dinghy, to look for the best place to be seated. We have a light breeze and because the Simpsons Bay is nearly completely seperated from the sea we have no waves. Perfect test conditions.

Usually the Walker Bay 8 comes with an inflatable tube on the sides to give it more stability. But it’s absurdly high priced and we found an alternative by mounting small fenders all around. Works just as well and gives it a little self-made touch.

The children and the skipper were both thrilled ! The dinghy handles very well under sail and is quite fast even with very little wind. There’s enough room for me and three kids. We’ll see how we do with two grown ups – but it shouldn’t be a problem.

Another plus is that the new dinghy has the perfect size to be lifted into the Davits on the back of the Rancho Relaxo. Our inflatable was both too big and too heavy and thus we had to put it on the foredeck while sailing.  Also new for us: the Pinguin is perfect for rowing ! I was going into town and out a couple of times during the last days and even human-powered, our little friend is quite fast. And my back is very thankful for the new exercise.

But the BEST ? We don’t have to burn fuel if we want to go to town anymore. Also it’s way more stylish to leave the sailboat with a sailing dinghy – isn’t it ?

Now that we met the SY Express Crusader again and the 5 kids have spent the last 72 hours (!!) contiuously together, we decided to (maybe) skip the BVIs, stay a little longer in St. Maarten and then sail for the Dominican Republic directly. We net stuff for fishing and the ship as well as do a few little repairs.

But first Bruno wanted to do ‘school’ and as he is more and more interested in small type, Gui got out a magic box containing colored, beautiful letters. With a nice set to touch and move around it’s double the fun and fascination as you turn d, p, q and b around. Transforming a i into a j, a d into a c or whatever. Of course Viola was joining in writing and painting. Both had a lot of fun with it and they immediately recognize and remember because they know that only with the small letters they can really read books. And that’s what both want.

We should do a dedicated post about the school on board sometime. It’s the thing I was most afraid about bevore leaving and it turned out to be completely the opposite of what I would have it imagined. Both kids learn on their way and do it every second of the day. They ask a lot of questions, are interested in metals, volcans, poisenous beasts and things that sting. It’s amazing that sometimes the kids know exactly what’s important for them at a moment. But as I said, that’s something for another post…

Afterwards we gave a name to Bruno’s ‘first command’: PINGUIN. So this is our new crew member. Very handy and fast to row and a funny and thrilling thing to sail. I think I can say that we’ll have a LOT of fun with Pinguin !

The first night, the kids spent on the Express Crusader, the next on the Rancho Relaxo. And as our friends are both switching their work/family role tomorrow, we’ll be seven for one more night. But the kids are a delight ! All are adorable, intelligent and calm and together the five are so in harmony that it’s a real treat. After the breakfast they started paperwork involving drawing, painting, writing and making books and booklets. I had to leave for errands but it continued with yoga, dancing and culiminated, throwing sand at each other on the beach. In the evening the five got a shower aboard, had dinner and went to bed after a movie (with a book and a flashlamp) each. What more could you want as a kid or for a kid ?

Of course Gui also went to bed immediately after the kids. Spending your time watching over five little ones between 3 and 7 years while on a boat or at the beach is something that uses all your senses and a lot of energy. Speaking of – my battery level is also critical. I’ll shut down now for 8 hours to reload.

Have fun everybody !

It’s really hard to say good bye to Guenther who’s been with us for two weeks. We had a great time together and the days passed way to fast. So here we are in St. Maarten and we have to say good bye again.

The journey from Barbuda to here was nice downwind sailing again. A real treat after the upwind sailing of the past weeks. During the night we had a guest on Rancho Relaxo: a small seabird circled our home a few times and finally came to a rest on our outboard engine. We arrived at the Simpsons Bay shortly before sunset and sailed into the lagoon at 17:30 when the bridge opened for the last time that day.

Inside the lagoon we met our friends from the SY Express Crusader whom we had been in search for over the past weeks. And when we dinghied Guenther to the airport, we met Armin and Lutz from the SY Jaqueline. Haven’t seen them since Teneriffe. Heh.

The journey to the airport had a second goal: The landing stripe starts directly at the beach where there’s a nice little bar run by three beautiful girls. And this is where plenty of people stay to watch the planes come in or take off. Our friend left with the only 747 on that day and the police came right before take-off to ensure people wouldn’t climb any fences or try other funny things. The blast was enough to send a few towels and caps into the sea but besides that it was mostly just very loud.

The beach doesn’t need a description, I guess. So I’ll tell a little of what we did on Barbuda. This island is the complete opposite of Antigua where there’s the high society of sailing. Here on Barbuda theres NOTHING ! There is a hotel on the beach but it’s far off and there’s no village. But we had a todo: We needed to clear out and thus we had to get to Cordington which is seperated by a lagoon.

So what to do ? We all saw the amazing movie Fitzcarraldo and had the splendid idea to take the dinghy and carry it over the beach and into the lagoon on the other side. This was quickly done and despite being a little exhausting it was fun. We should do that more often. Hehehe.

We drove the dinghy about 20 minutes towards Cordington. This village consists of maybe 200 houses and the offices of immigration, customs and the port office were spreaded across the whole ‘town’. So I ran through Cordington in midday’s heat and filled all needed forms. Afterwards we had a cold beer and soon after drove back to where we came from. Same game: 20 minutes ride, 10 minutes to carry the dinghy back to the beach. And then of course an exhaustive bath in the turquoise water.

And that was prettty much all we did on Barbuda. Spending time on the beach, searching for crabs and shells, swim… It would make a great place to have a beach party with friends. Unfortunately ours are all far away or sailing the south of the Caribbean…

Quite fascinating the ships that are on display here. Most of them are deserted – only the crews that are cleaning day in and out can be met along the jetties. We had a fun night out and a wonderful dinner at ‘Sun Ra’. We arrived in the middle of the night and left at 04 hours in the morning to arrive in Barbuda when the sun is high up in the sky to see any rocks or whatever on the shallow beaches of that island.

Antigua was a LosLocos-style short trip and we wished we would have had a little more time. But it wasn’t exactly our type of island anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll post pics from Barbuda. You’re not gonna believe – this beach was crayz !

We actually do a lot of repairs these days. An electric cable of one of the solar panels was corroded and got replaced, and while I’m writing this, Guenther and Bruno try to glue our outboard engine together. It was broken at the mounting piece and we’ve got a special metal epoxy to fix it.

The Saints are really worth a visit. Nice, small islands with beautiful beaches, lots of goats, chickens and iguanas. But we’d like to visit Barbuda and stop vor a visit in Antigua, the birthplace of sailing in the Caribbean.

The ride towards Antigua wasn’t any special. In the lee of Guadeloupe we didn’t have any wind and had to run under engine but the rest of the trip was quite fast with the wind coming from the east. At four o’clock in the morning we dropped the anchor in English Harbour and ate the remaining cookies, Julia and Oliver made for us. (Thanks ! But next time, we need more. Let Guenther pay for the extra baggage !)

Now we’ll try the dinghy engine to clear in and visit the harbour to take a few pics of the mega yachts that are at anchor here. Maybe we’ll meet Taru and Alex, they should be around here somewhere…

Our friend Guenther is steering the Rancho Relaxo and makes her race through the waves. Soon we’re past St. Lucia and pass Martinique by night. Next day we also pass Dominica.  We would have loved to visit those islands as well but there’s not enough time… Our goal are the Isles Les Saintes just south of Guadeloupe.

In the night we enter the archipelago and thanks to the moonlight and our GPS we manage the passage between the little islands. Soon after we find ourselves in the large bay of Terre de Haut. But the water is quite deep (17-20m) and all the other ships use mooring buoys. We can’t find a free one and decide to drop the anchor.

And that’s where our difficulties start: The water is about 10m and we should put about 40m of anchor chain. But the anchor drags and we’ve got to get it up again. But the windlass suddenly doesn’t work and the captain has to pull up 24kg anchor and 40m of 10mm chain by hand. And it takes another THREE tries until the anchor finally takes hold. We still don’t trust it too much and despite being completely wrecked, I am awake for quite some time to listen for any sound. But everything’s find.

Not so much for our neighbours: During the night, Guenther awaks and sees the neighbour-yacht going adrift. He tries to wake them by using a large light he flashs into their cabin but no one awakes. The ship slowly drifts into the bay…

Next day we take a picture of the SY Twizzle, go to discover the island, eat croissants for breakfast, rent bicycles to to go to a near beach. And that’s what we’re gonna do right NOW.

S

The last day in this – probably the most beautiful anchorage we’ve been so far – we spent walking to the near waterfall. What we didn’t know is that the water runs down quite hot and thus we had our first hot shower since…. Well I don’t know.

The hike wasn’t really one. It’s just up the street and then one has to take a little path through the forest. But it was great ! Afterwards we cleaned up the ship ate dinner and prepared for our next trip northwards. – More on that in the next post.

At 0800 sharp, Michele arrives with our guide Peter. But Pete was out partying yesterday and has (beside other problems) a huge hangover. After walking for 15 minutes we have fear that he’ll break down and send him back. So Guenther and me are walking up without guide – he’s not needed anyway. The way is quite visible and with the climbing he can’t help much.

Rainshowers pour down every couple minutes and the moisture in the air is incredible. The sweat is dripping off my forehead. We are perfectly adjusted for a climbing session: Both of us are wearing bathing shorts and Guenther even has shoes ! I’m walking bare foot. I also brought shoes but wanted to do it Moitessier-style. It’s really nice to feel the ground, the rocks, roots and the wet foilage on the ground.

The piton is about 700m high and at some stages we really had to climb. Because the rain makes the rocks and the ground slippery it sometimes can get a little dangerous but nonethless, we made it to the top. It took us about 2 hours and every minute of it was great ! The view from the top is of course amazing. I called Bruno via VHF but he couldn’t see me from the ship. Despite using a spyglass and me waving the yellow cover of my rucksack.

After climbing down we had a ‘Piton’ at the bar on the beach and Gui picked us up with the Dinghy. We really had a great day ! And maybe tomorrow we’ll all walk together to the waterfalls.

So here we are. We are moored to a buoy about 200 meters from the famous Piton. Yesterday we were in the little village that’s 10 minutes away with the dinghy. We cleared in and out again and the officer of the immigration showed us the way to a nice bar where he had a beer and where we also met the officer of the customs. Ha !

In the bar we had lunch and met Jamalai, a local musican who wrote a song dedicated to the LosLocos. We got a few groceries and speeded back to our ship where we met Michel. He wanted to sell us something but as he didn’t have anything at hand that we wanted, he promised to organize a hike for the next morning to the top of Piton. More on that later !

To sum up – we had an amazing first day on St. Lucia. And there will be two more before we leave for the next beautiful island in the Caribbean.

And since I already had dirty hands, I grabbed the brush and paint and went over the deck to remove some rust. Soon we’ll have to get a few other items off the todo list (the steering chain and cable need a little attention, a winch on the mast is broken and some more painting).

In the early afternoon we started our trip to Bequia with nice wind from behind and a current that was pushing us in the right direction. Yeah, that’s definately the right direction to sail to. A pity we’re going north tomorrow…

Having arrived in the Admiralty Bay we took a buoy and rode toards the Frangipani-Bar in our dinghy. But we didn’t want to go there and walked towards the ‘town’ instead.  We had to get money and buy a few things for the next days. Afterwards we enjoyed the sunset in a Bar at the beach.

Back at our dinghy we met the crew of the SY Ninita. We last saw each other in Mindelo, Cabo Verde. So we invited our friends on bord and had a few cold drinks and a lot to talk about.

Yesterday the engine of the Rancho Relaxo was on the ToDo list. It’s an old Mercedes-Benz of type OM636. This engine was very universally used in cars, trucks, waterpumps and of course in yachts. And ours was in great need of new filters which we replaced and of course cleaned all parts. While doing that we flooded the bilge with diesel (by intention – I swear !) well, well….

After that we flooded the forepeak with a dilution of rust and saltwater. From the chainbox to midships everything was covered with that liquid. It’s something most of the steel boat owners forget: You have to flush the inside of your ship with saltwater from time to time. – To build up resistance !! Hehehehe. Since last time we did that was on the Isle of Wight, it was really time to repeat this exercise.

Heh, of course it was a design error in the water outtake of our anchor chain box. All the water we collecte on our trip to St. Vincent emptied itself to the inside of our ship. A colossal mess !! We had to empty the whole foreship and wash everything with freshwater. Arrrr ! This are the rare moments when I whish we had a fibreglass ship….. But now everything is clean and dry again and we still didn’t find much rust on the inside of our ship.

What wouldn’t we do for our friends ? First we put Guenther on board our friends ship the SY Tamora because we couldn’t make it to Martinique in time and Guenther had to take a plane to St. Vincent. It also was very hard to leave our friends in Carriacou. And then there was the weather – or rather the wind. It came from NNE and that was exactly the direction we would have to sail !

We departed from Carriacou at sunset and already knew that this trip wouldn’t be exactly a nice one. Despite being very short – only 45nm it would take long – that was sure.

And it was exactly as we expected it: it took us 26 hours to do the 45 miles distance (sailed distance: 99 miles !!) And we had to fight for every single mile against a wind with 6 Beaufort and a nasty sea. And to make it not too easy, the current also was against us.

Sometime during the night a wave tore the Genoa and we had a nice hole at the foot. No wonder as we sailed with a heel of 35 to 40 degrees. Ouch !

But we’ve made it and it was worth it. Because now we’ve got Guenther on board. And he’s a really old friend of mine and the one who introduced me to sailing about 13 years ago !

Of course he came with bags full of presents including cookies from great-grandma and grandma, letters, spare parts for the ship. Everybody got something. Right now the capitana together with Viola will go to the immigration in Kingstown and Guenther, Bruno and me will replace the broken Genoa. Yay.

Two hours before sunset we went ashore and started to gather wood for our bonfire. We grilled nine lobsters, two fish and a few mussels and enjoyed a very last evening together with our friends. Later in the night it started raining. For an hour or so we thought we could stay but the wind increased and we put out the fire to leave for the ships.

The children went to bed and we had a beautiful night in the cockpit of the Rancho Relaxo. Drinking the last remaining rum of Barbados and having a lot of fun with our friends. The wind still increased and the whole night we had 6 Beaufort but very calm see. The bay is quite shallow and with 20m of anchorchain on 3m of water we were quite safe.

Next day we had a breakfast together and everyone was quite sad that we would have to go seperate ways. The SY Kira is heading south while we go up north. There is the slight chance that we could meet in the San Blas archipelago but the timing is difficult. So it might have been a farewell for a very long time.

That’s the difficult part – while sailing you meet many interesting people and sometimes we become friends. With Claus and Tim it was as if we would know each other for years despite having met them only three months before. Well. Maybe we will meet again… We sure hope so.

This means we’ll soon leave the beach bar to sail towards Saline Island. From there we’ll take the dinghy to White Island where we’ll sleep at the beach and prepare our catch at a bonfire at night.

Tomorrow we’ll sail to the north to pick up Guenther in the Blue Lagoon on St. Vincent. So you’ll probably not hear from us until the 28th of jan…

And it was one of our better evenings, ever. The Slipway Restaurant that was suggested to us by Maria was truly wonderful. The place was decorated and crafted with much love. All the details and the decorating woodworking machines make for a really wonderful ambiente. The restaurant is located near the small marina, directly at the beach with it’s own dinghy dock.

The food was great and the drink of the day a 100% hit with us. We stayed until closing hour and left to finish the evening on the Kira. It was a great evening that’ll stay in our memories.

Bad ideas are usually the best. That’s what I thought about when I was gliding out of the bay to pass the rough landscape of Carriacou. Alone in a small dinghy with an 30 year old 4hp engine. Hehehe. The ride was long and there were plenty of rocks and submerged reefes but 40 minutes later I saw my family waving on the beach.

We put everything into the dinghy and rode another 15 minutes towards White Island. One island and four people a great feeling to have a whole island for oneselves. We strolled along the beach for a few hours, swam in crystal clear water and just before sunset drove back to Carriacou. A wonderful day !

The start was good, running before the wind along the south coast of Grenada. Rounding the SW-tip of the island we hoisted the main sail and had little wind. But that freshened up only half an hour later increasing to a stable 5 Beaufort. We made a leg out to NW and tacked back towards the coast 2 hours later. Just to find ourselves in front of the harbour of St. Georges. We’ve made three miles in nearly two hours !!

The current runs strong along the coast of Grenada and the next idea was to run under engine, just a few hundered meters off the coast. Here the current was slightly less and we made slow progress towards north. It was a little frustrating to run under engine the whole night but as the wind was coming from NNE and that was exactly our direction – we had no better option. We arrived in the dark, around 03h local time. While entering the harbour we nearly hit a large towing vessel that sat in the entrance of the bay without light. Funny – nearly all the amateur sailboats had their anchor light on but NONE of the four professionally operated vessels. Heh.

So we dropped the anchor in five meters of clear water and fell into the bunks minutes later. It’s always exciting to wake up and then have a first look at the island you just landed on. – And it looks nice ! The island is green, a few houses here and there, a sand beach, palm trees. Everything you’d expect of an island in the Caribbean.

We’ve found the internet in a cafe at the beach called ‘Lazy turtle’, have a cold pineapple juice while the kids explore the beach. Afterwards we’ll walk over to the other side of the island and then wait for our friends, the SY Kira to arrive !

Big mistake ! In the beginning we had 5Bft. that increased to a steady six after a while. The swell was quite enormeous and together with a current of two knots against us, it was too much. After two hours of tacking against, we turned back to have a few drinks with the friends we left in St. Davids bay.

So after a nice evening and a quiet night we’ll now give it another shot. This time, we take the west side of the island. Hehehe.

A few minutes pass. We search the horizont for lights or shadows but can’t find anything. A employee of the marina is trying to get the owner of a (the ?) yacht on the mobile phone. But to no avail. Now Volker also leaves. He’s got Jonathan, the Canadian with him and they also disappear in the darkness. But they took a VHF with them and a few minutes later we get some details: Yes, a yawl drifted out towards the reef and is already hitting the ground with every wave. They try to pull and push her off the reef but need more dinghies.

So I we go out in our dinghy and stop on the way to get another boat for help. But as we’re still talking with the skipper of the danish yacht, Volker informs everybody that they managed to free the yacht that is now been driven back into the anchorage. It seems that the beautiful wooden yawl was moored to a buoy and the rope or chain broke in the night. Luckily our neighbor saw the shadow of the boat drifting by and alarmed the others. Without him (and the help of many) this beautiful, historic ship would’ve been lost.

The whole story of course get’s a differnt meaning if one knows the history of this amazing yacht. The Apollonia was in the news before, when during an atlantic crossing, two people were murdered. The book is available here (german only, sorry).

It was a wise decision as I cannot imagine a place more romantic and beautiful for that occasion. The sun was blasting and the kids were running, swimming, searching, climbing until all riddles and tasks were done. Just as the big treasure hunt was over and the sun was sinking, we started the grill and a bonfire. The kids had grilled chicken, while the big ones drank fresh cocos-nuts with a shot of rum and were waiting for the steaks to be ready. Late in the evening it was when the first dinghys drove back to the ship swhile there was something dramatic happening at the anchorage… But that’s stuff for another post.

More pictures can be found in the Gallery.

That’s nor unusual – or is it ? I started wondering… When was the last time I took a proper shower. – I mean: to stand in a room where fresh, warm water comes from the ceiling or wall. Was it in Barbados ? No. Cabo Verde ? No. The Canaries ? Ah ! Yes. It was in Las Palmas and it was on the 26.11.2011. It wasn’t really warm but who needs that ? Ususally I swim around the boat in the morning and pour a little freshwater over my head. That’s the cruiser’s bath. Heh.

We’ve left Berlin seven months ago and sailed 6500 miles since that. One could say, we ‘arrived’ aboard, settled in. Yes. A washing machine is a unthinkable luxury, we use about eight liters of freshwater to shower the whole family. We bake fresh bread on a daily basis and the dinghy 100% replaced the bicicle. Our kids use the VHF to chate with their friends and make afternoon arrangements – everything completely normal.

What’s the best about our current lifestyle ? Dunno. Maybe it’s the starry nights. Or that nobody was sick in the last six months. Or living outdoors and with the nature ? Maybe it’s to encounter new countries and people. That’s probably it, yes.

Now I’m finished with breakfast and we’ll do a little work. I’ll disassemble the pressure cooker and afterwards we’ll sharpen our new machete. Yay !!

But first the anchorage: it’s amazing !!! We lie quiet and well protected, there is a dinghy-pontoon, a free (and warm !) shower and even a washing machine ! A ship yard with everything you would need for repairs is here but the best is the beach bar under palm trees.

So we started walking up the street to catch one of the passing minivans when Gui stopped a taxi. As he had already delivered his passenger and was on the way back to Georgetown he took us in and we rapidly were taken to the small city 10 miles ahead. It’s not exactly a city as we know it because everything is still green and trees are everywhere between the houses. We made a little tour but didn’t find much besides a new skirt for Viola and a salamander made from fabric for Bruno. So we had a little beer and headed back to the St. Davids bay.

Although friends already told us, we were surprised that you could fit 22 (TWENTY-TWO) people in a minivan the size of a VW-bus. And the way the driver took us through the mountainous roads was fascinating. The turns he took with screeching tires and the hills he used to take over other cars completely ignoring the opposing traffic. But everybody including us took it with a smile and only a few minutes later we landed seemingly safe in our bay.

The sun was already setting and while walking the last mile towards the anchorage we listened the sounds of the jungle and were taken in by the silhouette of the palm trees under a crystal clear night sky. Just underneath of which we found the beach bar ! We had an evening drink with friends we met in Barbados and the Dinghy took us back to the Rancho Relaxo. Tomorrow we’ll have a guided tour through the jungle. Yay !

Out on the ocean you rarely see any other ships. Sometimes a cargo will be visible on the horizont for a few minutes but we never came closer than a few miles. We never saw any other sailing vessel other than the SY Kira. And therefore the meeting really was something special. After days of thinking you’re the only ship out there it’s fantastic to see another sailing boat come closer and closer. We had a little chat, made a ton of pictures and that was it. – Both ships continued on their old course and would finally meet again in Barbados. (Which we did.)

Now duty-free shopping for Mount Gay Rum and afterwards buy some ice cold beer to get rid of the last Barbados dollars.sgetraenk.

Afterwards we were at the local market to get fruits and vegetables. Through the city and we meet with Gui and the crew of the Hitch-Hike-Heidi in a bar. We wait for the live music but it starts too late. The kids are already asleep and we listen to a few songs but then get back to our ship. That was the last day in Barbados. Tomorrow we’re off to Grenada !!

Our days in Barbados are getting to an end as we’ll stock up on food and probaly leave tomorrow towards Grenada. From there we’ll sail northwards through the Grenadines and pick up our next guest in Martinique. Guenther from Austria who inroduced me to sailing is gonna visit us for two weeks. Yay !

Well. Bruno’s at the SY Kira, Gui is asleep and Viola is ‘reading’. (Not yet.) I’ll finish this post and then head for the town to get our refreshments. Hehehe.

A little view around the anchorage. The beach, our lovely neighbour-friends, etc. And the captain who removes his Atlantic-beard. Sad – but with that much hair in the face it’s impossible to go diving. So the sacrifice had to be made and now the Rancho Relaxo is with a skipper who’s white in the face. Hehehe.

And especially for you: A video of the captain climbing the mast to get you a nice view of our surroundings. Beautiful – isn’t it ?

There are three wrecks in very shallow water. Plenty of fish but unfortunately the sight was quite bad. Well, enjoy the videos:

The storm started at 0900UTC from a flat calm and increased to 8-9 Beaufort. It stayed like this for approximately five hours. The sea got really bad after a few hours and we had to steer by hand most of the time. We were carried north for about 30 miles while riding in front of the wind. After that the wind almost immediately fell to a calm again and we were left in a confuse sea for a couple of hours. Next day the tradewind was back with a steady force six that lasted until we arrived in Barbados.

Mit Actionvideo:

Und noch ein kleiner Clip:

Gestern abend sind wir also angelandet, wie es nautisch heisst. Nach 16 tagen und ein paar h, nach gesegelten zweitausendeinhundert und ein paar extra sm gegenueber 2008 errrechneten seemeilen. Die letzten 12 mussten wir von passat- auf normalbesegelung wechseln, um unter halbem wind die insel ansteuern zu koennen und sofort begleiteten uns delphine. In den letzten 3 h auf see eskortierten sie uns quasi bis zum ankerplatz. Waehrend wir an deck saßen, die vergleichsweise ruhe der schiffbewegung geniessend, weil neuer kurs, machten unsere coast guards maetzchen – schlugen piruetten und salti, sprangen synchron durch brennende reifen, zuerst zu dritt, dann fuenft, zuletzt siebt, wobei fuenf in die eine und drei in die entgegengesetzte richtung sprangen. Naja, was delphine in freier wildbahn halt so treiben….. Zum abschluss flogen zwei sogar einen looping mit rot-weiss-roter rauchspur! Sofort erhoben sich fahrtensegler und schiffsjunge und stimmten eingedenk unsrer heimat grosser soehne (und toechter!) die oesterreichische nationalhymne vierstimmig an. Nachdem strophe 17 abgesungen war, fielen sie sich in die arme und schworen unter traenen dem vaterland auf ewig treue. Auf jeden fall wars ein emotionales ankommen. Ich kann euch sagen: ganz grosse oper!

Obwohl von uns allen sehr gewuenscht, kamen wir uebrigens gestern abend nicht mehr von bord. Nicht weil der obligatorische manoeverschluck zu gross ausfiel, sondern weil es stuermte und regnete. Zudem hatte der fahrtensegler alle haende voll zu tun auf dem glatten kalkigen korallengrund, aehnlich sehr rauhem beton, ne ritze fuer unsren anker zu finden. Doch erst nachdem er unsre ankerkette wieder klar hatte, die ziemlich boese verkeilt, mit 5 m kette draußen, weder vor noch zurueck ging. Doch mit vereinten kraeften und freundlicher unterstuetzung von volker, dem skipper der hitchhike-heidi, ging dann doch alles gut. Es gibt beim ankern eine faustregel, welche distanz man tunlichst zum nachbarschiff halten soll. Ich glaube es ist: laenge der ausgelegten ankerkette x 2, was bei uns ca. 50 m waeren. Das hatten wir gestern abend zwar nicht ganz zu dem schiff hinter uns, aber so einigermaßen. Im augenblick bewundere ich die feine ornamentierung am bug dieses schiffes, selbst die kleinsten details sind mit freiem auge sichtbar und die dame an bord traegt korbchengroesse 95E – zumindest steht das auf dem etikett ihres im wind flatternden bikini-oberteils, den sie wohl ueber links traegt. Sollte ich noch erwaehnen, das ich leicht kurzsichtig bin und gerade keine brille trage? Entweder das hiesige klima beguenstigt durch via lichtbrechnung die sehfaehigkeit oder aber unser anker hat naechtens doch nicht so gut gehalten und wir sind “etwas” gerutscht. Derzeitige distanz ca. 1,5 bootslaengen, was in etwa 16 m waeren. Ich werd das mal mit dem fahrtenseger bei einem kaffee thematisieren, wenn er aufgewacht ist. Aber es gibt ohnehin nur 3 moeglichkeiten der loesung. Entweder wir verschieben das gesamte thema auf morgen und tun so, als ob nichts waere. Oder wir thematisieren doch heute, verschieben aber das verlegen des schiffs “auf morgen” oder aber wir wenden die 48h-regel an – dh, es erledigt sich in diesem zeitraum von selbst.

Zum schluss moechte ich noch eine anmerkung (d. red.) zu einem meiner ersten eintraege, “die hosenlosen” machen. In diesem hatte ich u.a. erwaehnt, dass wir mit zunehmendem verlust an sitten und aus praktischen, weil dem klima geschuldeten gruenden, uns tlw. unbekleidet an bord bewegen. Ich hatte nicht weiter darueber nachgedacht, wie gross, vielmehr international unsere leserschaft, aus aller herren (und frauen! – austrian pc) laender, die, sofern dem dt. halbwegs maechtig, unsere eintraege lesen. Dass jemand anstoss an unserem dasein im “birthday suit” nehmen koennte, kam mir gar nicht in den sinn. Dass doch, kam zufaellig in in folgender situation zutage.

Unser sat-tel laeutete und gui’s vater war dran. Wir sprachen erstmalig miteinander: “Hello wolfgango, this is mario, gui’s father, how are you? “well thanks, just fine” “oh good, good! Are you naked?” (nach einer kurzen Pause, in der ich nochmal ueberpruefte auch richtig gehort zu haben, dachte ich: die argentinier, ein lustig voelkchen: und, na klar, carneval und so, immer straigth forward, genau wie wir oesterreicher, das mag ich!) “well, funny that you ask. In fact….. I am!”

Nachher erzaehlte ich gui von dem sehr lustigen gespraech und sie klaerte mich wie folgt auf: in argentienen ist das mit dem nacktsein eher umgekehrt, als von mir angenommen und in einigen teilen europas, zumindest in berlin, ueblich. Selbst kinder, auch schon die ganz kleinen, sind an den straenden immer mindestens mit badehose bekleidet. Nackt sein iss nicht. Selbst die augenweiden des carnevals bedecken die bestimmten bereiche des koerpers, auch wenn es vergleichsweise nur die flaeche einer briefmarke ist. Sollte dieser oder andere eintraege den leser dazu gebracht haben, vor schreck und einem leisen “huch” die haende vor dem mund zu falten, wuerde ich dies bedauern.

So, we are all set up for landgang. Mehr demnaechst.

Der schiffsjunge

Nach 16 Tagen auf See haben wir heute kurz nach Sonnenuntergang den Anker in die Carlisle Bay auf Barbados geworfen. Gleich neben unseren Freunden von der Hitch-Hike-Heidi, welche bei uns im Cockpit sitzen. Allen geht’s super. Mehr spaeter…

wir haben noch ungefaehr 30 sm bis barbados, was die stimmung an bord hebt und sich schon das eine und andere gespraech darueber entspann, wer was denn auf barbados machen moechte. Aber vorab noch geschrieben, dass wir auf den leztzten meilen, genauer in den 12 h von gestern abend bis heute vormittag zum abschluss der reise einige squalls durchzureiten hatten. Es ist immer wieder spannend die wolken um einen rum, besonders jene genau hinter uns, zu interpretieren. Ist oder wird das ein squall, ist das regen da, wie heftig wird er und wie lange dauert er. Es ist einfach alles dabei, von ein paar minuten 8-9 bft. bis zu einer h. Muessen/sollen wir reffen (verkleinerung der segelflaeche), was ist sonst noch zu beachten? 2 von denen waren dann auch ganz spannend und die windsteuerung brauchte kurz unterstuetzung vom hauptruder. Allen ist gemeinsam, dass sie schneller da sind, als man denkt.

Zurueck zu den wuenschen: bruno begann schon vor ein paar tagen, immer die gleiche frage zu stellen: “und was machen wir danach?” zuerst dachten wir, er meinte das unmittelbare “danach”, daher bekam er antworten wie: “du meinst nach dem rumsitzen, lesen, schlafen, albern, essen, aufraeumen, etc…”. irgendwann wussten wir jedoch, dass er die zeit nach dem anlanden meinte. Also, was machen wir? Bruno will unbedingt schnitzen gehen, gui will essen, yoga’n, schlafen, baden und endlich mal das geschaukel in ihr loswerden (ach ja, und sie will ganz viel und toll fuer uns kochen, als dankeschoen, dass david und ich das fast ganz immer uebernommen haben). David traeumt von einem daiquiri aus der kokosnuss in einer strandbar. Viola will endlich mal wieder ihre kleider austragen und bewundert werden (aber vorher muss sie mal gehoerig geschruppt werden) und ich freu mich, meiner waesche zwar einen synthetischen, aber in jedem fall frischeren duft beizubringen und endlich wieder kontakt zu meinen lieben daheim zu haben. 2 dinge ersehnen jedoch alle unisono. Wie schon erwaehnt gutes essen und trinken, vornehmlich fleisch sowie lokale fluessige genussmittel, aber fast dem noch voran: auf RUMLAUFEN, rennen, gehen, einfach auf alles mit den beinen. In den letzten 17 tagen sind wir taeglich 23 h nur gesessen oder gelegen. Und wenn wir gestanden sind, dann unter widrigsten umstaenden, eingespreizt oder verkeilt. Es gab wirklich keine sekunde, in der der untergrund nicht instabil oder mal waagrecht war.

Also, unser leben wird demnaechst wieder stabiler (sic)….

derschiffsjunge

Wind: ENE 6, See: 6, Schwell: ENE 4m, Kurs: 260 Grad, Geschwindigkeit: 6.7 Knoten. Meilen bis Barbados: 24 Position: 12 54.9N und 059 14.9W

Well that’s it for now, I’ll go inside for a moment to connect to the internet. And after that I’m gonna enjoy my last night watch out here on the beautiful Atlantic ocean.

Wind: ENE 6, sea: 6, swell: ENE 4m, course: 265 degrees, speed: 6.6 Knoten. Miles to Barbados: 110 Position: 13 03.1 N and 057 31.3W

An bord hat sich vor einigen tagen eine diskussion aufgetan, naemlich, welche fische wir denn nun wirklich immer fangen und in immer phantasieloseren varianten (von rafinesse kann keine rede mehr sein) zu uns nehmen. Ausloeser sind die meldungen der kirajungs via funk, die der beschreibung nach die gleiche sorte fangen, diese allerdings “golddorade” nennen, waehrend wir von goldmakrele ausgehen. Leider koennen wir zum augenblicklichen zeitpunkt keine bilder unserer faenge hochladen, um evtl. die community bei der klaerung des raetsels zu befragen, noch gibt die an bord befindliche fischliteratur aufschluss. Doch soviel sei beschrieben: der fisch kann nach unserer erfahrung nen m haben, ca. 6-7 kg, hat eine blausilbrige obere haelfte und eine gelbe! bzw. Gelb-gepunktete! an den bauchseiten. Schaurig-schoen, im moment, da das fischauge bricht, wandelt sich die gelbe farbe in wunderschoenes strahlendes blau – von einer sekunde zur anderen. Bis zur eindeutigen namensklaerung haben wir uns auf “goldfisch” geeinigt, denn eines ist sicher: der praefix “gold-” ist dem fischnamen sicher, makrele hin, dorade her.

Dennoch haben sich auf der RR zwei lager gebildet: naemlich kpt. Eitzinger samt familie, dem die vorstellung makrele zu dinieren besser gefaellt, und mir, dem schon immer einen hang zum leben im el-dorade beiwohnt. Das thema hat die crew mittlerweile gespalten. Da ich diese zeilen schreibe, sitze ich allein in der bugkoje. Auf die heftige diskussion, in der ich zuerst das kommando ueber die RR, spaeter die der weltherrschaft fuer mich beanspruchte, kam es zu einem erbittertem kampf, in welchem ich natuerlich numerisch unterlag. das heil in der flucht riss ich im lauf zur bugkoje noch den laptop, den sextanten, die karten der osterinseln und kuba sowie einen wechselschluepper (leider von viola) an und verbarrikadierte mich. Ueber die luke im bug werde ich versuchen mich in den naechsten naechten zu meinen meinungsgenossen auf der kira durchzuschlagen, die schlappe 120 sm suedoestlich von uns sein muessten. Das fluchtfloss gezimmert aus dem furnier der inneneinrichtung und vertaeut mit einem von brunos hosentraegern ist so gut wie fertig. Da in der bugkoje auch das gemuese der RR verstaut ist, sollte ich genuegend kartoffeln fuer die fahrt haben.

solltet ihr in den naechsten tagen nichts mehr von mir lesen, hat das mit der weltherrschaft vermutlich geklappt. Ihr hoert von mir!

El schiffsjunge

Wind: ENE 6, See: 6, Schwell ausENE ~3m, Kurs 260 Grad, Geschwindigkeit: 6.3 Knoten. Meilen bis Barbados: 420 Position: 13 58.17N und 052 18.35W

Wind: ENE 6, See: 6, Schwell nicht erkennbar. Kurs 260 Grad, Geschwindigkeit: 6.8 Knoten, Entfernung von Barbados: Seemeilen. Position: 14 38.9N und 049 52.6W

Now that I’ve finished writing, the stars are already shining again, I open the windows and let the fresh air of the night inside while I grab another book and position myself in the cockpit.

Wind: ENE 5-6, Sea: 4, sweel from ENE, Course 265 degrees, speed: 6.4 knots. Miles to go: 706 Position: 15 04.83N and 047 29.69W

Im laufe der ca. 5 stunden war die veraenderung in uns auch interessant… oder, ich schreib mal lieber von mir, dem schiffsjungen. Anfangs noch eher fassungslos, dann zunehmend mutiger, weil zwangslaeufig der blistersack am vorschiff zu sichern und die windsteuerung am heck nachzustellen war, getrauten wir uns auch irgendwann zu rauchen – was schwierig war, weil sprichwoertlich der tabak vom blaettchen geweht wurde, egal wie sehr man sich abzuschirmen versuchte. Irgendwo fand ich dann ne ecke am schiff wo nur noch 3 bft. hinkamen. Ab 7 bft und nur noch 6m welle gabs auch kaffee. Gottseidank war in einem paket ne dose weihnachtsbaeckerei aus der heimat (genau: untergallaberg), die uns sehr geholfen hat. Auch wenn die baeckerin zum schaffenszeitpunkt sicher nicht ahnen konnte, in welchem moment uns das backwerk gustatorischen trost bescheren sollte. Mit jeder ins cockpit einbrechenden welle wurde der kaffee zwar duenner und salziger, aber uns wars egal, wir lutschten an den schon leicht aufgeweichten plaetzchen und fühlten uns wohl.

Am abend des gleichen tages hatten wir schon wieder phantastischen sonnenuntergang – und flaute. Waren genervt, weil uns der sturm keine wahl ließ, als nach norden zu laufen und da waren wir nun – gefuehlt weit weg von zuhause, weil ca. 100 sm vom idealkurs. Doch, lucky us, der passat kam in den frühen morgenstunden wieder und weht seitdem, also ca. 36 h mit konstanten 5-6 bft, was uns ein letztes etmal von 140 bescherte. Auch koennen wir jetzt geanu vorm wind segeln, was aber weniger gut für gui ist, die seit dem ablegen in mindelo immer wieder mit seekrankheit zu kaempfen hat. Apropos, wir freuen uns schon sehr auf die erste nacht vor anker, wo wir endlich wieder mal durchschlafen koennen. Üeber den tag verteilt holt man sich immer wieder kleinere muetzen schlafs, aber so richtig erholt, das gefuehl bleibt aus.

Also , die sonne lacht uns wieder. Vielleicht auch noch erwaehnenswert, dass wir seit 10 tagen kein anderes schiff gesehen haben – außer absichtsvoll die jungs von der kira und ein paar lichter am naechtlichen horizont. Und, man gewoehnt sich dran ;-) Auch der himmel ist gaenzlich frei von flugzeugen, nicht ein einziges (auch in der nacht), weil keine flugader von a nach b hier drueber laeuft.

Der gute alte petri hat uns zwar heute sein heil versagt, zuerst nur den fisch, dann noch einen, allerdings abgehauen mit unsrem geliebten tintenfischkoeder, dann doch noch eine Goldmakrele aber unter uns… langsam krieg ich kiemen. Schon grotesk, da fangen wir fische, die am markt sicher 10 euro/kilo kosten und…..Ich will schweinsbraten, steak, burger, schnitzel, irgendwas, hauptsache fleisch! Ich glaub hier schreib ich den anderen auch ein bissl aus der seele.

Und am ende noch eine kurze info in eigener sache. Sofern jemand comments zu den posts abgibt, leider können wir diese nicht abrufen. ABER, wir sind ja im besitz eines satelitlenknochens und an den können sms gesendet werden – und zwar kostenfrei aus jedem netz (in jedem land). Wir schalten 1x taeglich das ding an, koennen also sehr zeitnah etwaige nachrichten lesen bzw. Beantworten. Die nummer des sat-phones findet ihr irgendwo in den tiefen des blogs (Kontakt).

So far, so good. Der schiffsjunge

Wind: ENE 5, Sea: 5, swell from NE, Course 270 degrees, speed: 5.4 knots. Miles to go: 850 Position: 15 33.69N and 045 03.8W

Sometimes you have to go through rough times to really appreciate the pleasent tradewind sailing we’re usually enjoy. As the storm dissipated yesterday, the wind fell to a flat calm and we were struggeling with different sails to keep on going. As our batteries were low (as always) and the wind completely disappeared in the late afternoon, we started the engine and were motoring for a few hours. During the night we again had lightning all around us and were already prepared for the next squall to hit. But just as the big dark cloud was over our heads, the sky cleared up and the stars smiled down on us. Only a few minutes later the tradewind was back. We set the passat sails in the middle of the night and now continue to cruise at a pleasent speed towards our destination.

Today was probably the most beautiful day of the whole journey – blue sky with little puffy clouds, blue sea and a steady force 4-5 wind from NE. After a nice breakfast we discussed lunch and threw the fishhook. Only 10 minutes later we catched a beautiful mackerel of about four or five kilos. We had it with couscous, pumpkin, red onions and coconut milk. After that we had a nice shower and immediately afterwards (hey, we really have a lot to do !) we discovered that we’ve made half way across the Atlantic So now we’re waiting for Gui to awake from her afternoon nap to celebrate with a nice bottle of champagne we reserved for that purpose.

The kids also are quite busy creating new villages, vehicles, airplanes with LEGO. Santa Claus was really nice to them – all their wishes were fulfilled. Gui got a harpoon and new shoes and the captain got a new shirt (Mindelo style) yay !! I’ll try to send a picture from our christmas at sea, hope it’ll work.

Wind: NE 5, Sea: 5, sweel from NE, Course 270 degrees, speed: 6.1 knots. Miles to go: 992 Position: 16 12.1N and 042 40.9W

Um 0810 ertoente mehrmal unsere Schiffsglocke (von selbst). Das tut diese, wenn wir eine Kraengung von ca. 40 Grad erreichen. Nein, das war kein Squall. Wir korrigierten die Windsteuerung und liefen vor dem Suedsturm ab, der innerhalb weniger Minuten auf 8 Beaufort aufbriste. Anfangs waren die Wellen noch klein, doch die Boen mit 9 Bft. derart heftig, dass unsere Windsteuerung erstmals (!) manuelle Unterstuetzung benoetigte. Wolfgang und ich wechselten uns am Ruder ab und so ritten wir bis kurz vor Mittag vor zunehmenden Wellen den Sturm ab. Die Wellen, die sich aufbauten waren gegen Ende hin sehr beeindruckend, doch das Wasser das uns in den Nacken spritzte und den Ruecken runterlief war schoen warm, dies machte es ertraeglich. Die Rancho Relaxo bewaehrte sich wieder einmal in Schwerwetterbedingungen. Kein Bruch, das Aussteuern der Wellen war problemlos und im Schiffsinneren alles trocken.

Bruno guckten nach dem Aufwachen aus dem Fenster und meinte “Wow ! Das ist aber ein grosser Sturm.” Holte dann eines seiner Geschenke und fing an mit Lego zu spielen. Viola war quitschvergnuegt. Alles entspannt auf der Rancho Relaxo, auch wenn das Wetter mal nicht so fein ist.

Zu Mittag liefen wir unter einer Bilderbuch-Front durch und kurz danch beruhigte sich der Wind. Die Wellen sind mittlerweile auch wieder auf Normalgroesse geschrumpft. Wir segeln am Wind gegen einen SSW-Wind (?!? – ich dachte, wir sind im Passat ?) und die Sonne lacht. – Wir auch.

Sehr, sehr froehliche Weihnachten !!

Santa Claus will come with a dinghy that’s pulled by Dolphins. The preparations for the feast are underway. And as we don’t wanna spend the christmas eve in front of the computer, we’d like to wish you all a

Very, very happy christmas !!

“…still und starr ruht die see, weihnachtlich glaenzet das meer, freuet euch ‘s christkind kommt her”

Die sterne strahlen wie damals zu bethlehem. Sollte es so bleiben, koennten wir heute mal anbaden.

Ein guter zeitpunkt um die leserschaft mit wichtigen nautischen einstellungen und regeln sowie der seele des fahrtenseglers ansich vertraut zu machen.

Die allererste und unumstoessliche regel, die jede crew auf einem schiff unbedingt beachten soll, ist: Regel nr. 1: der skipper hat immer recht. Regel nr. 2: sollte der skipper nicht recht haben, gilt regel nr. 1.

Auch lebt der gemeine fahrtensegler nach ein paar wichtigen faustregeln: Mir gefaellt die 48 h-regel ganz gut: Was sich binnen 48 h nicht von selbst repariert, muss behoben werden. Man beachte die nahezu perfekte verschmelzung fernoestlicher lehren mit seglerischer gruendlichkeit, die jedem gebrochenem ding bzw. bauteil ein seelenleben und somit eigenverantwortliches handeln zuspricht, ja mit vorbildhaftem gleichmut noch eine gnadenfrist einraeumt. Solches zen erlangt der fahrtensegler erst im laufe langer reisen und es bedarf haeufiger nachtwachen und flauten um solch hohen grad an nautischer spiritualitaet und gelassenheit zu erlangen.

Weit verbreitet findet sich auch der spruch: das machen wir morgen. Wenn der fahrtensegler sich etwas vornimmt, z.b. letztes bunkern vor dem auslaufen, wasser, diesel, einkaeufe oder notwendige reparaturen jenseits der 48h-regel, dann wird auch jenen dingen eine eigene, grosszuegige zeit eingeraeumt. Diese, also vom gefassten vorsatz bis zur ausfuehrung, wird i.d.r. auch gern mit anderen fahrtenseglern verbracht, weil besprochen. Und hier rueckt die gemeinschaft zusammen, waegt fuer und wider ab, beobachtet wind und wetter, den tidenhub, holt sich die aktuellen wettercharts von kap horn, legt statistiken mit daten aus den letzten jahrzehnten an, befragt morgenharn und kaffeesatz, orakelt auch gern unter zuhilfenahme bewussseintsfo(e)rdernder substanzen ausfuehrlich die zu erledigenden to-do’s. Wann, WANN!? ist der beste zeitpunkt die pfeife aus der und die dinge in die hand zu nehmen??? Doch hier ist obacht geboten, denn der grat ist schmal. Jene, die ihre aufgaben zack-zack erledigen, quasi im alleingang, gelten als gruenschnaebel, spiesser, nerds, bremser. In solchen momenten hat manch einer schon seinen ruf auf lange zeit belegt, weil runiniert. Eine rehabilitation dauert lange, wenn ueberhaupt. Unter schiffbruch geht da vermutlich gar nichs.

Es ist gegen 0500 utc, zappenduster, in 3 h geht die sonne auf. Heute ist weihnachten und ich freu mich drauf.

euer schiffsjunge

Mag ja sein, dass einem beim wort “atlantik” das kinn weich wird und die knielade offen bleibt, einige es bewundern, einige wenige uns beneiden und vermutlich die eine oder der andere sich sorgen. Letzteren sei der heutige eintrag gewidmet. Gewiss, der nord-atlantik, unter seglern ein gefürchtetes, weil launisches gewässer, gleichzusetzen mit den kaps (das des guten horns… den namen des anderen hab ich vergessen), aber im sog. noerdlichen equatorial strom, da sind die launen des wassers gezaehmt, sturm und drang vorbei, hier ist er, der atlantik, erwachsen. Morgen haben wir eine woche auf see. Jeden tag scheint die sonne, es herschen bestaendige winde zwischen 2 und 6 bft und je nach wind haben wir wellen zu 2 und einen schwell bis zu 3 m. Heute erstmalig auch die atlantikduenung mit einem sehr behaebigen hub ca. alle 200 m. und lustig ist, der koerper, puls und gedanken passen sich den intervallen der wellen irgendwie an – wir waren uns alle einig, die tage hier, obwohl man vergleichsweise wirklich wenig “zu tun” hat, vergehen sehr schnell – und erfuellt.

Am schwierigsten ist das ding mit dem staendigen schaukeln, das gleichgewicht zu finden um es dann auch zu halten. Mittlerweile, nach einigem bruch und noch mehr verschuetten, kennen wir die plaetze, wo wir fuer 7,5 sek evtl. den kaffee abstellen koennen damit sich mit einer hand ne stulle schmieren laesst. Es hat schon etwas von jonglieren, weil schon zu oft passiert, dass waehrend man etwas tut, das andere, z.b. die marmelade in parking position, eine reise antritt, die butter zwischen den knien, div. anderes im auge und dessen winkel.

Die verwendung von tellern hat sich mittlerweile eruebrigt – zu unpraktisch. Warme mahlzeiten werden nur noch in einem topf serviert, dazu 5 gabeln und hurra die gams! Was den abwasch in der menge klein haelt, in der dauer jedoch nicht. Im augenblick ist uns petri heil, denn was wir fangen landet via kochtopf nach spätestens 3 h in unseren maegen. Und, hier im atlantik gibts nur makrelen. Die sehen zwar alle unterschiedlich aus, sind aber im zweifel und fuer uns ganz sicher welche. Gestern gabs (vermutlich) makrele, mit kokosmilch und reis. Heute (wahrscheinlich) 2x makrele, in sojasauce und reis. Morgen machen wir eine pause, weil hl.abend, da gibt knoedel mit kaiserschmoan (bruno wuenscht sich das) und fuer die grossen zaubert der schiffskoch “jansons frestelse” – insider wissen bescheid! Am christtag wollten wir makrele mit baked beans und reis machen. Am tag danach lassen wir den reis weg, stattdessen gibts couscous. Auch eine variante makrele an rohem ei mit reichlich tabasco und bruehwuerfel garniert wurde diskutiert. Naechste woche wollten wir die filets mal über bord werfen und stattdessen die anderen fischteile essen. Also kopf, innereien, den schwanz und die flossen. Vor allem die kinder freuen sich schon! Ich mein, hej, an so einem satz kiemen lutscht sich’s schon nen tag. Und wer weiß, in einer woche pfeifen wir aufs kochen und essen die dinger roh, nach ner schoenen rauferei im rudel, wer die besten teile bekommt – direkt vom haken.

Wir sind auch dazu übergegangen den verschleiss an textilien zu minimieren – naja, eigentlich ist er auf null runtergefahren. Hauptsaechlich mangelt es an regelmaessigen waschmoeglichkeiten und unsre klamotten sind ohnehin bestaendig feucht, salzig und bekleckert. Reinigungstechnisch und -praktisch macht es mehr sinn ohne zu leben. Passend auch zum gefuehl der freiheit….

Man merkt schon, wir haben eigentlich ein beschauliches, nicht zu anstregendes und streckenweise belangloses seglerleben. Allerdings die aussicht, wasser wo immer man hinsieht und nachts das gleiche nochmal in sternen, das haut noch immer um. Dazu die vorstellung, dass 5000m wasser unter unserm a…. kiel ist.

Zum ende noch ein paar aktuelle fakten: Die traurige nachricht zuerst: wir muessen ab heute bier und zigaretten rationieren. Das senkt die moral, zumindest die der maennl. crew. Schmarotzierende segler haben abends im letzten hafen gekonnt die genau berechneten bestaende dezimiert. Gestern abend hatten wir ein rendez-vous mit den jungs der kira – mitten am offenen wasser. Eigentlich wollten wir ja weihnachten gemeinsam feiern, aber die bedingungen, schwell und wind, ließen es nicht zu, ein uebersetzen war unmoeglich. Obendrein war unser treffen zu frueh, bis weihnachten sinds ja noch 2 tage. Also setzen wir unsere tuecher und jeder segelte seiner wege.

Ab heute rechnen wir mit noch weiteren 12 tagen bis barbados, vielleicht auch weniger, wenns so bleibt.

Bis die sonnentage, der schiffsjunge

I’m also proud to announce that the Rancho Relaxo having left the SY Kira in her wake and after catching our SECOND fish (a mackerel again). We consider ourselves in the leading position of the FARC. (Fishing Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) The catch that was about half a meter was marinated in lemon juice, steamed in coconut milk and eaten with basmati rice. A wonderful dinner !

Right now at 5:40 in the morning we’re again sailing under Blister and making little more than 5 knots. The wind is still very weak but (I repeat myself, I know) – we like it that way because we still will arrive in Barbados in time and the journey is soooo much nicer without the constant rocking motion.

Wind: E 3, Sea: 3, little swell from ENE. Course 280 degrees, speed: 4.9 knots. Miles to go: 1362 Position: 16 06.3N and 036 12.5W

Dann wollten wir ja noch ein Wort zur Situation selbst verlieren. Vor allem an diejenigen, die keine Vorstellung vom Segeln am Atlantik hanben. Also wir liegen hier allesamt nackt im Schatten rum und haben ein Sonnensegel ueber’s Cockpit gespannt. Wenn’s uns trotzdem zu heiss wird, giessen wir uns gegenseitig ein paar Eimer Atlantikwasser ueber’n Kopf und machen weiter… Wir hoeren laut Musik im Cockpit (Reggae, Dub und Pink Floyd) und trinken ein Campari-Orange. Die Kinder spielen stundenlang im Schiffsinneren und haben grosse Freude mit dem Pixi-Adventkalender von der Uroma. Gestern haben wir auch unseren kleinen Weihnachtsbaum geschmueckt und am Grossbaum aufgehaengt – “Den braucht der Weihnachtsmann, damit er uns am Meer findet” (Bruno). Die 1cm grossen Christbaumkugeln sind mit Kabelbinder befestigt und statt Lametta haben wir diese kleinen, biegsamen Leuchtstangen. Ich denke nicht, dass es die ganze Ueberfahrt derart ruhig und angenehm bleiben wird – aber die Situatio n muss man einfach voll ausnuetzen !

Das einzige, was etwas zum Problem wird, ist unsere Stromversorgung, die mir nach wie vor etwas Kopfzerbrechen bereitet. Obwohl wir 2x100W Solarpanele haben und uns in den Tropen befinden, laden wir nur mit maximal 7A. Wenn’s so weiter geht, muessen wir den Kuehlschrank wohl ganz abstellen…. Tja. Auch nicht schlimm. Viel Verderbliches haben wir ja nicht mehr drin.

Wind: ENE 3, See: 3, sehr kleiner Schwell aus ENE. Kurs 290 Grad, Geschwindigkeit: 4.5 Knoten. Entfernung von Barbados: 1432 Seemeilen. Position um 14:10UTC: 16 03.7N und 035 00.3W