MF
03/09/2010, Spanish water, Curacao

Curacao 09.03.2010

We left Bonaire last thursday and had a somewhat uneventful sail to Curacao with more or less no wind. The only slight complication that we had was that on departure our left engine would not start, the starter engine was completely dead. I have to say we have had our streak of bad luck with our engines but maybe everyone experiences problems with something. Me and the boys were sad to leave Bonaire we had such a good time there, but we had a schedule to keep so we had to go. We came to Curacao at dusk and entered the channel that led to Spanish Waters, everything was going great until the boat stopped, we had run aground on a bank of mud. Niklas managed to reverse the boat of the mud but it took some maneuvering to regain our course in the narrow channel with only one engine. Coming into the bay we had to carefully choose an anchorage were we would have enough space to move because of our limited maneuverability, we found a spot and dropped the anchor. When the sun dissapeared behind the hills it reflected the windows of the vast amount of luxury villas in the bay, the hills literally sparkled until being replaced by electrical lights.

Next morning Niklas went to customs and the rest of us stayed on board, doing some school work and maintenance, we also rigged the wind surfing equipment. When Niklas came back it was already late, Max did get a chance to surf for half an hour but we had to follow him with the dinghy and finally drag him back to the boat. For dinner we had fresh Wahoo that Niklas had aquiered from the local fishermen, it was deliscious.

On saturday we rented a car and had a quick island tour, nothing spectacular I have to say. The capital Willemstaad on the contrary was splendid, a truly beatiful city, all the Caribbean colors with some very international flavours. We had a good walk around a lovely lunch and we refilled our fruit and vegetable store at the local market. Then we drove to a supermarket and did some heavy duty grocery shopping, we had to replenish our diminishing provisions. Afterwards we returned the car, bought a fresh tuna and dinghied back to the boat. We had a tasty sashimi dinner accompanied with chilled white wine. The day had been a good one, we had though noticed that Curacao was not the easiest place for cruisers. Everything is very far away from the anchorage and you cant get anywhere without a car.

Sunday we spent the whole day wind surfing and swimming and making a fish soup. Max is slowly getting the hang of surfing and so am I, it is loads of fun. In the evening we had our tasty fish soup while playing africas star, Marcus had gone of island exploring.
On monday we had to again rent a car in order to get our starter engine repaired and get internet access. We had some bad news in the morning, Niklas sister and family would not be joining us in Aruba. The whole day dissapeared while waiting for the starter engine that didnt get ready, typical.

Today on tuesday we are planning to leave for Aruba, Niklas is out in town trying to get our starter engine, hopefully they have been able to repair it. The wind is back so we should do the 70Nm passage quite fast, we plan to leave in the evening arriving in Aruba the next morning. Hopefully it will prove to be a bit more cruiser friendly than Curacao. I guess we are getting spoiled we have been already to such wonderful places that I dont think it can get very much better. Some of the places we definately will go back to, someday, sometime.

MF

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MF
02/27/2010, Kralejndik, Bonaire

Here we are at Bon Bonaire. We had a pleasant fast sail from Los Aves three days ago and caught a proper sized Blackfin tuna on the way to be prepared as sashimi in the evening. On arrival, we picked up a mooring as you are not allowed to anchor anywhere on Bonaire, this is for saving the reefs. Kralenjdik, the capital, seems to be a pleasant quiet town with colorful buildings and friendly people who are a splendid mix of Latinos, Europeans and African. The language spoken here is also a mix, I would guess between Dutch, Spanish and something else, it is actually quite undestandable if you have a little bit of imagination. The waters here are increadibly clear, you can see almost as well under water as above, there is also an abundance of fish both big and small. During happy hour at the local bar, a large barracuda has decided to make an appearance almost every night as it feeds on the tiny fish swirming around the dinghy dock. While we sip our margaritas and the boys their shirley temples, watching the sun dive into the Caribbean sea, we once again appreciate how good life is and how fortunate we are to be here in the tropics while our family and friends dwell in winter.

We have done an Island tour here, the nature is completely different from the prior islands, it is very dry here, the prevailing plant is something similar to a Saguaro cactus. There are various species of Lizards here and you see them everywhere some of them seem almost tame. There are also a large amount of pink Flamingoes that live in the salt lakes of the island. The boys were completelyy enchanted by these pink birds that had their knees flexing the wrong way round. Most of the tourism here is all about diving and water sports, diving I think we will have to skip this time as the children are still too young. We found a marvelous place for windsurfing, it is a lagoon on the windward side that is surrounded by reefs, there are no waves but always wind. We decided all to give windsurfing ago, they have boards and sails suitable even for our kids. Max can take a two hour course and if he likes it we might return the following day.

We have had days of maintenance, school work, laundry, shopping and beers with our friends from the yacht Ghost whom we met on their arrival from Antigua. Now we have also had two days of windsurfing fun as Max and me have tackled to control the boards. We have both done pretty well and really enjoyed it, Max I am sure will develop into a proper windsurfing guru with time. Kids just seem to master everything so much quicker than us adults do, the blessings of childhood, you do not worry too much about things you just do whatever is fun and feels good even if you get some bumps and bruises in the process. Felix has spent hours in the water floating on his back, swimming and occasionally joining his brother for a short ride on the board. We have had such a grand time here it will be really sad to leave but we have something else to look forward to, a visit from Niklas sister and family who will join us for a week in Aruba. Before that we will still have a few fun days here before we take course towards the next island and the next adventure.

Greetings from the sunshine,

MF

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MF
02/20/2010, Los Aves, Venezuela

Here we are still at Los Aves, days go by so quickly when you are having the time of your life. We changed anchorage yesterday from the Mangrove bay to a spot, that fits only one boat, between two tiny islands. One of the islands has three palm trees on it the other one has two, both the islands are surrounded by reefs. We had an interesting sail yesterday eyeball navigating our way through the countless reefs, I have to admit I was a bit nervous at times I lack the extreme confidence that our captain has, maybe this is good, I think the balance between my cautiousness and Niklas boldness makes us a good team. I am sure that Marcus will soon make his mark on the team as well, he has fitted in really well. When we finally lowered our anchor we could all relax for a while. I cut up a pineapple that the boys devoured in about ten seconds, fresh, ripe pineapple is so delicious. We lowered the dinghy and off we went, we found a beach that looked good and stopped there for a while. Marcus went exploring by foot, Niklas and Max snorkelled on the nearby reef and me and Felix stayed on the beach. One thing that Niklas wanted to find was a live conch in the water, until now he has not succeeded. Here in the Venezuelan archipelago they used to fish conch until they almost destroyed the whole conch population , there are mountains of old conch shells everywhere, now it is strictly forbidden to fish them, if you do you risk jail. When everyone got back to the beach we changed location. we found a lovely sandbank where the water between it and the actual island was so shallow that you could walk across. The seabed here was soft white sand and the boys were in seaventh heaven, two hours later we found our way back to the boat starving. We did some school work with the boys while Niklas was fixing up dinner, there was grilled sausages, bean salad and coconut potatoes on the menu. Later on we had a game of dominoes and were then of to dream land.

Today we have done loads of school work and now the boys are working on a habitat project together, they are drawing different habitats and cutting out animals and then gluing them to their correct environments. Niklas is polishing all the stainless steel on the boat and Marcus is writing letters. Soon we will go swimming and later on we are going to bake some fresh bread for this evening and tomorrow morning. Tomorrow early we leave the Venezuelan waters, our stay has already been prolonged as we have lingered here breathing in the utter beauty of it all.

MF

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Elmo & Jt
02/19/2010

Atlantic ocean video in New long version. click the link to see it.
(it is a big file. )
New long video Atlantic ocean

incl. S/S Espumeru atlantic Ocean. trip from Marbella to Porto santo, Madeira Getting Bananas, The caves on Ilja derserta Diving, Niklas naked, Max Diving, Stopped for Lunch at Selvagem grande, Heading to grand Canaria with lots of wind and big waves that Niklas & Mira got noticed of during the nightwatch so dark so you could not see the waves coming and one came into the boat and almost tock mira & niklas.

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MF
02/19/2010, Los Roques, Venezuela

We enjoyed a beautiful sail from Isla Margarita to Los Roques everything was perfect except the wind, there was hardly any. We soon realised that our timing would not be accurate for arrival at the los Roques archipelago, we would have to slow down or speed up, we decided to speed up. We pulled our large white spinnaker out from one of the front pontoons and up she went, it was a joy to sail under her again, she had been hidden away since the Atlantic crossing. We were doing five knots in basically no wind at all, not bad. There was a very pleasant surprise in stock for us, a flock of Dolphins decided to join our journey, they swam with us for almost an hour performing different party tricks throwing themselves in the air and landing sideways with a splash. It was such a joyous experience, Marcus had not witnessed anything like and we had not seen our finned friends in such a way since the Mediterranean. For the night the wind started picking up so it was best to change sail, we pulled out the main and the genoa, the wind was still on the rise and during my watch, first night watch, it went up to 21 knots and the boat was flying at nine knots. This showed to be too much for the autopilot though and he decided to take a brake, due to my inexperience I did not realise to loosen the main to take off some pressure, so I was battling to set the boat back on course and get the auto back on. In the end everything worked out fine with the help of Niklas though, we did have to reef in order to get the autos co-operation again. The night was otherwise uneventful but we did have a close encounter with a cargo ship, Niklas had to contact them with the VHF to make sure they were aware of us. We arrived in Los Roques the next evening, barely in time, we had a race with the last rays of the sun to find a suitable anchorage and in the end we succeeded. Los Roques is lovely the colour of the water is unique, all shades of blue and turqoise, we were the only boat in a bay sheltered by mangroves occupied by pelicans. We had a quiet night and all retired early, night sails always squeeze the juice out of you. The next days we explored the islands by foot and by dinghy, swam in the clear waters, snorkelled and built forts in the sand. Local fishermen had caught some pargo, we bought them and had an excellent meal with pargo fillets, boiled potatoes, avocado salad and chilled white wine. In the evening we played Africas star, the boys favourite game, untill again evryone was ready for bed. The next day Niklas and Marcus spent almot entirely underwater cleaning the hulls from the outside, a whole colony of sea snails and other different shells had colonized them , meanwhile me and the boys caught up with school work.

Wednesday we lifted the anchor and sailed for some 12Nm to the westernmost islands, we had winds up to 25kts. We found a spot that was not too choppy and decided to stop for the night, again the only boat here, we rode the dinghy to the closest island and had a superb day. The little island has long powdery white beaches and hundreds of birds, respecting their privacy we kept our distance. Everything was almost perfect, though there was some problems in paradise, very blood thirsty horse flies found us delicious, not funny at all. Tonight we are having fajitas with fresh homemade guacamole and another early night. Tomorrow we leave Los Roques and sail to Los Aves about 50Nm westwards the day after that it will be Bonaire, it is time to go back to civilisation again for a while.

After a quick breakfast this morning we pulled up the anchor and set off, the wind was suitable for the Gennaker so up she went. We are really happy that we had the sail fixed, so far she is serving us really well, who would have thought after the Atlantic rip, when she was torn in three. Soon though the wind died and it was time to change sails, it was the big spinnaker turn. Something went wrong while pulling the sail up, the sheet that actually pull the sail up was entwined around the sock. Niklas and Marcus took turns being winched up the mast in order to fix it. In the end the operation was a success and we were back in business, we even had some photographs as proof. Soon the wind changed though and we had to change back to the gennaker, the whole day was like this sails up and sails down, I guess it was good practise though. We did some major fishing and almoast caught some very big buggers, they ate our lures but managed to escape before we managed to haul them out. Our fishing luck did turn a bit though when we scored a small yellowfin tuna, there will be fresh sashimi tonight.We arrived at Los Aves right on schedule and were headed for our chosen anchorage when we saw some strange mirror signals from ashore.. Turning on the VHF it was soon apparent that the coastguard wanted a talk with us. They wanted us to turn around for an inspection, very annoying indeed, we knew that there would not be enough light for us to return to our intended spot. As it turned out, the coastguards were pleasant chaps that were bored like hell, one of them had an eye infection and we just happened to have medicine for it, now we are their new best friends. We had to choose a close anchorage as the sun was quickly setting and we made it just in time, seems to be a growing trend for us. Now here we are enjoying a well earned gin and tonic while the kids are cutting and colouring, the food is cooking in the oven and we are ready for our sashimi starter. What else can you say but life is good.

MF

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NJ
02/13/2010, Venezuelan waters

Hello again to all!

Here is a brief update of what has happened during the last weeks! (and I guess that to some of you it is happy new year, Christmas birthdays and etc....) Note, the blog we update frequently and I know that some some of you guys follow it!

This year has started very well, and we are now sailing on Venezuelan waters and avoiding pirates during night (I'll come to that later hehehe).

After the ARC regatta we stayed in St. Lucia for the holiday season because Miras family flew in and we enjoyed a VERY intensive 2 weeks with a lot of loud cousins screaming, running eating and swimming around the premises of Rex resorts in the Rodney Bay area of Saint Lucia. Everybody was sad to see Pam and the cousins leave but we will see them again soon (or a bit later...), but at the same time we were very happy to leave St Lucia and start to explore the Caribbean. We headed south towards Grenada where Mihkel &Co were due to fly out the 15 of Jan. On our way we stayed in the Pitons; which are two sugartop mountains on the middle-east coast of Grenada. From there we continued south and explored the middle of the Grenadines (including the lovely Tobago Cays and Mayreau). In Salt Whistle Bay we enjoyed a great evening with a barbeque on the beach with fresh Lobster, fish and salads. All this was prepared by a semi-toothless rastafari who has named himself Lördag in Swedish?!?!?! That night was Mihkels birthday so we had plenty of rum and Cokes, wine, beer etc.... We also met a really nice boat with two children in similar age as Max and Felix, later we have met them several times at different places. The next day we had our first bad weather encounter in the Caribbean with rain for the whole day and gusty semi cold winds. Fortunately it was only 1 day so we survived.....hehehe we even made our way to Union Island! Once in Grenada the Crew waved goodbye and flew to Europe for some serious ice-sailing! Marcus our new crew Member arrived and we spend a few days polishing and cleaning the boat so that he got to know it.

Our next "date" was to drop off Miras parents on a island with a airport, and to meet up with some friends in Bequia around the 18th of Jan. So, we headed north to the Tobago Cays again and worked our way up to Bequia where Miras parents chartered a small air taxi and flew avay for a 5* cruise trhough panama channel with some friends (our boat grew a bit small....). Once in Bequia Simon and Thomas introduced us to the "society" and we were invited to the party of the year of the island! We had a long chat with the only "2 week old" honorary consul for Finland in St. Vincent and the Grenadines amongst a lot of other fascinating people. Thank you Simon and Thomas; it really made a good memory:=)!

From there on we re-arranged the boat AGAIN......because now we are down to only the family and Markus, so finally we have space! One again we turned south and made our way to Prickly Bay in south east corner of Grenada, where we arrived about 12 days ago. This was a very Positive surprise and we met up with some friends from the ARC and the kids were playing with their son Ben for almost a week, while we were working on the boat and getting the engines fixed (thanks to Johan Wreteheim who kindly sent us some spares from Sweden). We also met some new people with very interesting backgrounds (even Fidde would be impressed!) so hopefully we can use and do business with some of our new contacts in the future!

From Grenada we had planned to go straight to the islands of Los Roques, in order to avoid the pirates that lure around the north eastern shore of Venezuela, but after researching the net we decided that it is not dangerous to go south so Isla Margarita it was! I have always had a illusion about Venezuela and really wanted to go there, but unfortunately this illusion was NOT met in isla Margarita:=( The island in itself is nothing special (they have a nice marine museum), the people seem to be quiet and depressed and the government is doing its best to keep tourists out! Last Wednesday when we arrived i spent 6 hrs and 600 Bolivares (around 100 Euros) just to get a stamp in the passport to be legally in Venezuela. This did not include all taxi rides between offices! Yesterday I wanted to check out because the carnival starts and everything is going to be closed until next week Wednesday. I waited for 4 hours before I was attended and then they informed that it will cost an other 1000Bf....... just to check out from the country and it has to be paid in cash.......ridiculous; so I decided to skip the procedure and take the problem with the immigration in Bonaire or in Columbia! What a disappointment!

At the moment we are 10:51N 64:10W i.e. just passing Margarita on its south side and heading towards Los Roques where we have an ETA of 25hrs.

The weather is really good clear skies 26c but the winds are a bit weak 12knots at the moment and we are doing approx 6 knots with our big spinnaker.

During the last weeks we have been fishing occasionally and caught 4 tunas, 4 barracudas, 1 mahi mahi and 1 really big something that took all the line and the hook!

Borkku: NÃ¥gra bra tips???

/NJ

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