This is from a live stream, talking about our final passage.

Talking about our next episode

Bindi had been for a couple of rides in the dinghy and has been on board the same number of times, this was her very first sail out on the Coral Sea on Annecam.

Bindi is an eleven-year-old Red Kelpie, an Australian working rescue dog, she has only been with us for three weeks.

This is the story on how Bindi selected us and her forever home.

Annie and our neighbour Kay were on their way home from their weekly game of golf, they decided to drop into the local animal pound just to see what they had in there and what was the process for adopting a dog. We had been talking about getting another dog for quite some time and we both agreed that it would be a rescue dog.

They pulled up in the pound car park, it was then they noticed a friendly Red Kelpie on the back of a ute (pick-up) and as they entered the office to make enquiries they met a young lady that was in the process of surrendering her dog and as they walked back to the car they gave the Red Kelpie a pat, it was then that the dog got excited and it tried to jump off the back of the ute but was hanging by her lead, Annie and Kay lifted her back up onto the tray. Kay walked back in to the office and spoke to the young lady that was surrendering her dog, in no time at all Kay was back at the car opening the back door and she was putting this strange dog on the back seat, all this time Annie was sitting in the car thinking and saying “what have you just done” to Kay, “what is your husband going to say”. It was then that they found out that the dog was called “Bindi”.

Bindi spent one night with Kay and her husband and he said that they already have a dog, there is no way that they can have another one, she must go.

The very next morning Bindi was making herself at home at our place, she settled in very quickly and now the rest is history in the making.

The photo is Bindi in her favourite place on top of the companionway hatch.

“The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow. For every challenge encountered there is opportunity for growth.”
The video

This is another new video from Annecam Productions.
This is a short snapshot of just some of the locations we either sailed to or sailed past between Gibraltar and Panama on Annecam.

This production turned into an epic editing saga, as it took me back through the archives on our journey from the Mediterranean to Australia and to capture the locations, we stopped at was a big ask but here it is.

Sharing our memories with you all, enjoy.

Keep watching this space as episode #3 is on the way.

The photo is Annecam leading the way to Dominica

“In life, it is not the opinions of others that counts, not the ones who point out how you could have done it better. The credit belongs to you, as you are the one out there living the dream”.

The video.

New video from Annecam Productions

This video is a snapshot of just some of the locations we stopped at on Annecam in the Mediterranean. It was fun little exercise putting this one together, it turned into a trip down memory lane for us and we only wished that we had used the video camera a bit more in the early days.

Keep watching this space as I attempt to create episode #2 covering from the Med to Panama.

The photo is a small part of our track in the Mediterranean.

“I don’t regret the things I’ve done; I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.”

The video.

Out of all the passages crossing oceans, sailing between Islands and cruising on Annecam, we have sailed in almost all types of weather systems, some good, some almost dead calm and there have been a few that have been downright frightening.

We have had severe thunderstorms break right on top of us, water spouts run over us and tropical rain squalls try to rip our sails and rigging off but by far the best or I should say the worst weather system we have ever had the displeasure of sailing into was right in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

We had planned to leave the Caribbean Islands, sailing from the west end of Puerto Rico and head straight for the Panama Canal. This was to be about a one thousand nautical mile passage from start to finish, it should have taken us 6 to 7 days to complete.

We had already sailed for just on two and a half days in very calm seas, it was that calm we had to motor sail just to keep moving. The weather forecast we started in was for exactly that, I was obtaining weather up-dates via Predict Wind on our Iridium Go, this was about to change.

Halfway through the third day at sea we received a weather forecast for building winds, up to 35 knots for the next 24 hours and a slight increase on the wind speed for the next 48 hours after that.

Increase it did, as we soon found our selves reducing sail to about 15% of our poled-out genoa and about 5% of our main with a preventer on the boom and after dark we reduced even further as we found ourselves in 48knots with gusts over 70. This produced a gnarly breaking sea state. Annecam just kept flying along on autopilot and never let go once, it kept up at all times even after we had the mast kiss the water on five separate occasions, looking back I still cant believe that we had zero breakages except for one laptop computer that was sent flying across the cabin, smashing into several pieces as it collided with the rear portside head door.

We changed our destination to Cartagena Colombia to escape this system.

This weather system was going to be our best sail ever, as we made over 242 nautical miles in 24 hours, we had an average of over 10 knots and a recorded top of 18.2 knots on almost bare polls. Trying to capture the sea state on video is almost impossible as every time the video makes the sea look like a duck pond compared to what it was really like.

The photo is our reduced sail area.

"Happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude."

This is a short video of Annecam crossing the Caribbean Sea.