Bequia, Grenadines

Dear readers,

this morning in an early hour we arrived at Admiralty Bay, Bequia.
We had a good and quick passage over from Barbados, lots of rain and thunderstorms though... but they allowed us to make an average of about six knots.
it's the first caribbean island we've visited before and we're awaiting the arrival of our dear segel-ag fellows for the celebration of christmas eve.
unfortunately the digi-cam is broken, so no photos =(
we'll try to fix it for you!
have a nice and cosy christmas everybody but don't go out, you might freeze on the spot.
greets, your crew

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Bridgetown, Barbados

More than glad to tell you: yesterday, the 13th of december we arrived at Barbados after 23 days out on sea.The sailing was quite easy for the weather was mainly good.

The first ten days we had rather weak winds from variable directions, sometimes no wind at all and we couldn't make big distances. But after this period (we really asked ourselves if there is such a thing as tradewinds) the passat picked up and except for the last two days we had great conditions and approached barbados very quickly.

We had a good time out on sea though it was really a long time on a small space. But we enjoyed it and ourselves most of the time.

Nd now we're here, finally at our destination and it is perfectly what we wished for and had hoped.

The water is still turquoise, the beaches are still white, palm trees and caribbean spirit still there!

At the moment we're only busy with enjoying, relaxing and recovering from the long time on sea.

Thanks to all of you for all kinds of support,
Yours truly, laszlo and Jan-Vincent

PS: there will be more information, photos and videos in another following post

the big passage

it's the evening before a big adventure is about to happen. last preparations have been made and the last doubts have been erased.
we are sitting in a beautiful open bar enjoying the last breath of land and civilisation.
what has been so far away some weeks ago is now present and it feels great.
tomorrow we will start to face the sea for the longest time so far.
the distanced has become easier to imagine since the passage from the canaries to this place, it's a bit more than two times it.

we'll do our best to live a comfortable life out on sea, today we bought a lot of fruit and veggies, at least the first week will be a healthy one...

if the winds stay steady it will probably take us two to three weeks to reaach barbados, otherwise it might take a little longer... but we have food and water for probably three months so this would be no problem.

you'll hear from us when we arrive,
so long!

sao vicente, cabo verde

hello folks!

on saturday we arrived at sao vicente to be precise mindelo.

it was a long but relaxing passage, we hope the crossing will be like it. we caught a lot of fish so we could eat very well.

the island is charming, the first time a caribbean feeling.

we met up with some swedish and norwegian friends and are having a great time.

on saturday we plan to leave for the big passage, the boat and we are ready for it (we think).

we'll try to give another report on friday but don't be mad on us if we don't succeed, we have a lot of things in our heads, especially enjoying...

otherwise you'll hear from us once we're in barbados or bequia.
don't worry if you hear nothing from us for a while, we expect some 3 to 4 weeks out on see.

sorry for there are no pictures,

there's a technical problem...

greets

time has nearly come

hi fellows,

tomorrow we'll take leave from las palmas and head down south to playa inglés.
there we'll complete our shopping for the great passage, most of it has been done yesterday (see photos). we spent the whole 300€ we earned and we'll probably be able to live another year in the caribbean on it...

the last preparations will be done today and in the few days we'll stay on gran canaria.
then we're ready to begin; a brief stop on sao vicente, cabo verde is considered but not necessary if we catch the passat before arriving there.

a luego

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

hey there

a few days ago we arrived at gran canaria after a very sunny passage from lanzarote.
very little winds again, had to use the engine once more. but there was something special nevertheless: in lanzarote we met a guy with an engine problem whose two crew members had to get to las palmas to catch their flights in time but he still had to wait for the engine to be fixed. so we just took one of them with us, a man round 70, quite a nice experience.

later on the trip we managed to catch a so called dolphin-fish, see photo. at the end and after cooking it there was not much left but it was tasty.

we were really looking forward to get here particularly for one reason: as we arrived we cold meet an old friend from the charterboat- scene, albert.
really funny to meet someone from "home" on such a place and after such a long time.
so of course it's partying a lot but he also has a little maintenance job for us on the boat he's travelling with which is a good opportunity for us to make some money for the trip.

before the passage to gran canaria we first went down south of lanzarote where we found a very nice anchorage and snorchelled a lot. we were travelling together with another swedish friend, marc who is solo sailing at the moment (see photo).

we will stay here for probably five or six more days before we go down south to playa des inglés where we hope to reunite with our other swedish and norwegian friends.

there we'll wait for fair winds to go down to the capverdian islands, our last stop before the great passage.

further we're having the time of our lives here, the climate is just perfect, we're swimming a lot and we're living quite cheap finally, anchoring saves a lot of money, albert too.

let's see now if our boat's still there, we were drifting al lot tonight.
as always you'll hear from us,
greets jan and laszlo

Lanzarote, canaries

Hello again,

after nearly one week on sea we finally arrived in Lanzarote. This was our longest trip so far, so far because a much longer one isnt that far away anymore.
Now that we are here we are very happy that we decided not to stop in agadir. The plan is not to stay for too long here maybe only one night. We are really looking forward to sleep threw a whole night again.

What stays from this trip is again the beauty of deep water, with means: long waves, the endless horizon and the ultimate blue color.
Again we saw lots of dolphins which sometimes scared the one of us at first who had nightwatch. For the first time i saw a golden turtle swimming in the middle of the sea.

Our plan is not to stay for too long. Maybe tomorrow we will head for gran canaria, already. We will meet up there with an old friend. And of course we need some time to prepare ourseves and our dear boat for the big big ocean.

Reports will be given again
Thanks for your comments

over and out ijfewoincfeonjcwöocmjwojfexo

Mohammedia, Morocco

hi again,

we're glad to tell you: we arrived in mohammedia, morocco, AFRICA early on thursday.
the passage from lisboa took us two and a half days. unfortunately we didn't have a lot of wind and with the knowledge of bad weather to come we used the engine once more. maybe we should change the name in "ms barracuda"...

we're planning to stay here until monday at least and with better weather we want to head for agadir, then canaries.

we chose to go to africa instead for madeira for weather reasons. and to reunite with our swedish friends...
it's a great experience and we're not so sorry anymore for having skipped madeira for it.

we succeeded in reuniting, actually we met three other boats with young people, from sweden and norway. you can imagine what's happening here every evening.

today we're going to casablanca by train and look for the roots of my name...
i added a photo of the very famous hassan 2 mosqué.

we quite enjoy ourselves here spending most of the daytime- well, sleeping- and at the very nice pool (see photo).

that's it so far. 'til the next time

yours truly,
crew

San Francisco

Hello people,

saturday the 25.09. we arrived in San Francisco. It was a longer trip than the ones before but weve had good winds so we decided to push through. It was nice to sail into the night again, what we have not done since the arrival in viveiro.

It really is a fun city espeacially at night. Fortunately our arrival was on a saturday so we could start exploring nightlife right away.

Well, we ended up in a club called europe which opened at about 4 and no idea when it closes for it was still crowded when we left at about 8 in the morning.

When we came in the rivermouth we passed one of the 'aida' ships, they got really close and hundreds of german tourists greeted us. Those ships are really everywhere, we saw them in amsterdam, la coruna and now here.

Right now we're staying in a marina with a nice view at the famous 'Golden Gate Bridge' (see photo) to be able to see the city. Tomorrow we're planning to go to an anchorage where there's a ferry to the city-centre supposed to be.

The descision not to go along morocco but straight to madeira is made. So we have to get some things together and prepare us and the boat for this trip. When the time has come to go further you will hear from us.

Till then take good care

laja

Nazaré

hey there,

yesterday we arrived in nazaré after another day on the engine...
but today there's northerly winds forecast, so we hope to be able to sail again, will be quite an experience.

our goal is peniche or maybe even cascais if we get our lights fixed- this will take a while.

then we're nearly in lisboa, where we want to stay a while.

one more very important thing, the swedish people we mentionend before, they have a website aswell (a pretty good one compared to ours), there you can see some pictures of the time we spent together too.
This is the link: 28fot.com

tot snel

Figueira da Foz

hey friends,

we're right now in figueira, a rather small and touristic town but with a nice pub...
we arrived yesterday in the afternoon after another day without wind. the most spectacular thing of the trip was the catch of a quite small bonito that we cooked lateron. for the rest it was a lot of sun and reading for the one that did not steer.

the weather doesn't look too bad today either so probably we'll head further south to peniche.

we're very much thinking about whether to go straight to madeira from lisboa or to follow the coast and see morocco as well.
if any experienced oceansailor reads this, what do you think, what are your experiences, especially about the moroccan coast?

sorry for there are no pictures again, forgot the camera...

greets

Povoa de Varzim

hello fellas!

yesterday we arrived in povoa after a lovely day of sailing.

on our way we passed a kind of wave powerplant which was luckily well buoyed and visible.

in the marina we had a drink again with our new swedish friends.

now we'll visit porto by train and tomorrow we want to go further southwards to aveiro.

there are no new photos, sorry for that!

you'll hear from us

Das Paket

An dieser Stelle Möchten wir allen herzlich danken, die bei der Paketaktion mitgeholfen haben:

In erster Linie Micha, der die Initiative ergriffen hat und außerdem den Laptop aufgetrieben hat.

Thomas, der Tsunamis organisiert hat ( na, habt ihr schon Sehnsucht?).

Chris für den Kühlschrank und den edlen Tropfen.

Andrea für das Boot und die Bücher.

Gut, euch zu haben!

Ria de Vigo

Hello there!

We finally have internet access again so we can update you.

When we left la Coruna, our plan was to get as quick as possible to Vigo wich we heard was a very nice city. But for there was quite little wind we didn't get far and stayed in Laxe where we found a mooring.

The next day there was no wind either, so we went on the engine to finisterre. On our way we discovered what we read about in the Reeds almanac before. A very dense mistbank which builds up very quickly. all of a sudden we couln't see anything at all and were very lucky to have a gps with us.
As we passed the cape we came out of the mist wich obviously was blocked by the mountains and we took a mooring again.

From Finisterre we went straight to the Ria de Vigo. On our way we had our first big catch: A bonito ( kind of tuna) of about 60 cm. We started the bbq later and had a great dinner.
Our first night there we took a mooring at the beach right in front of one of the Islas des Cies (norte), which are very beautiful.
Later we stayed in different marinas and found another beautiful place to anchor.

We got to know one very friendly staff member of one of the marinas who showed us the local nightlife and we had a magnificent night. Thank you!

Last monday we finally received our parcel from germany including mainly a new laptop, an inflatable canoe ( replacement for lost dinghy) and a fridge.

La Coruña

hello dear friends

we finally landed in la coruña. for the first time we had normal weather on sea, sunshine and no wind for a change.

the city is amazingly nice, the weather is sweet.

we are still busy with solving our dinghy problem but there will be sent an old inflatable boat to us from germany. its not quite the same but better than the rx-1000, our present ones (see picture)...

we will stay here and enjoy the city for a few more days before heading further south to the ria de vigo.

vielen dank an die homebase fuer das engagement in sachen dinghy- bzw. laptopproblematik!

tot de volgende keer!

Spain, baby!!

Hello dear friends, yesterday we arrived in Spain, Viveiro. It surely was the tuffest challenge so far and we hope that nothing like that awaits us in the near future. Monday (22.08.) very early in the morning we left France. The weatherforecast for the following 3 days was forspelling north western wind, not too strong. Well actually the wind turned out to blow from the south and also decidet to be be strong. In the evening of the first day after non stop rain showers the wind increased and wouldnt stop before he reached the strength of 8 kn and even more in gusts. We were lucky to get an early warning from the french coastguard, so we could prepare for a very rough night. We have never seen such high and agressive waves which constantly tried to break the barracuda and our will to keep on moving. We werent sailing threw the biscay but swimming. This night we also lost our dingi, after it turned around it just ripped off. With the sun there came peace the wind decreased and blew north westerly. We saw lots of dolphins and even wales. With the following night there came the wind again, and again it came right against our plans from the south. This time it lasted longer, the bay of biscay showed us nearly two more days how mercyless it can be. Never the less we made it, of course. We are in Spain. Yesterday we enjoyed tapas and red wine. It is warm. The people are frindly and and what a luck for our spanish speaking no one here knows a wor of any other language. We really are happy to be here and well just enjoy this beautiful place and the ones that still await us. the comments... for crew barracuda.....over and out