Vamos

Some photos taken aboard our recent home 'Vamos'.

SXM

Back in St Martin and jumped on work.
Yes, Soggy's is still here!

Nearly there

The deck is painted, I'm busy prepating the boat for the 5 months we'll leave it here.
And on monday I leave lovely Colombia by plane with Birka, heading for St. Martin, money wants to be earned.

Welding the deck

Here's a little insight in what we are doing. Please don't show this to your local professional welder, he might get upset. Still we do what we can and it will be good enough.
As you see it turned out there wasn't only small holes where the rivets were, but also more serious problems. This is a series of photographs I took while putting a new piece of steel in the deck.

Under a railingpole I found this hole. I cut the weak part out.
Pretty rusty.

I cut out a new piece from a steel plate.

And it fits! Now it' only a matter of welding.

I attach the plate at two points to fixiate it in the right position.

And here we go.

Turns out I should have cut out a little more, it's still a little thin there. Well, it's learning by doing...

...and it was 40 degrees hot.

On the hard

On friday we hauled out Barracuda and put her on the dry at Marina Manzanillo, Cartagena.
We started on the teak-deck which is very rotten and therefore leaking. The wood is all off now and we're derusting, as soon as I can get a cable I'll start welding the holes.
We made some good progress so far, unfortunately it started to rain a lot which makes working impossible and turns the boat (with all the holes in the deck still open) into a dripping cave.

New plans

It's settled now: Olly and I are going to cross the Panama-canal next spring and sail through the Pacific until Australia. In order to fond this trip we'll return to Saint Martin and work as much as we can during the winter season to save up some money. We're also trying our hand at finding sponsors; if anyone out there has tips and tricks or ideas for us, don't hesitate, tell us!

I will fly up there begin of October and Olly is going to join in November after a visit home. Barracuda is going to stay here in Cartagena on the dry while we're gone.

In March we'll come back and go to and through Panama as quickly as possible, heading for Galapagos.

The adventure goes on!

Cholón

Last week we sailed the odd 15 miles down to Cholón, where there's a nice and calm lagoon. It was nice to relax a little bit after all the city-life. We went with our friends Henrik and Christine from Birka and had a great time together.

Here's some photos.

Did we tell you about the windsurfing?

This was back in Curacao where we could rent some equipment.

Here's some photos.

Cartagena, Colombia

the recent crew, back in Santa Marta

our catch on the way, a small mahi-mahi, gave us a nice dinner

a school of dolphins accompanied us for hours on the second day.

they were very curious and made some acrobatic jumps for us.

around the coast are always impressive thunderstorms that light up the whole sky.

good to watch them from a distance.

the skyline of cartagena de indias.

for me the biggest city since casablanca.

sometimes you get caught in one of these clouds- and have to deal with it.

here i'm using ollys mask, i don't know why people use skiing ones.

we got the bad weather just after entering the boca grande entrance.

the visibility was so bad i was weary of crashing into one of the moored tankers...

In the early morning we arrived at the anchorage in Cartagena de Indias. After two days of sailing with very unstable winds we were very happy to drop anchor next to our swedish friends from Pourbon, aka Birka.

Parque Nacional Tayrona

Last week we took a bus out of Santa Marta and to the Tayrona National Park.
We were hoping to see some real South American jungle with its wildlife and also whats left of the old abandonned city of the Pueblo- Indians, Pueblito.

The busride itself was an experience already. After crossing a very funky market we found 'el autobus', our bags were put on the roof and on we went! Turned out, the driver was an absolute nutter.

After entering the eastern entrance of the park we had to take another bus that took us over a very bumpy dirttrack to the starting point of our hike. On we went and we were not disappointed. We saw the amazing 'leaf cutter ants' we all know from the museum and/ or bbc earth, caymans, these cute little crocodiles, spiders far too big to be cute, the famous 'jesus christ lizard' in action and last but not least the black wasp that stings a tarantula and lays her egg inside the body - also in action.

Our plan to sleep in the wild in our own hammocks was changed quickly when that massive black cloud built up and it started to drizzle. Unfortunately we had set up our little camp already.
We found shelter in the restaurant of a little camping where we stayed for the night. There we met these israelan guys that showed us this very funny drinking game.

On the second day we started early after a chocolate bar- breakfast towards Pueblito. The hike was more intense than we had expected but we were rewarded by many new sights such as a group of monkeysclimbing through the tree tops, eyeing us curiously, more strange spiders and of course the quite impressive leftovers of the indigens' city- how did they get all these rocks over there?

After an even more intense hike we reached the western entrance in the early afternoon and caught the bus back to Santa Marta; we all fell asleep.

Santa Marta, Colombia

Curacao- Santa Marta, Colombia

On thursday the 28th we left spanish water in curacao. We were sad to leave some good friends there but looking forward to get to see this new continent in the same time.

We had waited for a window of nice weather, since we've been told to be weary of the 'Cabo de la Vela' where seas can get very rough.

In very fair conditions we left spanish water, this time with our engine, that we could fix in Curacao.

The first day was smooth 'butterfly'- sailing and we managed to get past Aruba during the night time. It was quite a maze of big tankers that were moored there, probably waiting for their turn to get to the huge raffinery on the island. A dutch coast-guard aircraft checked us out, they were circling us in very low altitude as if to intimidate us. Eventually they called us on the vhf and asked for our names and our destination. Then they left us alone.

Aruba in the sunset, a paradox island with it's windpark on one

side and massive raffinery on the other.

Robin, on his first bigger trip on a sailing boat, did very well, no signs of seasickness, neither homesickness! Only cooking brought him to his limits but we all know that. There's just one thing that's worse, Olly could tell stories about that...

On the second day we rounded the cape, turns out it was worth to wait; the sea's just a little confused and some north-easterly swells come in. We were fish but had no luck, one bait got taken by a big old fish, the brake of the reel squeeked- and the line snapped... One lure and about

60 metres of line gone.

Our third day out was a bit unfortunate. Right in the beginning and in very light winds the sails were banging around and one of our bamboo- spinnaker booms from dominica came off the holder on the mast and went over board. When I came outside after putting some tea it was gone and out of sight.

The rest of the day we all spent reading and playing card games.

In the evening the wind picked up again. We made good progress, hopes are high to arrive the next day 'round noon, when the sheet-holder on the main- boom broke with a bang. So we had to take down the main and went on on genoa only.

On our fourth day, 31st, we didn't get very far in light winds, the improvisated main-sheet couldn't help us there.

Since we didn't want to arrive during nighttime we had to wait another night.

So, this morning we arrived with the first light of day and pulled in to the marina. Having the boat in this safe harbour will allow us to have some trips inland.

Curacao

From Los Roques we sailed straight to Curacao. We had good winds so we could enter the narrow channel of Spanish Water under sails.
The anchorage here is good holding and very well protected, so we can relax a bit at the moment.
We met a lot of very nice people here and, of course Robin arrived, so it's three of us on board now.

For the rest the new damper plate is ordered and should arrive this week, we're looking forward to get to Colombia.

Isla la Blanquilla, Islas Los Roques

On our way to Curacao we stopped off on venezuelan islands Blanquilla and Roques.
On Blanquilla we took a rest after two days and one night of sailing. Anchoring was quite interesting, in the dark, without engine but in the end we made it.
The island is only seasonaly inhabited by some fishermen except for some wild donkeys and iguanas.

The Roques were flooded by venezuelan tourists on first sight but as we moved on towards the western part of the archipel we found or very own little island. Snorchelling was excellent.

Fishing was great too, much better than in the rather poor waters of the Eastern Caribbean, nearly all fish we caught had serious bitemarks. Once we caught just a head...

Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou

Turns out we're lucky; the gearbox seems to be okay, just the so-called damper plate (between engine and gearbox) is broken. Fortunately this thing is much cheaper than a gearbox.

Jörg, the friendly mechanic could tell immediately what the problem was when he turned the shaft and i could take it apart myself.

So by the looks of it we're going to leave Carriacou on the 20th for Curacao where we pick up my very good friend Robin and where we also try to get our new damper plate.

Carriacou, Grenadines

Yesterday we arrived in Carriacou with the last light. It was a long sail over from Dominica with far too little wind. And since unfortunately up in Dominica our gearbox broke down we couldn't use the engine. We hope the mecanics down in Tyrell Bay can help us out for a reasonnable price because we probably can't afford a new one imported from Europe.

At the moment we're staying on a mooring just in front of Sandy Island, the only spot we could reach before dark. Tomorrow we might check out the traditional regatta in Petite Martinique.

Dominica 'Boiling Lake'