Finally on land, after the storm...

On Sunday evening (03.06), as everyday we listened to Herb in the SSB radio. He is talking with boats and give them weather information. Lucky us, there was one boat called “Pinocio” very close to us most of the days so their report fit us also. Herb said that a srorm (even more than a storm, a hurricane force is getting closer to the Azores islands and we better arrive to Horta until Wednesday morning. We had left then 240 miles and we had 2.5 days. We continued sailing and on Monday morning when the wind became weaker we started the engine and calculated that in 36 hours we will be in Horta, just before the storm begins. On Monday evening I wished Assaf “Enjoy your last night watch”, but it was a mistake to say it because on 2 AM Tuesday we heard that the engine stopped and Bosse shouting “Shit”. We came immediately to replace him and he went to try and fix it. It was raining a lot and it’s not fun at all to sit and steer in heavy rain. We knew we will not make it to Horta in time before the storm only with the sails (we were only 77 miles from there) because our direction was North East and the wind came from that direction so we couldn’t sail fast so we changed direction to East, hopefully the engine will be fixed soon. After 8 hours of working on the engine, he gave up so we just kept sailing east and we didn’t know what to do with the fact that the storm is getting closer. The next morning Bosse saw a ship near us and talked with them in the VHF radio to get a weather report. They told us they think it’s ok to sail to Horta because the storm will arrive only the day after. It was good news for us and we started to sail back to Horta but it was not easy because now we had to sail North and the wind was again against us. As the hours passed, the wind became stronger and the Barometric pressure kept decreasing rapidly which usually means the winds become stronger. In the evening we already had winds of 30 knots and in the night it raised to 40 knots which is very strong wind, it means that we got into the storm but from some reason we didn’t change direction (the captain makes the decisions…). The waves were very high and against us and they bit the boat so hard that it sounded like they are going to break it (but the body’s boat is very strong) and I didn’t feel good from it so I just stayed inside my sleeping bag most of the day (when I was not vomited) and Assaf took the night watch instead of me. At around 7 in the morning we suddenly broached, which means the boat got a big wave from the side and it knocked down almost 90 degrees into the water (the mast touched the water). Assaf was sitting in his watch in the leaving room and flew to the other side of the boat and hit his head in the ceiling. no damage occurred to him but he was in shock for some minutes. I was in my sleeping bag and flew to the other side of the room which is very small so it was not much but I didn’t understand what is going on, where is up and where is down and I saw lots of water in the boat. I was sure the boat is going to sink, so as soon as I could I stood up, put my rain pants and coat and as an instinct, I put on me the water proof bag with the passports and wallets. After few minutes we understood the boat is not going to sink and for now we will not find ourselves waiting in the life raft for some ship to see us one day… but we also found out that so many things were damaged or lost and we were frightened that something like that will happen again because the storm didn‘t pass yet. Accept for the engine that didn’t work already for 2 days, the sails were ripped, we lost the navigation lights, the wind vane (self steering device), one solar panel, all the drinking water were spilled from the tank (we had left just 80 litres in the spare jerikans), the SSB radio (our only way to communicate for long distance) was burned because water came into it. The only thing we had left working was the VHF radio that works for short distances (distance you can see), so we decided to try and call for help every 15 minutes but because we lost one of 2 solar panel, the electricity was low and we had to decrease the callings. In that time, the waves were huge and the only reasonable thing to do was just going with the wind. We were around 58 miles from Horta (so close…) and for the next 24 hours Assaf and Bosse made turns of steering with the wind and I called for help in the VHF every 20 minutes, all day and all night. We were so terrified, we didn’t have sails and the waves were huge and we were afraid we will not see a land again in the next period, if at all. It’s very scary to be in that situation and not be able to inform anyone about it. On Friday morning the waves began to be lower and we changed the main sail to a spare one which was weaker and we had another small storm sail (that was there already before the storm and was not ripped) so we hoped for not having strong winds (because the sails were not strong enough for strong winds and we were not mentally ready for a storm again…) and started to sail again to Horta with 150 miles left (the waves took us south 100 miles in 1 day). The winds were still against us so on Saturday morning Bosse decided to change our destination to the island Sao Miguel which is more north east and we could sail faster. We didn’t want to make any plans for the arrival because we were afraid it will not happen, but of course each one of us thought so much about the moment we will step on land. And on Sunday 12.00 it happened! We arrived to the port of Punta Delgada and intended to get into marina because we had so many damages to the boat and the best way to fix it is to be inside marina, but we didn’t have a motor, so first we saw fisherman boat and they dragged us to a dock but it was a big ships dock so immediately policemen arrived and started to investigate us for an hour, which was the last thing we had energies for…, we just wanted to get into the marina. After that 3 small boats came and were very nice and towed us into the marina (we had to convince the marina people we really need to be there because they were full, but eventually we managed) so finally around 2PM on Sunday, 10.06, after 25 days at sea and a very unpleasant experience, we were on the island.
Happy end…

Crossing the Atlantic ocean…

What is crossing the Atlantic?

First of all, it’s about 4000 kilometres until the first place you can leave the boat and step on land. It’s a journey where you feel the differences in time, in contrast to flying above the ocean when you suddenly land in another time zone. It’s few weeks that you can see the sunset and sunrise without any effort of waking up early or drive to the sea in the evening to see the sunset. You learn how to live with 2 more people 24 hours a day without the option to escape somewhere even for a second. You develop your creativity of tasty and special food with the products you have. You learn how to pass the watches (4 hours watch, 8 hours break) by looking at the stars, the sea, the waves, looking for ships around and hoping for a quiet and fast watch without surprises.

16.05.07

8AM - Last meeting of the 4 boats that suppose to sail together. One of them said they don’t join us since they are not ready yet. After the meeting, Assaf and I went to take a shower in one of the marinas, last shower before the Atlantic. At 11 AM we started sailing with another Swedish boat and British boat. We passed the island Anguila and then put in the GPS the way point “Horta - 2177 miles”…Assaf and I were in the cockpit in that point and within few minutes we got so much water in the face from a wave that we understood immediately - it’s not the Caribbean sea anymore… The wind came from the North east which is our direction so the sailing was not so comfortable, the waves are big and bit the boat, the boat heels to the side, it’s hard to sleep and everything became complicated - if you want to go to the room, you have to hold everything you have on the way, making food is also a hard task and going to the toilets is the most complicated one… Beside that, we didn’t feel so good, an easy sea sickness and it took us 2 days of vomiting and resting to recover.

17.05.07

I woke up early in the morning and didn’t feel good. I tried to eat some dry crackers but my body didn’t like the idea… It was a bad day, I couldn’t even do my night watch, so Assaf replaced me.

18.05.07

I moved to sleep in the small room with the 2 floors bed because it’s not as bad as the fore cabin and I slept all the night. In the morning I felt much better and could take a watch and even started to eat a little bit. The night watch was full of stars, even few falling stars… in the end of every watch we write in the log book details about the watch like the wind’s speed, miles left, barometric pressure and so on.

19.05.07

Today we made “Levivot” from potatoes, we felt like it’s Hanuka, just it wasn’t possible to light candles in those winds…We waited until Bosse will fix the salt water pump and then started to make the Levivot and while making it, a ship passed very close to us and we talked with them in the VHF to get a weather report.

20.05.07

The winds are weak since yesterday and the only good thing about it is that we don’t have to hold everything in the way in order to do something.Today is a pizza day (we still have some cheese from St. Martin). I also wanted to make a cake and I knew Bosse will love the idea of using the oven once for pizza and cake so that’s what we did. The pizza was very good, but the cake not… the oven was too warm for it. Sometimes cheap is expensive… but still the cake was finished.Night watch… when the waves break on the boat, we van see planktons, very beautiful.

21.05.07

Today I made bread. It takes around 6 hours in total. Bosse didn’t like the idea that I made a new bread when there are still some pieces from the one we made last week, but it was not tasty anymore. In the afternoon Assaf started to make our trekking food - rice with salami, but then we heard the fishing line stretching - we had a fish for dinner, a tasty one. My night watch was crazy, the winds kept changing all the time and it was raining a lot, I was glad to finish it and go to sleep.

22.05.07

We are doing good with the sailing, nice winds, In the morning we wanted to make a shower somehow, so Assaf took the bucket which had a line attached to it, held the line in his hand and put the bucket in the sea, but it was too hard to pull it back and he couldn’t do it, so we lost the bucket… and the shower…Today I made a new record - 26 miles in my watch (in 4 hours), which means something like 12 kmh. I know it sounds slow (and actually it is), but it feels like we are flying. That’s one of the ways to keep ourselves busy in watches - calculate how many miles “we will do” in 4 hours, if in 2 hours we already did X miles… and then the first thing we do when we finish the watch is ask each other - “Kama kama?” (how much did you do?)

23.05.07
Since we don’t have a bucket anymore and we really wanted to make a shower, we took 2 bowls, filled it with salt water, took the Johnson baby shampoo (the only one that works in salt water) and after we finished with the salt water, we spoiled ourselves in 1 liter of sweet water for the good feeling.For lunch Assaf made some Indian think with peas and rice, it was very good.

24.05.07

Happy birthday to Keren! I hope you had a great day. I had a terrible night watch, I even couldn’t hold until the end of it. 3 hours of heavy rain and changing winds, I was completely soaked and shaking and when Bosse replaced me, I went into my sleeping bag and didn’t come out until my next watch in the afternoon.

25.05.07

The sunrise was amazing, but my camera doesn’t work from some reason. For lunch Assaf and I made meat (from a can, like “Luf”) and potatoes pie. It was not as tasty as we thought it will be, but what can you expect from low quality meat…?

26.05.07

My night watch passed fast, mainly because about an hour and a half I focused in the ship I saw and tried to understand what was it’s direction because in some point it was pretty close to us. After the watch, I went sleeping and Assaf also slept until we heard Bosse shouting “Golden makarel” - we caught another fish. Actually we had luck with fish, people told us that in the north Atlantic it’s hard to catch fish. So we came to see the fish and it was not dead yet and it jumped from side to side in the cockpit, I couldn’t see it and returned fast to my bed, but for Assaf it was the first time he killed a fish and made fillets from it. Of course it was tasty, but it’s not easy to see it before it’s dead. In the afternoon we made brownies which turned out to be the sweets highlights of the sailing, it was finished very very fast.

27.05.07

The wind became very weak, we hardly move, but it’s a way to make a shower. I decided to delay the shower and go to sleep after the night watch, but after an hour Assaf came to call me because they saw whales so I came immediately and saw them but they were not so close to the boat (as the dolphins we saw few times already), and because I already woke up I changed to bathing suit, went down to the platform and made a shower. It was nice even though it’s a salt water shower.For lunch Assaf made pasta with mushrooms in red wine sauce (we bought dry mushrooms before the sailing). The wind was still weak and Bosse said he doesn’t mind that the sailing will be even 5 or 10 days longer but I couldn’t agree with him…

28.05.07

In my night watch the wind was stable so I didn’t have to steer and I was bored so I made rolls. In the morning the wind stopped completely and we had to start the engine. The ocean was quite, like a mirror, looks like a lake, it’s amazing how different it can be in few hours. We saw sailing purple jelly fish, they look so nice, but actually if you are with them in the water it can be very dangerous.We don’t have an automatic pilot (that you give it direction and it keeps this direction), so when we use the motor we must steer every second because if not, in 2 minutes we can find ourselves in the completely opposite direction, it’s not easy to do it for 4 hours. When Bosse and Assaf finished to play chess (almost 2 hours one game), we finally ate lunch, in the evening.

29.05.07

In the night I saw for the first time a sailing boat passing in front of us, we talked with them in the VHF and it was very nice. In the morning I saw 2 groups of dolphins, they swam next to us for few minutes, it always give a nice feeling. Now we have left 750 miles so we hope to get to Horta in no more than 7.5 days. In the evening we stopped the engine for getting good reception in the SSB radio and listen to Herb’s weather reports. Herb is talking every evening with sailing boats in the north Atlantic, they give them their location and they give them weather forecast and advises. We didn’t talk with him, but listened everyday to what he said to boats around us. It was nice today to listen to him because I didn’t have to sit and steer for about 1.5 hours. Herb said that about 60 miles north to us there are strong winds (gale) and we better sail east for a while so we did what Herb said. In the evening, in Assaf’s watch, the winds started again and we finally stopped the engine after 36 hours. It was nice not to steer anymore and the winds were good so we sailed fast (comparing to this boat).

30.05.07

2 weeks at sea!Assaf told me to wake him up if I hear a fish is caught (because I had no intensions to take the fish into the boat by myself and kill it…). Around 5.40 in the morning I heard the fishing line stretching, I pulled it a little bit and understood it’s a big fish, so I woke up Assaf. And it was a huge dolphin fish (it has nothing to do with dolphins…). Again, it jumped from side to side in the boat and I just screamed and couldn’t see it so we woke up Bosse to bring a knife because Assaf tried to hold the fish that it will stop jump. Everything became so dirty (it’s better that I will not write more details about it…). Bosse just went back to sleep and Assaf worked hard for almost 2 hours to clean the fish and cut it (it was very very big) and then I cleaned the mess for another hour. When we finished with it, it was already Assaf’s watch and I went to make breads. For lunch we ate the fish and it was very good. In the evening I had a little crisis, I felt I just want to get to the island, I don’t want watches anymore, don’t want movement that make everything hard to do, and also Assaf wanted the same.

31.05.07

We continued sailing east until Herb’s evening report. In the afternoon I saw again a group of dolphins and called Assaf even tough he didn’t feel so good. Herb said we can sail again towards Horta, but the wind was from North east so we couldn’t sail to this direction and almost all the night we kept sailing east and only in the morning we changed the sails and sailed north.

01.06.07

Almost all the day we sailed in the right direction to Horta and we were fast, we sailed 140 miles (usually we make around 100 miles a day).

02.06.07

We want to get to Horta!But the wind was weak today and we made only 70 miles, it’s depressing…

Statia, Saba, St. Martin and Sharks!

01/05/07
Sailing to Statia! Even before we came to meet Bosse, I read in the lonely planet about all the islands and I knew Statia is an island I want to visit, since all the island is a marine park and the dives suppose to be very good. The sailing was nice, the wind was ok and we arrived to Statia in the afternoon. Assaf and Bosse were working to fix the radio on the boat and I was resting because my knowledge in such of things is around zero…
02/05/07
Statia is a very small island, only around 3000 people live on it. Their main income is diving (even the license plates of the cars have fish on it…). Its an island that belong to Holland, so some of the people that live there are originally from Holland (for example, the diving instructors…).
Today we went to the island. First, we had to pay for custom and for the marine park, but the marine park were very useful. Bosse had to buy some things to repair something on the boat, so the girl that worked in the marine park office offered her boyfriend’s assistance, so we climbed up to town because in Statia there are no beaches, everything is cliffs so for getting to town, you have to do a little trek.
So we arrived to her boyfriend and he was helpful and then we needed something else and his friend took us in his car to his house to find it for us. It was very nice of them, they were very friendly.
After walking less than an hour in town (its about 2 streets), I went to find my self a diving shop to go dive with.
03/05/07
In the morning, Assaf was my dinghy taxi and took me to shore because I had to get to the dive shop. From the beginning it looked much more professional than the diving in St. Kitts, I filled forms and got all the equipment and we went diving 9 people (6 of them are above 60 years old but very good and professional divers and I was the only one without an underwater camera) and 2 guides. The dive was very beautiful and I didn’t stop smiling all of it. It was a huge reef that you cant see its end, everything so colorful. We saw very big lobsters hiding in caves or walking. Since there were many people and 2 guides, we split to 2 groups, and the other group saw a shark… The second dive was something like a “micro” dive. They took us to an area with not many corals and a lot od sand (and I can say that this area with “not many corals” is more corals than Eilat… in this dive we stayed close to the sand in order to see all the small marine life. We saw tiny shrimps and very small fish that hide inside the sand and go up s little bit like a snake from the ground and many baby fish that I saw them much much bigger in other dives. Since usually in dives you are looking for the big things, this dive was very special.
When I came back to the boat, lunch was ready. We ate good fish (this time Assaf bought and not caught).
04/05/07
The time we need to start crossing the Atlantic is getting closer, so we had to move on to Saba (funny name for an island). This island is even smaller than Statia, and the most beautiful island we were in until now. Saba looks like a fairy tale picture with tall cliffs of red, pink and brown rise from the sea.
As we arrived. I looked for the nearest dive shop and paid for next day’s dives. For lunch we had a goat meat (sounds very strange, but its ok…) and we were too lazy to climb up this day to town so Assaf and me went snorkeling with the dinghy (we saw a sea turtle) and it didn’t look as far as it was, so in the way back we ran out of fuel and Assaf started rawing but it was a long was with a current against us. Lucky us, people from one of the other yachts saw us and came to help us and drugged us all the way to our boat and then he ordered us for a drink in their boat the next day.
05/05/07
Diving!
The first dive was to the Pinnacles. it’s a reef made from volcanic activity. It was a deep dive and finally I saw 2 reef sharks (the guide said it probably was the same shark, but I saw it twice, so for me its 2 sharks) and I was so happy to see it. Beside this, we saw baracuda, queen makarel, groupers and other big fish (as deeper you go, the bigger fish you get to see here). The second dive was shallower (22 meters) and it also was very beautiful, the reefs here are full of sponges, corals, hundreds of fish around you, like you can see in national geographic diving movies. We saw sea horse in this dive which is very special and the nurse shark was not in his regular place so we didn’t see it…
When I came back from diving, I made 2 cakes, one for us and the other one for the “party” we were invited to this after noon.
So in the afternoon we went to this couple’s boat and we found out that they invited people from other 2 boats also. it’s an old couple from Austria-Germany that live since 1965 in the virgin islands and they are sailing a lot (she was even pregnant when they cruised around the world and her girl was born in Figi) and they said that most of the time people sit in their own boats at night and don’t know the people from the other boats, so why not meeting together and know each other? And they do this kind of “parties” almost in every place they arrive with the boat, and it was a very good idea. Accept for them and us, there were another couple from France (that almost don’t speak English) and another father and son from France. They gave us so much food and drinks and it was a very nice evening. We planned to leave Saba the next morning but after this evening, we decided to stay one more day.
06/05/07
In the morning I decided its time to clean the boat. Of course you don’t have all the materials for this like you have at home, but still it is much cleaner now. At noon Assaf and me made a pizza, a very good one and after that we went up to town. It was not easy at all, I am not in such a good shape anymore as I was in Patagonia plus it is very hot here. We had to climb many many steps and after I thought we finished with it, there were more steps… but it was worth it because the island is very beautiful. The trees and vegetation is amazing and you just go near papaya, mango and banana trees.
07/05/07
Today we sailed to our last stop before crossing the Atlantic, St. Martin. This island belong to Holland and to French. There is no border, but around half of it is Dutch and half French. The legend about how they split the island to 2 is funny… they say that they put a Dutch man in the southern point in the island with a bottle of Rum and a French man in the northern point with a bottle of wine and they started to go and drink towards each other and because the rum was stronger than the wine, the Dutch man went slower, the French people got a bigger part… another funny thing is because of our visa problems with French islands, we could not check in from the French side so we checked in from the Dutch side but we can go without a problem to the French side…
This island is different than the previous islands we were in since it’s much more touristy, many restaurants that remind the USA and even shopping mall. There are hundreds of yachts everywhere, including super yachts and cruise ships with very rich people (at least it looks like it).
In the evening we went to see the town and were surprised from the amount of people and restaurants. We sat in a yacht bar (the bar was on a yacht). I think it was more special if we were not living on a yacht anyway, but it was still nice.
08/05/07
In the morning, we split. Assaf and I went to see and buy few things, like sailing books (Assaf are looking for them for a long time). After many hours of walking around, we ate ribs in a nice restaurant and then we went to meet Bosse in the Yacht club that located near the bridge. The bridge is opened 3 times a day and is separating between Simpson bay and Simpson bay lagoon. We are anchoring inside the lagoon so in the day we arrived here we waited until the bridge will be opened and we motored inside. So from the yacht club its nice to watch all the boats going in both ways in and out (first out and then in).
09/05/07
Today again we split, but this time I went alone because Assaf and Bosse were working on fixing things in the boat. I took a bus to Philipsburg, which is an area that looks even richer than Simpson bay with a lot of jewelry, alcohol and perfumes stores. My first task was to find music we heard few times in the Caribbeans, this music is very happy and I found out the type of music is called Soca, so I bought one CD. After walking around in town and feeling different than the people that just went down for a shopping day from the huge cruise ship (I mean different in financial way), I went to finish our provisioning in 2 big super markets. It was harder than I thought… First, it was hard to decide what to buy where, and after I finally decided, it was so heavy that it took me a lot of time to get to the bus station, and then, the bus drivers didn’t want to stop because I had too many things, and then it was exactly the bridge opening time, so we had to wait in the minibus for a long time until all the boats will pass. But the good thing from all this story is that now we have all the food we need for crossing the Atlantic and that I bought chicken breast, bread crumbs and vegetables and in the evening we made Shnitsels with salad, like at home!

St. Kitts and boat life...

28/04/07
In the morning we sailed to St. Kitts. We anchored outside the marina (if I didn’t mention it yet, Bosse likes to save money as much as possible and it is good for us, but in this case the anchoring place was not well protected from winds, so the boat was moving a lot. After we anchored, we went to the town, saw the circus (suppose to be similar to Piccadilly circus in London), we saw few funny things like a colorful bus full of children singing and women going in the street with rolls in the hair. After eating in some cheap Chinese restaurant, we returned to the boat.
29/04/07
Diving, finally!
Early in the morning Assaf and I took the dinghy to the marina, from their the diving boat was suppose to pick us up. But they have their own times here. 8.45 became 9.30, but eventually we went diving. The first dive was not special as I thought it will be. IT was a reef dive but unfortunately, no sharks (and not rays or anything special) but the second dive was much nicer. It was a wreck that many corals were grown on it and close to it a drawn van and bulldozer…
After the dives we had a good shower in the fancy showers of the marina.
In the last few days it was raining few times and its strange because its hot but rainy.

Boat life...

I will write a little bit about the boat. The name of the boat is “Mi Marra”, its home part is in Sweden.
It’s a 39 feet slope moody. There are 3 cabins, 2 of them in the front (one is our storage and the second which contains a bad in shape of triangle is our sleeping room) and in the back cabin sleeps Bosse.
We have 2 taps, one is for sea water and we use him most of the time and the other tap is with sweet water, we use it for drinking and cooking. We operate them by pressing something with the leg. The toilets are working with pumps.
Most of the food we eat is from cans, but when we arrive to an island we buy some fresh food like vegetables (very expensive here), fruits (they don’t have here so much fruits, which is very weird) and some meat.
Sometimes we use the fact that we are sailing for achieving food, like fish (Assaf is really trying to fish a lot after the first time he succeed within 15 minutes, but we guess it was just beginners luck…). One time Bosse found many green bananas floating on the water, so he picked them up and after few days we could eat them…
30/04/07
Today in the morning we took the dinghy to the shore and went to buy food for the Atlantic. You can not believe how much pasta, rice, cans, etc. we bought. Its even more than you will think about buying before a war or something like that. It was not an easy operation to move all the huge 5 boxes to the boat, but we did it. And then, the mission was to arrange everything (you have to think about a way to arrange it and it will not fall if the boat moves…).

Nevis, shower...

26/04/07
The highlight of the day was… a shower!
In the morning we went to see the town, registered and pay as usual in the custom and immigration offices, I looked a little bit in gift shops but everything is so expensive, its unbelievable after traveling in Colombia…
And then, we went to Pinnis peach, ordered a very cold beer each one and got a shower for free. I didn’t care that it was just a tap next to the restaurant, I had sweet water and I didn’t need more. You learn to appreciate the little things again…
27/04/07
I convinces Bosse to sail to the north of the island since there is a diving shop there. The wind was very strong and we had to be care full when we took the sail down in the end of the sailing.
Now we are waiting for the lunch to be ready (we have a private chef on our “fancy” boat - Assaf) and later we will go to do some snorkeling, hopefully the little jelly fish didn’t discover this bay.

Some photos of us trying to get a wireless internet connection...

Montserrat and Nevis

24/04/07
The day we arrived to Montserrat we planned to go to the shore, but Bosse fell a sleep and when he woke up it was already after dark, so we just stayed on the boat and did few chess games. I just learned how to play few weeks ago and I lose all the time…
The morning after, we took the dinghy and went to the island. First, we had to go to the custom office and pay some money and then we went to the immigration office to get a stamp in the passport (its not always like this, but here we got a stamp). Then, we became real tourists and took a taxi tour with a driver that supposed to be also a guide, but he wasn’t that good. Any way, at least we saw the island. The interesting thing about Montserrat is that in the south part of the island there is a volcano, that erupted last in 1995 and ruined 7 of 8 towns in the island and because of it, around 10000 people left the island and only 4500 people left there.
In the evening Assaf made chicken in carry since we bought some products in town and then we used Bosses laptop and we found a free internet connection, a very bad connection, but still we could check mails.
25/04/07
Early in the morning Assaf and I took the dinghy, mask and snorkel and went snorkeling. It was nice but we didn’t see special things accept the things that bite us - small purple cruel jelly fish…
When we came back, we changed all together the main sail because it turned apart and then we started sailing towards Nevis. The sailing was very good, we had good wind and Assaf caught a fish! Yesterday he made a bait and it didn’t look to us like something a fish will “buy”, so we laughed at him, but he proved us that it was good. So of course for lunch we ate fish and it was very tasty!
Now we are anchoring near Charlestown, the only town in this island. Its very beautiful. For change there are many yachts here, and the sunset in the background of them is amazing. In front of us on the beach there are many palm trees and pelicans flying.

Caribbean cruising

So… After searching 2.5 Months opportunity to sail or actually, Mostly Assaf searched the internet While I was busy in writing mails… Eventually we decided to fly to Colombia because we found a cheap flight and we knew there is a big port in Cartagena and because finding something like this by mails didn’t work. We arrived to Colombia in the end of March 2007 and immediately took a long bus ride to the Caribbean coast - to Cartagena. First of all, it was so different than Patagonia, where we spent the last 5 Months. Of course, we didn’t need to use our warm sleeping bags, coats, hats and so on. We had to buy some summer cloths… The first thing we had to find out about When we arrived to Cartagena was where are all the boats sailing. We found it - Club Nautico. We decided we will spend there most of our time, but then Within 2 days we got 3 replies by mail from yacht owners so we didn’t have to go anymore to Club Nautico. One option was sailing in the Caribbean with a Swedish man that sounded very nice and cross the Atlantic ocean towards Europe. The second option was to go with an American that didn’t sound so nice (if you will not be good enough, you will be dropped in some island…) to cross the pacific ocean and the 3rd option was interesting but no relevant until the end of April, so we really wanted to go with the first option. For 2 weeks we were emailing with the Swedish man. In this period we went to Taganga which is a fisherman town and we dove there. While we were there, I was thinking that maybe it’s a good idea to check if we need visa to one of the leeward islands (east Caribbean islands).
I searched the internet a lot and guess what? I found out that we need a visa to all the islands that belong to French. We started to figure out how long will it take and the told us that we have to come back to the embassy, in Bogota (again, 20 hours by bus), but we wanted to join this man so much, so we took the long tiring bus to Bogota and when we arrived there, there was no one to talk with, we had to make an appointment. It took about 3 hours to catch them by phone for this stupid appointment and in that day, Bosse (the Swedish man) already waited for us in Martinique (a French island). The conclusion from all this story was that if we want a visa, we will have to wait 2 month. No! we didn’t mean to wait and also Bosse didn’t… so we told him the only option we have is to meet him in Dominica. We waited anxious for his mail and when we got a positive answer, we were so happy and all Hostel platypus were so happy for us (everyone new our story in that point), we immediately celebrated with a beer and waited for next morning to go and buy the flight tickets. But then.. of course we had another visa problems. The cheapest flight was from Puerto Rico and since it belong to USA, Assaf can not fly from there, even if it is for connection in the airport. So we decided to split in the second flights day.
In April 17th we left Colombia and flew to Panama and from there to the Dominican Republic. We meant to see the capital a little bit (we had one night there), but when we found out that the taxi to the city is more expensive than the hostel, we decided to sleep in the airport. It was not a big fun, but we saved a lot of money. The next morning, I flew from there to Puerto Rico and then to Dominica and Assaf flew from there to Antigua and then to Dominica.
I had to wait to Assaf 2 hours in the airport of Dominica. Actually if you see this place, the last thing you will think about it is that its an airport. It looks more like a restaurant with a warehouse in the back. The 2 hours passed really fast since everyone came to speak with me and they are so nice and welcoming, especially one called Jack that explained me everything about the island, including the fact that around half of them belong to a religion something like Jewish people. They were all very surprised to hear my name, since LIAT is the name of the Caribbean’s airline company.
When Assaf arrives, we took a taxi to the other side of the island. We were so tired after 4 flights but we could not sleep since the landscape was amazing. Everything was green all the way and so many different kinds of trees and vegetation. We felt like a coconut should fall on our head and we will wake up from this dream because we didn’t believe that we are really there.
We arrived to the hotel that Bosse told us to meet him there and we found a note from him that he will be back in an hour, so we waited for him and we were sure that his boat is anchoring just near there. But no, we went around 2 km with the bags and everything and the warm shoes and we thought we will get to a dock eventually, but we arrived to his dinghy, and from there he rowed to the boat, one by one. This was an interesting beginning… but it didn’t bother us.
At first, I was really in shock, it was not what I imagined. Or actually I didn’t really think about boat life deeply. For example, we wash everything with sea water (including the teeth)… We have a small cabin, just a little bit bigger than our tent (but shorter) . We don’t have a shower in the boat, but we jump every morning, noon and whenever we want (accept while sailing) into the water and so on.
So the first evening we were so exhausted and he knew that we are hungry so he made us something for dinner, but we were so tired that the food combining with the movements of the boat didn’t make us feel so good. We decided the best thing we can do is go the sleep.
Sleeping with movements and noises from the sea and sails is something you need to get used to, but we did fast.
The morning after we went to the custom offices to pay and write ourselves as a crew and the next day (20/04/07) was our first sailing experience. We sailed from the southern part of Dominica to the Northern part. The sailing was great, no sea sickness, the wind was perfect, we sailed fast (around 12 km/h which is great) and we started to learn about sails and sailing. Since Bosse is a retired teacher, he likes to teach and explain. When we arrived to Portsmouth, we took the dinghy and went to the shore, but this time with an engine. We visited to internet in the first time since we are here, bought some food products (that part of them fell into the water in the way to the boat, conclusion for next time - don’t put food in nylon bags but in the back bags).
Just after we came back to the boat, “Eric Spaghetti” arrived with his motor boat to offer us a trip in the Indian river. We didn’t make up our minds yet if we will do it or not but in the next morning we arrived to the shore and first we went to the market. It was a very nice experience since they are all so nice, and they are really affected from Jamaica. They are all with rastas, wear “jelly fish” shoes in Jamaica colours and sing Bob Marley songs in the streets. After we bought a fish and some fruits and one souvenir from someone that looks exactly like Eddi Marphi, we decided we want to visit the Indian river and just had to choose who will take us there - “Eric Spaghetti“, “Ravioli Lover”, “seabird” and so on… We chose mosquito. It was a warm half an hour by boat up the river. Then, we jumped into the river since we don’t have shower on the boat… and we came back to our boat. In the evening I made a cake with combination of products that are not really used usually for cakes (like coconut cream and flour for bread), but that’s what we had in the boat. It is eatable… While I was baking, Assaf and Bosse played chess so I had few hours of silence…
The morning after, after few security lessons from Bosse, we started sailing towards Montserrat since we had to skip on Guadeloupe (visa problems). We planned the sailing for around 24 hours, but you can never know how the wind will be. We raised the sails and started sailing. Everything went good during the day and even a group of Dolphins swam around us few minutes (around 10 Dolphins).
We also tried to fish and we almost caught one (not the Dolphins of course) but because its still new for us, we didn’t realize that the sound we heard means a fish is caught and since we were not fast enough, it ran away. When the night arrived we did watches so the others will be able to sleep. Since it was our first day and night sailing, we decided that Assaf and me will take the watch together this time, and it was a good decision since in our shifts the wind decided to stop and we were a little bit frustrated from not moving and still trying to stay in the right course. We were so slow, that we could even swim faster… but at least the sky was clear and we saw tons of stars.
so eventually the sailing took 28 hours and now we are anchoring in “Little bay” at Montserrat, very close to a reef so we will check it soon… (23/04/07)