Log
Sunday June 17
Another beautiful day. Lagos is actually quite nice- even though it is a typical tourist trap with lots of Englishmen. In the evening we joined the price and celebration ceremony. We all got tears in our eyes, when we saw all the nice pictures and films from our crossing - in the company of now a quite tight team from some 20 yachts. It has been a marvelous time. Just marvelous. A life time experience.
But everything has an end. Even though Aniara will sail another 1.500+ nautic miles before arriving in Sardegna – the main challenges (the crossings) are over.
It seems like an eternity since we left Sardegna September 19 last year. Almost every day the last 9 months have had its moments of joy, exitment, challenges and new experiences.
This is also where this blog ends. We say goodbye to all who have watched our voyage and kept their fingers crossed for our safety.
The Captain also wants to thank the fantastic crew for this achievement. We did it together! Clear skyes and fair winds to all of you. Remember Platon: there are three kinds of people: the people who are dead, the people who are alive and the people who crosses the Oceans.
Saturday June 16
Beautiful weather, but windy. A relaxing day. Again we split up; the French/Swedish couple went for a walk along the coast, our English princess spend time with her English friends and the Captain and his brother met with some Swiss old friends. In the evening Roberto from Ninfea joined us for dinner.
15 June
Around 8 o’clock we saw land; Capo de St Vincent and Ponte de Sagres. The heartbeat increased. The strongest wind we experienced (totally during the trip) was during 15 minutes passing Ponte de Sagres. We had up to 20 knots (which is nothing…..). Just before the finishing line we passed our friends from Denmark (Luna) and we noted the total journey to take less than 5 days, with less than 18 hours of motoring. Incredible. A shower, lunch and boat cleaning. Some English friends showed up at the dock – a happy reunion. Late afternoon lime-ing by the pool at the hotel. During the evening we split up – some of us desperately wanted to see the football match England versus Sweden. We all know the outcome. It was not easy to make our voices heard in the English crowd watching. Some of us went early to bed. Exhaused, but happy.
14 June
We have heard so many horror stories about crossing the Atlantic going east, but for us it has been a pleasant and easy sail. Much of Thursday we spent in the sun, drinking, eating, lime-ing, reading… If anything, we would like to have more wind. We had to use the engine from time to time. We saw a whale (at least the exhalation), dolphins and lots of big birds. The water temperature was around 13 degrees… brrrr. In the end of the day the wind picked up and we started to have a very nice and fast ride. Clear skies in the night, full of stars.
13 June
As we write our daily log we are gently bobbing along in a dead calm; the wind has dropped to barely 9 knots and has moved to a more westerly direction. If the weather forecast is correct then there should be better wind ahead, we wait and hope.The sun continues to shine though so spirits remain high and we are all enjoying our relaxed days at sea. The water temperature is slowly rising, it is now around 18.5 degrees, still a little too cold for a wash in the sea. But it seems the dolphins are happy and we have a couple of sightings day of them. As there are now 5 crew onboard we manage the nights with 2 hour shifts, starting at 9pm and finishing at 7am. Last night the dog shifts were for once the most special. There was not a single cloud in the sky and the moon was shining – which meant we were lucky enough to be able to spot many constellations and also be able to see the Milky Way (Vintergatan) with a clarity that most of us have not experienced before. Our ETA in Lagos is still Friday, although perhaps a little later in the day than yesterday’s expectation. We take our position daily at midday, and so to update you: Monday to Tuesday we sailed a distance of 178 miles which meant our average speed was 7.4 knots. In the last 24 hours we have travelled 168 miles, which gives an average of 7 knots. Hopefully we will have fair winds to get us to Lagos in time for the Sweden vs England football game on Friday evening … a very, very important match for the crew of Aniara!
9 June
After a tearful farewell of our long standing crew member Pelle, we started to prepare our departure to St Maria – our last stop before mainland Portugal. This leg (St Miguel – St Maria) is 60 nm and arrange as an overnight race (Acoriano Oriental Yacht race 2012) against the local yacht club. All in all 12 boats in the same class. No handicap rules applied. We felt we would not stress the new crew, so we decided to take it easy and “just go with the wind”. We were therefore last out from
our berth and second to last across the starting line. However, after 45 minutes we were no 5 and after another 45 minutes no 3. Aniara loves side winds of 15-18 knots. At 23 o’clock we found ourselves in a “dead hole”, with no wind and were overtaken by 2 boats, that took a more easterly route. We kept our fifth position until the finish line (04.00) after a beautiful night sail. Some sleep and now time for local lunch, some last minute shopping, a walk along one of the trails, change of foresail….. life would be worse.
But we miss our Pelle.
A beautiful photo of the great ANIARA II (from the archives). She is a Bavaria 50 Cruiser.
Spending the first night on land in his hammock was as close to a night in his Aniara cabin Pelle could come. But the weather and the sea view in Västra Hagen is almost as great as in the Azores.
8 June (early morning)
We spent our final evening in Ponta Delgado playing bowling. Bosse, who has been practicing for years, was far ahead of all the rest with 153 points followed by Pelle with 142 points. Due to the strength in the vodka tonic, George had problem reaching 50 points. All together we were probably 30 ARC-participants in the bowling competition. Early this morning Pelle was followed by his companions to the airport for his leave to Sweden. This short report is sent from the airport lounge and will be followed by more from where the action is, onboard ANIARA.
Some of the participants in the bowling completion.
Paolo and George in action, excited by their nice bowling shoes.
Jaj giving Pip some instruction, but she was better before she got these.
Two great strikers get their well deserved acknowledgment.
Tommy, concentrated as when behind Aniaras steering wheel, but he still only stroked a 4.
Lyall in action. He has definitely done this before.
The group that followed Pelle when leaving the marina a few hours ago.
7 Juni
Bosse arrived yesterday evening completely loaded with enthusiasm to be onboard again. Yesterday most of the crew rested after the night sailing, but Pelle rented one of his beloved scooters for a trip nearby Ponta Delgada. He was not lucky when driving up to one of the three volcanic lakes on the island since the clouds were so low he couldn´t see anything at all. But it came a new chance today. The Aniara crew divided into two groups today, one scooter group with George & Pelle while the rest rented a car for their round trip. The car group is not back when this log is published so you will have to wait until you get their experiences from the island. The scooter group had a great day with swimming in a thermal bath, located just at the edge of the sea. Hot water, produced by the volcano close by came out from small cavities in the stones. Temperature could be as high as 60 degrees, but when the hot water was mixed with the incoming sea water the temperature was very pleasant. We had our best lunch whatsoever in a small fishing village, where we got seven different kinds of fishes together with salad & fruits for almost any Euro at all. An finally, as the clue of the day we were able to see the two volcanic lakes, Lagua Azul and Lagoa Verde. One of the most spectacular and scenic views the editor of this web page ever have seen. Today Bosse becomes 49 years and we will for sure celebrate him later this evening. It is also the final night for Pelle who now leave after 9 months and almost 9.000 NM. Late tomorrow evening he has replaced his view from the Atlantic to the great one in Västra Hagen.
As you can understand, Pelle was not happy at all with the wether situation during yesterday´s sightseeing.
Even though some of the other islands in the Azores are prettier, there are much more flowers on the island of San Miguel. And you should see all the hortensias here. Increadible !
Pelle in the thermal bath. He met a nice couple from Kungälv in the water. Strange !
George, who has seen whales all over will apply for a new job as a whale watcher.
A nice stone formation in the sea outside of Ponta Delgado.
This was the lunch plate with seven different fishes we enjoyed today. Delicious !
The restasurant didn´t look special at all, but gee what a great place. You find it in the village Capelas on the north shore of San Miguel.
The magnificient view over Lagoa Azul. Only this sight is worth a ticket to the Azores.
The final photo of Pelle on this trip. Now it is time to unpack the accordian (?)(dragspel) and start with the small frog song (Små grodorna)
6 June
Today two very important things happened, one good and one bad. The good one first. Tommy celebrated his birthday with the dog watch (hundvakten) 00.00-04.00 between Terceira and San Miguel. The sad one is that Pelle sailed his last leg
on this adventure since he will leave for Sweden and his lovely wife Pia the day after tomorrow. Following a quick Skippers Briefing late last evening we left Terceira after we enjoyed pasta with fresh tuna. The night sailing was great, 90 NM in approx. 13 hours, gives an average of almost 7 knots. Keiran joined us also on this leg, since he believes we are the greatest sailors in the entire ARC-fleet. The island San Miguel, where we now are is the most populated of the Azorean islands. We have Aniara moored in Ponta Delgada, which seems to be a much bigger and more modern city than any of the other ones we have visited so far. We hope to give some of our impressions of this island as soon as we have embarked on the scooters we for sure will rent here. We have left our broken genua at a sail loft here in the marina and hope to get it back before the night cruising to Santa Maria Friday evening.
Yesterday, when Tommy still was young, he went up in the mast for some adjustment job.
Lyall, the head of ARC Europe, during yesterdays Skippers Briefing.
Pelle, happy after catching another tuna, but unhappy he soon leaves Aniara.
Keiran, now almost a full-fledged crewmember of Aniara.
As you can see from our approach into Ponta Delgado, this is not a very traditional city.
Mirre & Rickard, did both a great job during the last nights sailing.
George, eagerly waiting for the swinging nightlife and the handsome Portuguese boys in the city.
Tommy, now much older, but still handsome posing in his new pair of trousers.
5 June
Yesterday there were different programs for almost all the people onboard Aniara. Tommy spent his day in and around Aniara and dealt with our various technical and material problems. The ripped genua was taken down and a new one was set. Some cable and connector work was done without solving the earth problem we have since our arrival. Mirre and Rickard climbed a mountain nearby and after that Mirre climbed the mast all the way up in the top to get the ripped genua down. Pelle and George, together with Paulo from Ninfea rented a couple of scooters and explored the western and middle part of Terceira. A cheese factory and a typical local restaurant were visited before they entered a kind of cave for a 700 meters long excursion. It was an interesting experience. During the evening all of us visited the bull race, where 4 bulls were let loose and some local boys and men tried to impress on their girlfriends by being as close to the bull as possible. Quite a strange tradition and almost all of the ARC-people couldn´t really get a grip of what was going on. Today Pelle started an early trip to check the eastern part of the island on his scooter while the rest did some preparation for the night sail this coming night. The major of this town, Angra, will come and say a few words to us at 18.00 and after that we leave for the 90 NM long trip to Ponta Delgada, San Miguel. The weather situation has improved since yesterday when there was a storm warning issued. We now expect nice winds between 20 – 25 knots from a good direction.
Here you can see Mirre far up in the mast plus the rip in the genua we have to fix in Ponta Delgada.
The scooter safari participants, George & Paulo. Pelle is as usual behind the camera.
When it was time for tasting different cheeses, Pelle left the camera position.
A fantastic lunch at a fantastic traditional Azoren restaurant. A great and tasteful experience.
We had a lot of meeting traffic.
George & Paolo are delighted by the magnificent view.
This is not from the cheese factory. We are getting ready to enter the lava cave.
We are in. The walk-, climb- and creeping trip was approx. 700 meters.
Some action from yesterday´s bull race. The bull was not killed and was tied in a rope, approx 200 meters long.
A total of ten guys tried to stop the bull by pulling the rop if something went wrong, here you can see five of them.
On a lott of houses you find real carpenters delight (snickarglädje).
This is not a wedding cake, it is a real house.
Could not resist from sharing the view of this wonderful little house with all of you.
4 June
We have now arrived to Terceira, another little pearl in the Azores. The sailing yesterday was probably the toughest we have had so far with gusts (vindbyar) up to 60 knots (30 m/s). We had Keiran onboard so we were six in total for this 70 NM long trip. We managed to rip our genua, from top to bottom, and will have to fix this during our next stop in Ponta Delgada. Upon arrival to the marina in Angra we also got some problem with our electrical connection so the entire boat went
electric. The third problem we had was that the Penta stopped working so we had to get assistance from the marina guys to get us in. We probably suffer from the problem with diesel bacteria we got from filling Aniara in Trinidad. So you can understand that we have some issues to be solved today, but we will anyhow start with a scooter ride around the island. Later today there will also be some kind of bull running here in Angra, an old tradition on this island. George became one year older today and is now closer than ever to her definite retirement. She was celebrated with a beautiful song and a great number of sweet pastries.
Tommy steering and George giving commands.
Mirre had a tough start of her two weeks sailing adventure.
And so did Rickard. It was even rougher than on his trips in Vänern with his kayak.
A proud and happy Kerian at the steering wheel just before the genaua ripping.
George, exhausted after all commanding, takes a quick, but well deserved, nap in the saloon.
Here is the helpful guy who towed us, and our bad diesel, in tho our place late yesterday.
A little bit of Angra, overlooking the marina. It is a very pretty little town.
George, one year older than yesterday, is eagerly waiting to eat and digest her own pastries.
2 June (evening in Horta)
We have had our final dinner in Horta and are prepared to leave the beautiful Faial Island early tomorrow morning. Our next destination is the island Terceira, approx. 70 NM away. We will leave at 06.00 tomorrow morning and the weather forecast looks good. We expect to be in Terceira before 18.00 in the evening. Today three of us took the same sightseeing tour as the one described yesterday. One other visited the whaling museum here in Horta where they described the tough life of
all whaling men working here some 50 years ago. We did not produce the nicest art work here in Horta, but we managed to set the name Aniara on print on the boardwalk just where we have been placed during the last week. In Terceira there will be some running in front of some crazy bulls (same as in Pamplona) but I have to be back about this.
Couldn´t resist to show this nice photo of the Pico Mountain.
A photo of a photo showing that it was harder to cut a whale than a chicken.
Some final work on Aniaras footprint.
Arc orginized a BBQ this final night in Horta but we went to a nereby restaurant.
2 June
We are now five of us onboard Aniara and when we sail away tomorrow morning there will be six of us. Kieran, one of our dear ARC-friends has asked us to safely bring him to Teceira, the next island on our tour through the Azores. Another reason is maybe that he wants to be sure to be early on this new island in order to be ready to welcome all the other boats that will follow in our trail. Yesterday some of us made the tour around Faial together with more than 40 other ARC participants. It is really a lovely and beautiful island and a vacation trip to these islands are really recommended. We have also started to produce our own painting on the boardwalk at the pier. It will not be the prettiest painting, since we are using a lot of leftover paints from other artists. Yesterday evening we were all invited to the boat Ninfea where we had a real Pasta Carbonara prepared by the Maestro himself, Paolo. We got a few tips to be able to improve our own versions of Carbonara when we are back home again. Today we hopefully will finalize our painting, make some minor provisioning before the trip tomorrow when we plan to leave at 06.00 to be at the next destination before darkness. This means that you might get the log posted late tomorrow, alternative get it the day after. But you can be sure that we all have a great time and we are looking forward for the sailing tomorrow which looks like to be a good one with winds between 18-25 knots. You can now find the photo of Mireille and Rickard under section ¨Crew¨.
Preparation of the Aniara Art Work starts.
A look ¨von oben¨ at the marina of Horta. Somewhere down there you can see Aniara.
The crater of one of the may vulcanos we visited yesterday.
There are a lot of Hortensias (?) around the island, since they are growing wild here.
The Tour Group in front of another vulcano, the one which erupted 1957 and still is somewhat active.
Tommy at work as an artist, and gee, he is good...
You can start to imagine the motive of our painting, but a lot of work remains.
Paolo, the Maestro of all Carbonaras in full action.
A student of Paolo mess up the pasta.
We were eleven of us for dinner at the fantastic boat, Ninfea.
Roberto, the owner and skipper of Ninfea, together with Ursula and George.
After dinner, we ended up at Peters Café for a coffe and some good music with musicans from the ARC-fleet.
1 June
We took Bronze!
We landed on place #3 and got a lot of recognition and congratulations by the organizers and all our fellows in the race. The reason why we took some steps forward was that we used relatively few engine hours on our crossing. As you understand we feel enormously proud and happy over this result and great achievement. Previous the prize giving ceremony we went to Pico and made a tour around this beautiful island. We took the ferry between Horta (on Faial) and Madalena (on Pico)and when on Pico we hired a taxi for a 5 hours roundtrip. It was really worthwhile to visit this island which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the Azores. We were recommended a restaurant where we had a delicious lunch for almost no Euros at all. Today we are getting two new crew members, Rickard and Mireille who will have the great honor to serve the fresh bronze medalist team for the next couple of weeks. Within a few days you will be able to see their faces under section ¨Crew¨ on this web-page. Later today we will make a sightseeing tour around Faial, the island where we are right now and after that a few of us will take part in a sailing competition where we will use old wale fishing boats. More about that tomorrow.
Tommy, receiving the prize from a local celebrity.
Leaving Horta to explore Pico in a bigger boat than Aniara.
The Pico-people are using a strange method when planting their grapes.
If you sniff too long in Pico, you will become a stone figure.
A beautiful scenery.
Time for tasting the local wine, liquer and schnaps.
The remaining two muskuteers (?).
Our very nice taxi driver who also turned out to be the Boss of the local Harley-club.
We didn´t see many cars around in Pico, but now and than we had some opposite traffic.
A nice stone formation just outside of the harbour of Pico.
A bunch of hungry sailors on a coctail party followed by a prize giving cermony.
Our free dinner as we had it yesterday.
The proud crew of Aniara at the Prize Giving Cermony.
Since Lyle and Keiran both had done such a great job, they both earned and deserved an own package of SKUMBILAR.
31 May
Still in Horta and we have not moved more than 500 meters away from Aniara. Today the weather has improved so there will for sure be an excursion somewhere before a scheduled cocktail party this evening. Yesterday we saw a drama here in the marina when a crew lost control over their boat in the extreme strong wind, more than 50-60 knots, and went into the rocks just in front of our eyes. No problem with the crew members but the boat was completely destroyed. More and
more ARC-boats are now safely here, only 5 are still on their way in. Among others our Danish friends from Luna arrived. As usual we had a great dinner, yesterday at Peters Café & Bar where we enjoyed grilled gambas and various meats. We are surprised that they have such a low cost level on Bars and restaurants here, you really get a lot for your Euros. Have a great day wherever you are, we will be back tomorrow.
The crew of Luna gets their well deserved first beer after arrival.
We were invited for a drink onboard Stefanik before joining the rest of the gang at Peters Café.
Can´t understand why all the French sailors fight to be the closest to George.
Our dear Paulo, he is everywhere. We learned yesterday that he is the world champion inpreparing Pasta Carbonara.
We started our dinner with spicy grilled Gambas.
And ended with some tender Pork and Beef.
30 May
There will definitively be no Pico-visit today. The weather here is terrible; rain and strong winds, and all of us already in Horta are eagerly waiting for the final boats to arrive. Our intermediate stays are now down and we will get the new ones on Friday morning. We have been invited to the boat Stefanik for a cocktail already at 11.00 (!?!) so let us see where this day will end. The editor of Aniaras webpage has promised to keep an eye on the rest of the crew. The dinner yesterday was fun with a lot of good spirit and great food. There are no planned ARC-activities today, so probably we will use it to rest to be
fit when we take off on Sunday. On Friday there will be a sailing contest using traditional wale catching boats and Aniara will of course have participants on the starting line.
Duncan Sweet, the guy who will help us out with the intermediate stays and trimming of the rig.
During Happy Hpur at Peters, we were greated by a catholic procession looking for new members to their local community.
There are some sweet girls here in Horta.
Happy Hour at the side walk outside Peters Café & Bar.
Happy Hour is over and we all have to pose for an ARC-photo.
Tommy & Roberto enjoying the local wine.
This is what we got. Tuna, Swordfish, Octopus, Chicken, Pork & Beef plus a really hot stone plate.
Another of our new found friend, Mia from Enköping, who crewed on Kinfish together with her new husband.
Paulo, a really great guy from Ninfea, tells some stories about his daughters and plenty of other italian women.
29 May
It is really not much to report. Today it is raining and we have mostly been waiting for a rigging guy to show up and hopefully he will come before this evening. Spent this morning by walking around in the wonderful little town of Horta. The streets here remind in a way of the backstreets of Paris and you really can feel that we are approaching Europe. We had a fantastic tasteful Spaghetti Carbonara for lunch so all bacon from Bermuda is now consumed. More and more boats are coming in, so there are not more than 5-10 of them still on their way in. We got the fantastic message yesterday that our deputy web-editor Erik, quickly and without any hesitation, decided to get engaged with his loved Janina. We will take an extra drink for this lovely couple during today’s happy hour. Tonight we will attend an ARC-dinner together with the crews from all the other race participants and if the weather improves we will visit Pico, a neighbor island tomorrow.
Our deputy web-editor, as he looked when he wasn´t engaged.
Here you can almost vision Mount Pico, the second heighest mountain in Portugal, 2.351 meter.
It is warmer in both Sweden and UK than here.
Of cource we have done a quick tour among all the Horta churches.
The work that is done by the sidewalks are increadible. Laid individually in differnt patterns in white and dark stones.
28 May
It was a strange feeling to sleep last night with Aniara tied to our neighbors around us. No rolling and jumping and strange noises. You almost woke up and started to wonder if anything was completely wrong. Spending the night shortly after a
hot shower in fresh and clean bed linen was also a great experience. Last evening we went to a famous bar in Horta, Peters Café Sport, where we had a light dinner and a couple of drinks. This place is only frequented by sailors so you might guess what were discussed around the tables. Before visiting Peters Café we were invited to visit Gunilla, the school ship based in Öckerö, which spend some time here before they are heading back to Sweden. It was great to meet all these nice kids, all around 18 years old, who will get a lifelong experience from their one year cruising around the Atlantic Ocean. Today we take it easy and we all hope that the last ones of our fellow boats will arrive safely to Horta. Some of them are more than 250 NM out and we have got some warning for some bad weather on its way. Tomorrow we also will get two new stay wires between our spreaders and recalibrate our entire rigging. Weather is still lousy here, relatively cold and cloudy.
Here one of our new french friends start his artwork. Unfortunately all of us onboard Aniara are lousy in painting so we have to leave some other footprints in Horta.
The most impressive ship in the Marina. Gunilla of Öckerö.
The youn sailors at Gunilla have a much harder job than we in checking their sails.
Our very dear friend, Kieran, from ARC, gives some new starting line instructions at Peters Café yesterday evening.
Tommy, George and Kieran discuss the choice of next drink at Peters´.
At 9 this morning we saluted Gunilla with our Swedish flag as she left Horta.
27 May
You can´t win them all. We reached Horta at 09.32 (Aniara-time) which means that we needed 10 days, 20 hours and 30 minutes for this 1820 NM long trip. This gives us an average of 6,99 knots and the 7-knots-goal will have to wait. We had to
use the motor for some hours during this last day since we ended up in a hole without any wind at all. Totally we used the motor for a little less than 15 hours for the entire trip, which, according to the ARC personnel here is very low compared to the other boats. There might even be a possibility to be among the top five in the race. After arrival we have tried to get boat in order, we have given away all our laundry to be washed up and had an excellent lunch onboard. The rest of the tuna we gave to some French sailors inside of us and we got a nice bottle of wine in return. The marina here in Horta is very busy and we stay outside a catamaran and will probably get another boat on our outside. There are no activities organized by ARC for the next couple of days but in the end of the week there will be an excursion around this island. The Azores has nine islands and we will visit four of them. Total number of people living here are 260.000. Below you find some photos taken, not only today, but during the entire sailing from Bermuda.
Our new crew member, George, got the job to deal with all our winches, since she is the youngest and as today, also the strongest.
Our entire storage of medicines, and medical supplies were flooded due to the heavy tilting of the boat.
Can you understand why the sunrise watch was the most popular?
One of the beautiful sunsets during our cruising.
A well deserved rest after the hard work with the winches.
It is good to have a steering wheel to grab sometime.
What is a crossing without a climb in the mast?
Every day, after receiving the fleet position report, some plotting work started.
Tommy needed some assistace to get his rastahair untangled.
Today we got a nice bottle of wine from our french neighbours for half this beauty.
Something I never seen in my lifetime is a complete rainbow, here is half of it.
The marina in Horta is famous for all the paintings, done by visiting crew members during many years. There must be thousends of them.
Aniara has the most impressive flag of all boats also here in the Horta Marina.
26 May
WOW!!! Suddenly everything happens in the same day. We finally got our tuna fish, a marvelous fellow around 5 kg heavy. Some of us got a delicious sushi made up from a 15 minutes dead tuna and the rest enjoyed the tuna fried on some pieces of Wasa Knänkebrot (Crisp bread). We now have to eat tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next two days. Two new Aniara records are also set during the last 24 hours. Our speed meter was once up to 17,3 knots, in a downhill of a
giant wave and our new distance record, set under 24 hours, is now 207,5 NM. Can you understand this ??? This means that our average speed during the last 24 hours was 8,7 knots. In average!!! Our next goal is to try to be in Horta before 8.00 am tomorrow, Sunday, which will mean that our average speed for the entire trip exceeds 7 knots. More about that tomorrow. As you understand have we seen a lot of dolphins during this trip, but what we saw yesterday evening was spectacular. A group of perhaps 30 dolphins made a complete performance for us, right at the side of Aniara. They were jumping, high and long, by individuals or in different group formations. We have never seen a better show in any aquarium around theglobe. They were probably excited to meet Aniara out in the giant waves we have
out here. As you understand the sailing is great, it´s probably a one-in-a-lifetime experience, but the weather is bad. Strong winds around 25-30 knots, rain and a temperature below 20 degrees. Water temperature is now around 14 degrees, almost as in dear old Sweden. But, as you understand, we are enormously happy for our achievement during the last day. Take care!
25 May
We take our official 24-hour-distance at 13.00, local Aniara-time, and it is almost 3 hours ahead. We can anyhow say that our distance will be around 150 NM for this 24-hour-period and we still believe we reach Horta on Sunday, if the weather conditions not change dramatically. We started slow yesterday afternoon and early night but the wind increased and we are now sailing between 8-10 knots with the wind in from the aft. The only special thing that has happened since last log is that we got a completely new dish served onboard yesterday, Fettuccini á lá Gorgonzola, and it was great new experience. Otherwise there are the same dolphins swimming around (water temperature is now below 16 degrees) and the same absence of fish hooked up on our tackle. If we get no fish we have no use of the lobster concentrate (hummerfond) we brought.
24 May
Last evening we ended up in the middle of a high pressure with absolutely no wind at all. We have gone by motor for almost 7 hours during the night. We are now back in business and are sailing again. There has been a wind shift and we now have the wind from SSE and our heading is 90 degrees, directly towards Horta. There is less than 500 NM to our finishing line and we are more and more sure we will be in Horta on Sunday afternoon. This morning we all got the allowance to use some of the fresh water to wash our hair, so all our rastafari hairstyles from yesterday are now gone. If you are interested will we get scrambled eggs and bacon for lunch. Sunny out here, temperature 25 degrees in the air and 16 degrees in the sea (Burr!).
22 May
We are now more than halfway towards the Azores and have not more than 750 NM to go. We plot our exact position at 13.00 every day, and calculate our speed and make up our plans after that. It´s now just after 13.00 and we have done it again. During the last 24 hours we sailed 192,4 NM, which gives an average of more than 8 knots. This is as long distance as a Stena ferry goes on two return trips Gothenburg - Fredrikshamn. Wind is moderate, 12-15 knots, from North and we are still heading 80 degrees directly towards Horta. Total distance sailed on this leg is 1039 NM and our total average speed is 7,2 knots.
Bosse, one of our favorite crew members, asked in a mail about our night watches. We have three 4-hours-watches starting at 20.00. We rotate the watches forward so everyone get the most wished watch, between 04.00-08.00 every third day. That´s the watch when the night disappears and the sun rise just in our noses. Since we use Bermuda-time as the official Aniara-time it is almost daylight at 04.00. Time difference between Bermuda and the Azores is three hours.
Since it is cold in the sea (18,3 degrees) and we ration our fresh water supply onboard our hair washing intervals are somewhat questionable. Soon we probably all will look like Bob Marley with our dreadlock coiffures. Today we opened our last package of fresh milk so from tomorrow we have to use our Rice- or Soyamilk to get our Café ou Lait. (That’s about the biggest problem we have out here). It´s rather cold during the nights so we have to wear at least three layers of clothing and a good windbreaker during our night watches. During daytime we have had a little bit of sun but it is mostly cloudy. This morning were visited by 30-40 dolphins who played with Aniara for half an hour. You always get a good spirit when you meet these animals.
Yesterday we almost caught another huge fish, but it disappeared, as usual, bringing parts of our fishing gears. We are soon out of both excuses and tackles.
21 May
Everyone told us that we could expect tough conditions between Bermuda and the Azores. We met some of this expectation last night. A wind change of 220 degrees, rain and gusts over 35 knots. I can tell you it was tough, rough and wet out here, but so were we. We have to learn to lean towards port side when walking around, after four days of winds in from starboard we now get it in from the other side. We all have to learn to find new sleeping positions in our cabins. It is far too bumpy to make any advance cooking onboard so we consume a lot of various salads and crisp bread with sardines and garlic (!Yum,yum). We believe we are doing quite OK in the race and are placed somewhere in the middle of the field, a place we are satisfied with. Another record was set by Aniara yesterday, during a short interval she was up in 12,6 knots (!!!). There are not many more records to set for us. We can assure you, regardless of our speedy trip, that we go with our sails safely reefed when the wind picks up. If we continue like this we will be in Horta, the Azores, in 11 days instead of the 14-15 days we calculated with.
20 May
Five a clock in the morning heading eastwards in 7,5 knots. Absolutely nothing around you except the big blue sea and the sky. The sun start to rise just in front of you and you have Jussi Björling in your earphones. Try for a while to imagine this feeling and I am sure you understand why we do this and why we are out here.
We are still the best friends with the God of the Winds. There has been a wind change and we have it more from SW which means that we can have a butterfly setting of our sails. Last evening we had a whole gang of dolphins swimming and playing around Aniara. It was fun for all of us, but most for George who hasn´t been that close to this animal before. Yesterday we had our last meal of prepared food, and we now have to rely more and more to our fishing luck, otherwise we will have to live on sausage, bacon, egg, soup and noodles. Our fruit and vegetables are still OK, at least for a couple of more days. We had a big bite from a fish a short moment ago, but we lost it together with the tackle and some line. But soon we will get a big one onboard. Yesterday we set a new record on Aniara (AGAIN!). In 24 hours we sailed 179,3 NM which we of course celebrated with Coca Cola, cigarettes and cigars (?). Also today we will reach above 170 NM, even though not reaching yesterdays record.
19 May
We follow our 60 degrees track and we are sailing fast. During the last three days our average speed has been 7,15 knots and the three of us onboard are extremely excited. If we are as lucky with the weather conditions for the days ahead we will reach Horta in 11 days instead of the 15 days we calculated with. We have asked our web-administrator to extend his duty to give us some weather maps, since the rest of the sailing is a matter if we are caught in the middle of a high pressure or if we manage to sneak around it on its north side. Yesterday we noticed we had some water leakage so we spend the day to unpack a lot of our gears hidden deep into Aniara. Hopefully we managed to locate the source of leakage and we sealed it with silicon. The water came in from above since we are sailing with water over skarndeck (english name unknown, maybe sidedeck) almost all the time. There is absolutely no reason to worry, it was just great that we got something to do during the day. We have no contact with any other boats or ships and we are still the unhappiest people in the Ocean when it comes to our fishing luck. In all other aspects we are the happiest persons on the Globe, except that we miss you all back home.
18 May
We follow the same tactic as yesterday, heading approx. 60 degrees and the wind coming in from SE. It is slightly calmer today with a wind of 13-15 knots so we don´t sail as long distance as yesterday. Anyhow we reached 160 NM the last 24 hours. We also have a current of 1 knot against us. As you understand nothing is horizontal here by us but we have all developed a great sense of balance during the last two days. We were accompanied by a couple of dolphins for some time yesterday and we almost got a tuna of around 10 kilo, but we lost it only 5-10 meters away from Aniara. Probably we are sailing far too fast to land the really big ones on deck. This morning we saw one of our fellow boats on our AIS. That was Sana and she was around 10 NM away from us, otherwise we see no one out here. Our night watch system works fine and we all take regular naps during daytime as well. We still eat like Kings and Queens, yesterday we had Chicken Marsala for dinner and on today’s lunch menu we find fresh melon with prosciutto from Parma. We can hardly believe we are as lucky as we are, since the sailing we have is just great.
17 May
We are out in the absolute middle of nowhere and we have a fantastic sailing. We don´t reach the Aniara-record set some days ago but we have sailed almost 175 NM the last 24 hours (since start). And we are doing this going against both the wind and the waves. I believe we are as close as we can of the Aniara capacity. We had a good start and left the bay of St. George as boat #3, even though we got some strange starting instruction from our dear ARC-friends. During daytime yesterday we had eye contact with quite many of the other boats but now, we are where we are, in splendid isolation. We are heading approx. 60 degrees, a bit north of the straight line towards Horta. We do so since we hope not to be caught by a high pressure coming in from north. Let´s hope we have chosen a good tactic. It is rough onboard due to the all the waves out here so we are happy we prepared some of our food before we left Bermuda. The wind blows from ESE at around 15-20 knots (7-10m/s). I guess the waves are approx. 2-3 meter in height, but we expect them to grow even higher further on. During the night we sailed with a full genua and our main reefed quite a bit. It was a great feeling to speed in 9 knots, in absolute darkness with a lot of marled (Swedish for the phosphorus sea animals). We feel great out here and wish you were here together with us. w!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->
16 May
Four hours to go ! We are prepared and fully loaded for the trip. All up-to-date meteorological reports are downloaded and it looks as we will get a great start and first couple of days. We have taken our last hot water shower for at least two weeks.
As promised before, we will keep you updated. Take care, we will !
15 May
You can feel the tension in the air among all the sailors here in the marina. Tomorrow at 13.00 we will start the sailing towards the Azores. Everyone have now finalized their preparations and provisioning for the trip which will last for two to three weeks. Onboard Aniara we are ready, we have bought our food, drinks, fruits and vegetables. Our diesel tank is filled and we carry almost 100 liter extra. Since we have no freezer onboard we have bought fresh food for the first week, where we will get delicious meals of all kinds, prepared in style and with passion. If we catch no fish we will have to live on noodles and soups for the second part of our journey. We kept one of our scooters which we have used to transport all our food to Aniara. We have spent approx. 1.000 USD for us three persons onboard. We did not get any additional crew member but we are confident that George will be a +100% crew making the life comfortable for the two old guys. The distance between Bermuda and the Azores is 1.800 NM straight, but we will probably take a northern route of approx. 2.000 NM. The result for the first leg was not so good for Aniara, we came in as boat # 16 out of 20 after the correction of motoring was done. We plan to climb a little bit higher on this leg. As usual you can follow us on our own website during the comingtwo weeks, but do not expect any photos. We will mail our home-based administrator, Erik, who will get the website updated. You can also follow our position progress by logging in to ARC´s website http://www.worldcruising.com/arceurope/ and look us up in the fleet finder. You can be sure that we will think a lot about you all during our crossing and we hope that you now and then give us a thought. Cross all the fingers you have that we will get a safe trip. We love you all.
Upon request, another view of some of the lovely houses here in Bermuda.
Some of all the fruits and vegetables we will consume the coming weeks.
The marina, as it looks right now. Some participants are on anchor in the bay outside. In total 35 boats will leave for the Azores.
A great and extremely funny Bermudan lady who is the BOSS of the scooter rental company
One hour ago we had a Skippers Briefing to prepare for the crossing. We will probably have great weather conditions, at least for the first three days.
14 May
The last couple of days have we spent on the roads of Bermuda. As planned we rented some scooters and took off for an excursion of this beautiful island. It isn´t big, approx. 40 x 10 km and consists of a number of smaller islands connected via
bridges. We have probably travelled every meter of the road system here and all feel as expert on Bermuda. Around 65.000 people live here and around 500.000 tourists visit Bermuda yearly. It is much wealthier here than on the Caribbean
islands, it is clean and tidy allover and the houses are just beautiful. They are all colored in various soft pastel colors, yellow, pink, green etc. and all have bright white roofs. Yesterday evening we took part in a pirate theme masquerade, and that was not an easy task with the clothes we had onboard. It was anyway fun to meet all the other fellow sailors and party together with them. Tonight we had a price giving ceremony, and unfortunately Aniara did not get any price on this first leg of the race. Hopefully it will be a better result on the next, long leg. Today Eva & Stefan will leave us and fly back to Sweden. We
are checking out the possibilities to get a new crew member onboard and will let you know as soon as we know ourselves. Today we will also start the preparations for the sailing to the Azores, we will fill up new diesel and water and will
start with our provisioning.
Here you see the crew of Aniara before leaving the marina for checking out Bermuda by scooter.
There has been a lot of fightings on Bermuda, this was one of the most dangerous wapons we found on our tour.
We have not been deeper in the water than this, since we fin 20 degrees far to cold.
Is this the captain of Aniara or could it be a tough US MC-cop?
One, of many, ice-cream shops we have visited and tested. This one we found in Hamilton.
Some remodelling, and soon a nice captain from Filipstad becomes a cruel pirate.
Stefan kept his friendly look even after George made her efforts to get him to look grim.
The final result from the face-lift of Tommy.
Pelle´s dentist Bosse, will cry after the ugly work someone did in his mouth yesterday.
Our new friend Ian together with George.
Pelle, on a hill, just west of horseshoe bay, an absolutely fantastic place.
A cold drink is needed, now and than, when traveling around in the sun.
Most of the houses are not as bright as these, but this might give you an idea how creative the Bermuda painters are.
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Even the Taxis are easy to find.
Here is a more softed color, typical for Bermuda houses.
A short liming after all this sight-seeing is well deserved.
12 May
We passed the finishing line at 13.37, local Bermuda time, yesterday, which means that we used 6 days and 37 minutes to go the 845 NM from Tortola. After passing the immigration procedures we anchored up in the harbor of St. George and went ashore for a dinner. Today we got a place at a local marina here and are close to showers and restaurants. Just before finish we got an extremely heavy rain which lasted for a couple of hours. We are told that this is the first rain falling in Bermuda for 7 months so the local people are extremely happy since it is a shortage of water supply on this little tiny island. We have some minor repair work to do on the boat, among others we have detected a small water leakage from our hot water boiler. We got assistance and have found a local workshop that will do some stainless steel welding for us. Later on today, after we have used the shower, which is very much needed for all of us, we plan to do some sightseeing on the island. Foreigners are not allowed to rent cars on Bermuda, but it is OK to get some scooters, we will find out a way anyhow. We will let you know about our findings before we start the next leg toward the Azores.
We had time to take a swim, now and than, since we had no wind.
Eva, happy as always, since she is the one reading most books onboard.
Even Stefan, our technical guru onboard, could take a rest between all different projects.
George, has some strange eating habits. Flying fishes as well as Marmite, passed through her body.
Our fishing luck was bad. This waqs the only little guy we catched during our crossing, and everyone made jokes about Pelle (The Fisherman)
Sometimes, when the weather permits, the morning watches can be quite restful.
Here you can see our dress code when we arrived in Bermuda.
Asu are told, the meals we had onboard, was tasty as well as healty.
Here you can see Aniara, where she is right now, right outside St. George's Marina.
11 May
Aniara has just set a new record in her speed sailing life. The last 24 hours we sailed 177 NM, which gives an average of 7,4 knots. The longest 24-hours-distance we sailed between the Canaries and the Caribbean was 169 NM. We have both the wind and waves coming in from the aft and we have, at one magic moment been up to 11,7 knots. George has seen whales and Stefan got us safely through a thunderstorm and lightening during the past night. In total we sailed this 845 NM long leg in exactly 144 hours (of which 75 hours motoring) and we are now soon going to pass all necessary immigration procedures and get a place for Aniara to rest. After that we are ready to explore Bermuda, and you can expect some more detailed reports after we get some own internet connection.
10 May
Around 6 pm last evening we turned off the motor, hopefully for good. The sailing since then has been amazing; a wind between 12-18 knots and Aniara has speeded between 7-8 knots the last 10 hours. At noon today we will have approx. 180 NM to go, which means that we will be in Bermuda around 16 (local time) tomorrow. We still have a fantastic weather with a temperature around 30 degrees, but we have observed that the water temperature has decreased from almost 28 degrees in Tortola to 21 degrees where we are now. We still have plenty of goodies left in our fridge so you don´t have to feel sorry for us. Right now conditions couldn´t be better.
9 May
Still a tiny fraction of our diesel left and we are using it with great care. We have tried all possible combination of sail sets with or without support from the motor. We are not moving with a great speed, our average is around 5 knots during the last 24 hours. We get weather forecasts every day but they are not that accurate at all. Out here, in the reality, we have, so far winds between 0 – 5 knots (up to 2,5 m/s) from all possible directions. Our expectations and hopes for wind coming are great, and we plan to be in Bermuda in time for Happy Hour on Friday. We still enjoy great meals onboard; you might believe we are a gang of Master Chefs on vacation. As you can understand we have a great time for reading, we probably consume one book per person a day. And so far, George is the master of Backgammon.
8 May
We are sailing ! And has done so for a couple of hours, and are forced to continue like that since our diesel meter is down to ¼. As you can understand the wind conditions are not the best for any of us out here. We get weather forecasts every day but the real wind has never reached the magnitude our weathermen predict, at least not up to now. We have travelled almost half the distance to Bermuda right now and we all have a great time onboard. People back home wonder how we spend our days on Aniara. It is hard to explain but we are mostly strolling around on deck trying to find a good position for liming and resting. We have individual breakfast every morning but we enjoy lunch and dinner together. Today we even have had a common brunch with scrambled eggs and bacon. Last night George had her own night watch, and she did well while the rest of us slept and dreamed good dreams. We have not been very successful in our fishing so far, but from today we have added hooks on all our tackles. I hope, you back home, get better fleet position information than we have received onboard so far. It might be so that the yellow bricks we have onboard are not of the same good standard as the ones we had during the last race.
7 May
Now we can sign off both the lack of dolphins and the absence of caught fish. Late afternoon yesterday we had a visit from a gang of dolphins, probably 25-30 of them, who stayed and played around Aniara for some time. We also got a small fish, of an undefined race, which was included in the culinary fish-and shrimp-dish we enjoyed in the evening. What we still miss more than ever is a steady wind. During the 48 hours we have been on our way we used our Penta for 39 hours, which makes our trip to one of the strangest sailing contest ever. We can see from the fleet position report that almost all other participants act exactly as we do, which probably is the only chance we have to get to Bermuda before the next race leg starts (Bermuda-Azores). We have moved Aniara 295 NM and have still 550 NM to go until we reach Bermuda. Let´s hope the wind is picking up, since our Diesel-meter now is down on half.
5 May
We are ready to go. Within three hours the race will start but before that we will get out and find out how to use the new whisker pole without creating too much mess on deck. The weather is fantastic, if we only should relax, sunny and hot. The
only minor problem is the absence of wind, at least inside the marina. We will start to round Tortola and Jost van Dyke, going westwards, and after that follow a straight course towards the north and hopefully find Bermuda within a week
or so. Everything onboard is fixed, even the fishing gear has got a new finish and we are prepared for the big catch. I know that today´s lunch will be a delicious tuna sandwich and the dinner tonight will be some kind of chicken dish. We have decided to split the night watches between the tree guys onboard, which each will get a four-hour-watch starting at 20.00 (local time). If God and the technology permit you will get new daily reports starting tomorrow. Cross your fingers and start to pray for us.
4 May
Aniara is back in the water even if we had to delay the launch for almost a day. The reshaping of our rudder showed up to be more difficult than our ship yard personnel thought, so we spent last night on land as well. Tonight, our final night at Nanny Cay will be the first one George, Eva and Stefan will have in the water. Yesterday we got our new whisker pole (spinnakerbom) delivered from US Virgin Island and it is now installed on Aniara. Tomorrow we will start our trip towards Bermuda at noon local time. The wind is not in our favor why we might be prepared to use our new Penta engine for quite some time. We are ready with our provisioning and have taken part in a skippers briefing. Tonight we will attend a BBQ-dinner in the marina and probably go to bed early to be fit before the start tomorrow. From tomorrow and until we reach Bermuda we will only upload text to our website. Erik Petersson, back in Sweden has promised to act as a stand-in
administrator during our first crossing.
Aniara is now equipped with a position transmitter, shoving our position every 4:th hour. If you visit the ARC website, www.worldcruising.com/arceurope and click on the Fleet viewer, top right on the page you will be able to see where we are during the entire cruise.
Tommy, Eva & George waiting for Aniara to be launched into the water.
Stefan installing a new sound surround system in the cabin.
We had a heavy rain yesterday, so it was almost as Aniara was in the sea.
Here, our new whisker pole arrive from the island of St. Thomas.
Part of the stuff we will eat and drink during our first cruising.
Lunchtime today, a great Cesar salad.
Our fellow sailors at the skippers briefing.
Here is the route we hopefully will follow all the way back to Europe.
3 May
The crew is now complete. Yesterday evening Georgina (from now on named George) and Eva and Stefan arrived. The only one we are waiting for is Aniara and her new shaped rudder. It is right now early morning (05.00) and one repair guy, Eddie, has been working the night through creating some new sounds onboard wih his grinding machine. But it looks as he will be finished in time to get Aniara back in the water within a few hours. Yesterday evening we went to a dinner organized by ARC where we got some tasty local barbecue. After a planned test sail today I am sure everybody onboard will need an extra rest before we start the next big project.
You can be sure that the BBQ fish, chicken & ribs where tasty.
Eddie working in his space costume trying to improve the shape of our rudder.
To protect the rudder from water we had to set a small ¨tent¨ around Eddie. (Notice our christmas lightning)
2 May
The night outside Norman Island was great. We had a own-designed Pasta Carbonara and fell asleep well fed. This morning we had a safety check on the boat for the sailing. One representative from ARC checked out every little item onboard and we passed with honor. We had the mechanics who the rudder installation to check their job and after that we did a test sail just outside of Nanny Cay. We still have some strange vibrations origin in the rudder we sail faster than 7 knots. We decided to get the boat up on land again to get the rudder reshaped. So we will have another night in the boat, but on land, so we need a long ladder to get up to it. Tonight Georgina, Eva and Stefan will join us and we are sure they will be surprised how they will have to spend their first night in the Caribbean. Later on tonight we will attend a welcome dinner organized by ARC
where we will meet our fellow participants in the race.
This little bird, from Norman Island, liked our Carbonara almost as well as we did.
Here the rudder reshaping job has started. Cross your fingers that we get it properly done this time.
1 May
We followed our plan and went to Jost van Dyke, an island just north of Tortola. We spent the night in a nice little bay, East End Harbour. We went ashore and ended up in a famous little bar, the Foxy´s, where Tommy could get his Carib beer and Pelle his fruit punch. After that we visited a natural Jacuzzi to get our bodies back in shape and went early in bed. Yesterday morning we took off early and we sailed to new island, Anegada, which also belongs to the British Virgin Islands. Anegada is a strange little island, almost 12 km long and 3 km wide, but with a maximum height not more than 7 meter, so guess if it was tricky to find it from the sea. The way into the harbor was also quite adventures and we had probably less than 30 cm free space under our keel to get in. Yesterday´s sailing was great even if we had the wind completely in our nose. The new genua gives a far better speed than the old one. Today, when Pelle celebrates his 64 birthday we went to the island the Great Dogs for snorkeling and are right now back in Nanny cays for some boat arrangements. We will have to get the boat up on land again to get some adjustments done on the rudder. We have experienced some strange and new vibrations from the rudder when we exceed 6 knots in speed. The boat will be lifted up tomorrow at noon and be put back in the water early Thursday. Tonight we head out towards Norman Island again to get the pleasure to wake up in nice nature tomorrow morning. As from tomorrow the real preparation for the first leg will start.
Our view from Aniara yesterday morning, the Green Cay, east of Jost van Dyke.
Pelle enjoy the natural Jacuzzi on Jost van Dyke.
Even the local cats spend their days liming (chilla, softa, ta det lungt) here in the Caribbean.
Tommys birthday gift to Pelle. 4 morning breads with cheese, blueberry marmelade topped with a car from Ahlgrens.
28 April
Right across the Francis Drake Channel from Tortola lies Norman Island. We went there yesterday and are still there. We have now tested the new genua and main sail, and Aniara has never speeded like this before. We have not done any diving yet, since the snorkeling around here is just fantastic. The small islands, The Indians, right outside Norman was the absolutely best snorkeling place so far with fantastic colorful corrals and millions of beautiful fishes. We spent a few hours yesterday evening as well as today in a spectacular bar, based on an old schooner, called Willy T. Tomorrow we will start a trip around Tortola and also visit Jost van Dyke. We plan to be back in Nanny Cay on Wednesday when we will pick up our new crew and start the final preparations for the first leg up to Bermuda.
Here is the entrance to one of the 4 caves south of Treasure Point we have explored today.
Tommy in full snorkeling gear checking after a hidden treasury.
Pelle sewing a new sprayhood. A big questionmark is how watertight it will be.
We now have, by far, the largest and most impressive flag in the entire Caribbean sailing fleet. It measures 1,8 x 3 meters.
The Indians, where we earlier today had the snorkeling of our lifetimes.
26 April
We have been busy for some days now, changing the main sail, the genua and all halyards. We will now leave the marina in Tortola and also the Internet connection World and will go out to the islands outside for some diving. We have 37 degrees in the shadow. We will be back to you shortly.
24 April
We have started part 3 of our adventure and we are back in the Caribbean. Yesterday Tommy started his journey from Geneva and Pelle from Copenhagen (after a bus trip in the middle of the night from Onsala). We met in London and flow onwards to Miami and San Juan (Puerto Rico) where we slept for the night. This morning we came back to Tortola and Nanny Cays Marina where we met Aniara again. She is now back in the water and she looks as new. New bottom paint, new rudder and carefully cleaned. We also have had a new main sail and a new genua shipped to us. It is extremely hot down here, it must be over 30 degrees, so we are looking forward to go out to a nice island tomorrow. We plan to do some preparations on the boat during the coming week. We will stay in touch, at least until May 5 when we will start the trip to Bermuda. As you all know, we highly appreciate if you give us some moral support using the possibility to chat with us, go to the section ¨Contact us¨.
Here you can see Aniara going back into the water after a month on land.
The most important provisioning for the Atlantic crossing is done, a whole big box with AHLGRENS SKUMBILAR.
24 March
We have now spent our final day in the Caribbean Island for this time. We still have Aniara on land and she will stay there until we arrive back in late April. There are a lot more of mosquito on land compared when spending the nights at sea, so most of the nights are spent scratching body, arms and legs. Today we have rented a car and have travelling around the entire island of Tortola. It isn´t big but it´s hilly. Tomorrow we leave the marina early, around 06.30 and go to the airport on the east side of the island. We will first fly to Puerto Rico where Pelle will fly via New York and London to Gothenburg while Tommy fly via Miami and London back to Stockholm. You are welcome back to this website in late April when we will start the trip toward Bermuda and the Azores back to Europe.
The entrance to our home the last three nights. It feels strange when peeing during the night.
Tommy checking the inside of the rudder which soon is going to be fixed.
A view over Cane Garden Bay from the hills overlooking it.
22 March
Tonight we will experience something completely new. Aniara is on land and we are parked in the middle of a shipyard in Nanny Cay Marina, Tortola. The reason we had to get her up is that we have a problem with our rudder, which has to be
fixed before the trip back to Europe. Another reason is that we will get a good parking spot for her during the time we are back in Sweden. We will fly back on Sunday and will be back here again in late April. But it will be strange to climb a ladder to reach the deck of Aniara. This marina is the where we will start from when going to Bermuda and the Azores. Tomorrow and on Saturday we will have to do some additional maintenance job and will let you know about our progress before we fly back.
A photo dedicated to Jocke. We continue to bake but never got your kind of fluffy bread.
For the first time in almost 9 months, Aniara is up in the air.
Tommy is helping the marina personell with the rudder transportation.
And this is the place wher we will stay for our last three Caribbean nights.
21 March
On October 29, 1867, the Royal Mail Steamer RHONE sank outside Salt Island due to wild hurricane. Today we went down to check her out and she was still there. The dive was one of the best we ever have had, the impressing wreck and all colorful fishes and corals around it. We started early this morning and get a possibility for two dives. We are right now heading back to Cooper Island to get our air tanks filled and after that we plan to go top Dead man’s Bay on Peter Island for our second dive and an anchorage for the night. Tomorrow we will head for Tortola and will start to do some preparation for next part of the sailing, from Tortola to Bermuda in early may.
20 March
We have now reached Cooper Island, right south of Tortola. Before we left Virgin Gorda we made a stop at a place called The Bath on the southwest tip of the island. This was a fantastic place for snorkeling with a lot of giant granite stones on the bottom of the sea as well as on land. We had planned for some real scuba diving but the snorkeling was good enough. We might go for a dive tomorrow at a ship wreck just outside of Cooper Island. The weather is still unbelievable good with
temperatures around 30 degrees and water temperature at 27 degrees.
Tommy, trying to sell some Aritco-lifts from the pier of Saba Rock.
We have seen some nice boats during our trip. here is one we met today.
This is how it looks when looking into The Bath. Fantastic place !
This is where we sit right now when writing todays daily log.
19 March
Today is the day after Pia´s birthday which we celebrated between St. Maarten and Virgin Gorda. We actually managed to start our trip at 04.00 and we reached our destination at 20.30, so we needed more than 16 hours to go approx. 75 NM. The
wind was almost not present so the new Penta had to support almost the entire distance. Tommy saw a big whale which came up and took a breath just close to us. Today we have done the final clearance procedure, involving immigration and
customs in Spanish Town, the main town at Virgin Gorda. After this we went to an island north of Gorda, called Great Dog, where we had a nice diving experience. Right now we are sitting on a very nice and well-known bar called Saba Rock which completely covers a tiny island with the same name. They serve a famous drink, called Painkiller, which Tommy will get a lot of while Pelle sips his fruit cocktails. We will be back !
Tommy makes a complete check of his diving gears before going down in the Big Blue.
Pelle, happy as a child, after being down with the fishes for about 45 minutes.
A photo of Saba Rock Bar during our approach.
17 March
We are still in St. Maarten but prepare ourselves for the trip to the British Virgin Islands. Yesterday we rented a car and drove around the entire island. One recommendation we got was to visit a spot, Pic Paradise, in the middle of the island where they had an attraction called a Zip-line. Of course we tried it and gee it was funny. I made a video from it and if I manage to upload it you will find a link further down. After returning the rental car we left the marina and anchored in the lagoon just outside. Up early this morning to get out during the time the bridge on the French side was open. We managed to get both on and off a ground just before reaching the bridge. It was a very narrow and shallow route to get out and finally we managed. Today we also got our first fish during this part, but I have no idea of what kind of fish it is but we have decided to eat it anyhow. We were followed by four small dolphins during our sailing today. While shopping in the French town Marigot, we couldn´t resist from buying 10 pairs of unneeded tee-shirts and some new pair of sun-glasses all of bad quality. Tomorrow morning we plan to rise early and start our sailing around 04.00. We expect to reach Virgin Gorda before sunset, a trip of approx. 80 NM. We will be back if surviving the strange fish and completed the trip to Virgin Gorda.
After the zip-line adventure we took a swim at Waikiki Beach on the south coast.
Right behind the ship wreck in the back we were stucked in the mud.
Two of our dolphin friends who followed us today.
15 March
We are now back in Netherlands, on the island of St. Martin. This tiny island is divided between Netherlands and France and we will check it out in the next couple of days. We left St. Barth early this morning and stopped halfway to St. Martin in a lovely little island called Il Fourchue where we relaxed but also did a hike up to the top on 104 m. Yesterday we left the Gustavia marina and sailed to a bay east of the city. It is supposed to be a fancy beach with a lot of celebrities but we couldn´t find a single one. The weather was fantastic and the skin of Pelles nose is changing for the third time. In the evening we strolled around in Gustavia trying to learn something about its history and Swedish background. It is nice to see that all the information signs are in three international languages, French, English and Swedish. Tonight we have reached Simson Bay Marina on the SW corner of St. Martin and we will spend our first night along a dock during this trip. We will fill our water tank but need no additional electricity since our wind generator works so well. It was a surprise to us that we were guided to a place where our closest neighbor was Triumph, our fellow boat from the ARC-race. Börjes daughter Lisa is babysitting the boat until Börje will arrive in late April to bring Triumph back to Sweden.
After a hard day on the beach a swedish pancake is a perfect ending of the day.
We also find some time to for a good book.
Here is another example of the great signs in St. Barth.
A view from a small mountain in the island Il Fourchue where we spend the main part of today.
It was a little bit complicated to get into the Simson Bay Marina. We are behind this beautiful ship.
13 March
Yesterday we were in Netherlands and today we are back in France. Yesterday´s island were St Eustatius and the island of today is St. Barhelemy. Right now we are sitting in a bar in the town of Gustavia, a town with a lot of Swedish tradition. We
actually owned this island from the end of 1700 until 1886. We have not had the time to explore the island yet, but from what we have seen so far it looks really nice. The sailing here was great, winds of 8 – 10 m/s but partly rainy. We can see that there are much more tourists here compared with down south, but everything is also much more expensive. It will be interesting to see where we end up after reaching the British Virgin Islands. We probably will stay here for two nights, after that we will go to St. Martin, our final stop before BVI. I hope to be back with more info and photos tomorrow.
In St Eustadius we took a public bus and made a tour around the island. Pelle got two new friends.
This can also be the dress code for Caribbean sailing.
For a guy from Västra Strandvägen, Gustavia could almost be like home.
Another great road sign. We swedes have really made our footprints over here.
11 March
Yesterday we started our trip from Antigua at eight in the morning and arrived in Nevis at 18.00. Sailings distance approx. 55 NM so you can understand that the strong wind now is gone. During our lazy and relaxing cruising we fixed our spray hood so it will last for a few more weeks. We used a mooring just outside the main town of Nevis, called Charlestown. Early this morning we went over to St.Kitts and ended up in a nice bay called Frigates Bay for lunch and some relaxing swim. We also had the most expensive ice cream so far, 7 USD per scope. (35 SEK per glassbula, grundlurade!). During a short walk around the beach we saw a whole gang of wild monkeys, they are called green velvet monkeys here. We have now moved to the main town of St. Kitts, Basseterre where we have made the necessary immigration and customs clearance procedures. Tomorrow we plan to catch a public bus and tour the island before we hop to the next island.
Here, in the middle of the Sea, a new sprayhood is produced.
Tommy with the customs officer in the immigration office of St. Kitts.
Pelle with the assistant officer in the same office. Note his red face.
9 March
Today we have continued to doing almost nothing. We did however got the fixed genua back and after that we went to a nice beach close to the marina. We are prepared to leave early tomorrow morning and plan to go to St. Kitts & Nevis, a trip of almost 55 NM. The wind is now more decent, around 7 knots, so we will for sure have a full day of great sailing in front of us.
It´s really not crowded in the beaches of Antigua.
This little guy made us company during an ice cream stop in the marina. He liked sugar more than we did.
8 March
The plan to explore Antigua by scooter failed due to the big head of Pelle. There was no helmet to find big enough for him. Instead we rented a Toyota Yaris and have now seen most of the island including the house of Eric Clapton. Tonight we will return to Aniara just outside the marina and enjoy a chicken salad. Tomorrow will be our last full day here and we will probably go to a nice beach somewhere around.
A nice view from Shirley Height looking overlooking the English Harbour.
Dramatic scenery from the east coast of Antigua, the famous Devils Bridge.
After a day of hard sightseeing a rest in the sun is well deserved.
8 March (early morning)
Today we will rent two scooters and make a sightseeing trip around Antigua. The sailing from Guadalupe was great but tough. We managed to get the genua down and has left it with a sail maker. We are mooring in the Falmouth Marina just at the famous English Harbour.
Here you can see how the strong UV-radiation can affect the seams of the sails. Hopefully this is fixed by tomorrow by a local sail maker shop.
Last November we bought two pork legs in the Canary Islands. The final one went overboard to feed the fishes outside Guadalupe.
The ships in the Antigua marina are grotesquely huge. If you can zoom the above picture you find a guy working on the second spreader from the top.
7 March (Bonus material)
Last Friday Tommy had some exercise in Dominica by making a hike together with a giant guide with the nice name Bambu. They climbed up to 1300 m, starting at 600 m to find a giant hole with a lot of boiling water. The hike lasted more than 6 hours so you can understand Tommy was somewhat tired when picking up Pelle last Sunday.
Bambu, a special Caribbean guy, almost 2 m tall, starting the trip at the sandwich shop.
The trail was steep and Tommy’s leg muscles were growing all the time.
The water that pumped out from the ground was perfect for boiling eggs.
All around the mountain there were a special sulphur mud, making the skin shining. Tommy didn´t need to do this.
An finally, the guys found the boiling lake, and gee it was hot up there.
7 March (the editor is now on sit)
We have right now reached Antigua after a fantastic but tough sailing from Guadalupe yesterday. It is extremely windy for the season with winds between 14-18 m/s. In Guadalupe, we spent a night just outside Jacques Cousteau’s National Park on the north-west side of the island. We have to do some small repair on our genua today and plan to stay on this island for a couple of days, maybe for some windsurfing and scooter trips. We will soon be back, and then upload some new photos from Antigua.
1 March (still edited in Onsala, Sweden)
The new Penta is installed and is working and Aniara is now on her way towards the northern islands of the Caribbean. Tommy is alone on the boat and has today reached Roseau on the west cost of Dominica. Tomorrow he plans to do a hike to a bubbling lake nearby, remember that Dominica is an ecological and beatiful island. Saturday Tommy continue his trip continues up to Portsmouth, on the northwest of Dominica and on Saturday he cruise on to Guadalupe where he will pick up Pelle who has had a slow start of this second part of the sailing.
25 February (updated report from Martinique, however written in Onsala, Sweden)
The start of Part 2 of the sailing adventure with Aniara II did not turn out to be as planned. Pelle still left behind in Sweden, but with Tommy, Aldo & Elena eager to start the exploration of the north of the Caribbean Islands. Upon arrival they were informed that there has been some strange noises from the Penta during the last week. After checking it was clear that the crankshaft was broken into two pieces (!!!). This is not a repair work the crew was prepared by themselves, why a local Penta shop, Mecanique Plaisance, was called in to help. Since the crankshaft was repaired earlier Tommy took the decision to change the engine completely. The new Penta engine will be installed in the middle of next week and after that the trip can continue again. This is of course a great disappointment for all, especially for Aldo & Elena, but shit happens sometime. The crew has spent their time checking out Martinique from their rental car and relaxing in the sandy beaches of this beautiful island. I am also told that they have had some great dinner experiences, and I am not surprised when the Sessegelos are around. The plan right now is that Aldo & Elena will fly to St. Lucia and onwards to Antigua while Tommy will wait in the marina for his new engine. We will be back with new info shortly.
A few days before the trip to Martinique, Tommy & John (our crew from Maroco) had to cool down in the Grand Massif.
Aldo, checking out that the old Penta leaves Aniara in a proper way.
Elena, getting some new influences for her beautiful garden in Sardinia.
The boom can be used for a lot of differnt tasks.
Tommy give instructions where to sink the engine.
17 February
It´s time to start following the trip of Aniara again. Today Tommy is onboard an Air France-flight to Martinique to board the boat for Part 2 of our trip. The intention was that I (=Pelle) should be on the same flight but I had to postpone my return due to some urgent matters at home. Hopefully I will be back onboard within a couple of weeks. From now on Tommy is the new administrator of our webpage and he is fully educated how to handle it. The two first week of this part Tommy will have a new fantastic crew, the famous Sessegelos from Sardinia. Aldo and Elena will for sure get Aniara to reach speeds she never has been close to before. I know that the intention for the next two weeks is to explore Martinique, Dominica and Antigua and I am sure that they will have many interesting happenings to tell us all on this site. I wish Tommy, Elena & Aldo a great sailing!
Best regards to Elena, Tommy & Aldo and I wish you will have more sun than we had the day this photo was shot.
23 January
I couldn´t resist from adding just one photo from today even if the first sailing part has ended. When woke up this morning the water was still around, but there was something completely wrong. The outside temperature was below zero, the water temperature was horrifying and what the heck was all that white stuff. But it´s anyhow great to be home. Don´t forget to start looking at this webpage when episode 2 starts in mid-February.
Our morning swimming procedure will have to wait until February 20.
21 January
This is the final day of Part 1 of our sailing adventure. Yesterday afternoon we arrived to Martinique and met the crew who will take over Aniara for one week. After that two new crews will come here for exploring the beautiful Caribbean islands.
Tommy & Pelle will be back here in four weeks time for Part 2, which will include the northern islands (the Leeward Islands) from Dominica up to Puerto Rico. We will be back with new daily logs as soon as we are onboard again.
A short summary of Part 1.
We started on September 19 from Sardinia and were in Las Palmas on November 6. Total sailing distance 1781 NM.
The ARC-race started on November 20 and we arrived in St. Lucia on December 10. Sailing distance 2817 NM.
Our cruising in the Caribbean Sea started on December 18 and finished yesterday and we have sailed 704 NM during this period.
Our total sailing distance is 5.300 NM equals to 9.816 km. This means a total distance equals from Gothenburg to Cape Town in South Africa.
As you saw in our last log, Pelle went to a hair cutter in St. Lucia a few days ago and he´s still not happy with the result.
Tommy went to a more modern hair stylist and he is a lot more happy with the result.
19 January
Back in Rodney Bay, our real home-base here in the Caribbean. Today we have been working on the boat, cleaning and fixing. We have had some help by a Rastafari-guy to wash and polish the boat so it´s looks great when the Göran and his friends will get it on saturday. Today Pelle had his hair cut, it is really short and he looks like Tin-Tin. He will probably not need another cut within the next couple of years. Tomorrow morning we leave for Martinique where we will meet Göran and friends and hand over Aniara to them. Hopefully you will get a last report before we leave Martinique with a short summary of our trip so far.
17 January
Now we almost feel like we are back home. This evening we arrived to Marigot Bay in St. Lucia after a trip of almost 45 NM today. The sailing was great with a wind of 12-15 m/s and almost clear skies. Yesterday we spend the night in Saint Vincent,
Willilabou Bay. It was here they shot the movies Pirates of the Carabbean. We had some great snorkeling and also took a look on the site where Jonny Depp, Stellan Skarskård and others were fighting and had some rumpunch. Tomorrow we
probably head for Rodney Bay to get some equipment fixed and after that we will have our final sailing for this part when going to Martinique. It is a strange feeling to know that we will be shuffling snow in a weeks time.
Another quiz. Which one of the guys below performed in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean?
I am aware that I missed to show a photo of Ida during her stay onboard. Here she is.
Alternative 1. Note that the coffin was in the movie, how about it´s content.
Alternative 2. The only guy without a coffin, but he might be an alternative anyhow.
Alternative X. Same coffin but another beast in it.
15 January
A couple of days ago we found a new favorite island where we never have been before, Carriacou, a real pearl just south of Union Island. After immigration procedures in Hillsborough we went to the SW tip, Tyrrel Bay, where we counted 85 sailing boats. In the evening we went ashore for a steel band party and also met a girl from Norrtälje who has been living on this lovely island for four years. Early yesterday morning we went on to Sandy Island, just outside Hillsborough for a final swim for the Americans onboard. After leaving our four guests Tommy & Pelle continued to Canouan, another island we haven’t visited before. We have really strong winds, around 15 m/s and have it directly in our noses. We have really enjoyed the sailing during the last two days. After fixing a problem with our Penta this morning we continued to Bequia where we just have completed our immigration work. We have now spent a fortune in getting our passports filled with all exotic stamps.
You shold know that we both will be extremely happy if we hear someting from YOU, feel free to use our chat forum. It is great for us to get som news now and than from home and all our good friends.
12 January
We are really back in our own backyard. After immigration and provisioning in Clifton we went to the Tobago Cays for a second time. We spent two nights in this paradise and we had some fantastic snorkeling and saw hundreds of turtles and
plenty of fish out on the reef. The first evening we attended a lobster party on the beach with probably 50-70 guests, all served by our local people here, Arthur, Kojac, Desperado and others. Ar this moment, 10 am Thursday morning we plan to go back to Union for emigration and provisioning and sending this report. After that we plan to go to Petit Saint Vincent and Mopion for the night and tomorrow proceed to Carriacou from where The Lowbacks will leave on saturday.
We have met a couple of nice guys sailing on this ship, Royal Clipper, carrying 200 passengers and owned by a Swede.
Here our local chefs starts preparing our beach dinner.
I can tell you, these lobsters tasted good.
9 January
The sailing to Grenada was great with a wind between 20 -25 knots. We started around 06.30 and arrived in Saint George´s just after 19.00. We found a fantastic marina, Port Louis, completed a few years ago. In the morning of the 7:th Göran, Ann, Ida and James came onboard. We spent the day in a bay just outside the marina and had some local dishes in a good restaurant in the evening. Yesterday we had a tough trip from Grenada to Union Island with a strong headwind and waves direct against us. We managed to get to Chatham Bay on the Westside before dark and are now on our way into Clifton to make the necessary immigration procedures. Probably we will stay in Clifton for the night.
Pia & Jocke in Trinidad, at 04.00 before leaving for Sweden
As the security manager she is, Ann wanted to test the performance of our life jackets onboard. This one worked!
During the bumpy trip between Grenada and Union Island, James tested the buckets onboard.
5 January
Now it´s evening here in Trinidad and there is the last night for Pia and Jocke on the boat and we are all crying. They will leave early tomorrow morning for a flight to Martinique from where they will continue back home to the Swedish snow. We stay in a nice marina just west of Port of Spain called Chaguaramus. Two days ago we took a sightseeing trip around Tobago and saw sandy bays and wild rainforest and we took a swim in a natural waterfall. Our sailing to Trinidad were rough, we managed to rip our gennaker for a second time, but arrived here before dark yesterday evening. We logged 11,2 knots for a short time. On our way we were accompanied by a gang of dolphins, certainly 25 of them, who followed us for almost a hour. Today we went in to Port of Spain for a short visit, but we felt a bit strange there since we were the only white people in town. Tonight we were invited to a marina party and met some very interesting persons who have been out cruising around the world for decades. After the departure of Pia & Jocke, Tommy and Pelle will head for Grenada to pick up a new crew, this time Tommys brother Göran with his family. The distance to Grenada is slightly under 100 NM so it will take us 13-16 hours.
.Jocke, taking a swim in the wild waterfall, Agyle Falls, in the middle of the Tobago Rainforest
Our most beautiful sail, just before it ripped between Tobago and Trinidad.
One of the dolphins was so fascinated by Jockes feet so she swimmed upside down for miles.
Even though it´s a tropical heat down her, the Trinidadians celebrate Christmas.
Street life in Port of Spain.
3 January
There have been a lot of activities the last couple of days. The boat is anchored in the same bay in Tobago and we are going in and out using our dingy. In 75% of the cases, when approaching land we all get soaked with water from the shore waves, but we usually dry quite fast. On New Year’s Day we went windsurfing for a second day and yesterday Pelle & Tommy went for a dive trip with two well needed test dives. We rented a jeep yesterday which we will use for an island trip today. Our plan is to leave Tobago tomorrow morning and sail to Trinidad, from where Pia & Jocke will leave early Friday morning. More about that later.
Tommy, during his second day on the surf board, showed up to be THE expert among all surfing guys.
On the way back from the dives on a wreck (25 m) and a beautiful coral reef (15 m)
1 January
We are still in Tobago and have survived a great New Years Eve. When you all, in Europe celebrated the New Year we just ended a 8 hours windsurfing session at Radical Sport at Pigeon Point. All three of the remaining boys had a fantastic day in winds about 10 – 15 m/s. Tommy made heroic progress and went from a centerboard board to a real one but without using a harness. So today Tommy is stronger than ever. Jocke produced a couple of Duck Jibes and became happy and Pelle succeeded in a great number of water starts. Pia worked on her sun tan and we have hard to see the differece between her and the local people here. The evening we spent in a nice restaurant close to the boat having a four-course menu. Three of us managed to stay awake until 24.00, watching the fireworks just on the beach close to the boat, while Pelle was sleeping. Today we are back to the windsurfing beach, the wind is slightly stronger and the sun is up. We are
still not complaining over our situation, the only thing we miss is that YOU are not here together with us.
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Tommy taking a well-deserved rest between his hard surf passes while. Jocke makes a new jibe strategy.
Jocke & Pelle discuss the latest run out to the reef outside Pigeon Point.
The dingy-trip into the shore was a little bit bumpy. Here Jocke dress in his own-designed New-Years-dipers.
Pia in her new creation just for the New Years celebration.
The three guards protecting Pia from all nice looking local boys.
30 December
We have now reached Tobago after a tough trip from Tobago Cays. 90 NM, strong winds (between 20-35 knots) and huge and frequent waves. Pia was the hero of this trip since she survived, which she believed she shouldn´t. We stay in a beautiful bay on the southwest point of Tobago and now we will start to look for some windsurfing possibilities. The check-in procedures yesterday was complicated and took us all half a day in the capital of Tobago, Scarbourough. Today Elaina left us and we all have been crying a little bit. We will probably stay here during new years eve and find a good party place with the locals here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you from all of us stranded here.
Pia succeded to charm the local boss in Scarbourough to get us cleared into the country.
Jocke setting the strategy for how to get back to the boat out there somewhere.
Tommy, happy as hell, after getting all the clearance papers.
28 December
On Christmas Day we anchored outside a luxurious resort on the private Petit Saint Vincent. Spent the day walking around on the enormous white sandy beaches. After that we got the allowance to join the wealthy people having a beach barbecue. Now we definitely are tired of all these lobsters. The day after we found a very tiny little island between Union and PSV, Mopion, where we snorkeled for hours. It was as good as Tobago Cays. Yesterday we sailed to the northern tip of Mayreau where we found a bay, Salt Whistle Bay, which is just marvelous. After doing all formalities with immigration and customs we plan to sail to Tobago, a distance of almost 100 NM. We will start this afternoon and sail through the night. After reaching Tobago our new friend Elaina will leave us, and we will face new adventure. Follow us and you will find out.
Here Elaina, as the master photographer she is, really managed to catch the spirit felt by the rest of us.
These three lobsters were the ones Elaina had to eat before the digging in to the Christmas main dish.
25 December
We had a Christmas Eve we never will forget in our lifetime. We spent it with the big BOSS of Union Island, Mr. Lambi and a his steel band. The food could have been better but the dance lesson we got from Jocke was outstanding. We are surprised
that there are so few tourists out here since it is so beautiful all around. Today the wind is down to around 12 - 15 knots and we plan to go to Petit Saint Vincent, where we have heard there is a big party tonight. Tomorrow we will probably go back to Tobago Cays for some additional snorkeling.
Quizz.
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24 December
Merry Christmas to all of you. We will have hard to find some herring and Christmas ham today, but the schnapps is in the freezer. Tomorrow we will get a part from a local pig from a local dealer, which part we don´t know. Our Christmas dinner tonight will be a Caribbean barbeque.
Pelle & Jocke are running around in Union Island, trying to find a hair dresser to look nice for tonight’s celebration.
23 December
One day before Christmas Eve and swimming with turtles and manta ray fishes, it´s aremarkable feeling. We stayed two nights in Friendship Bay and went thereafter directly to the magic Tobago Cays. This is really a paradise with an underwater
life that beats the most. It´s more winds than usual so our wind generator is now paying back. Last night we spent on the west side of Union Island, Chatham Bay, another small pearl we never have visited before. Today we went to Palm
Island, just opposite Union and had another wonderful and lazy day in the sun and water. Tonight we stay in Clifton Bay and are already invited to a party by the locals here. So when all Swedes watch Kalle Anka (Donald Duck) we will probably cure ourselves from this party.
We wish all our relatives and dear friends, who hopefully all read this web page, a Merry Christmas. We think of all of you and we miss you a lot
Pia,digesting all lobsters she had eaten the last couple of days.
There was an even result between the two expert teams in the music quiz we had yesterday.
20 December
We have now started our reward cruising in the wonderful Caribbean archipelago. The day before yesterday we left Rodney Bay and had a fantastic lunch in Marigot Bay. We spent the night in Soufriere and sailed on to a small village in the south
of St. Lucia, Laborie, where we left Bosse who had to get back to Sweden. The rest of us planned to sail to Barbados but changed our plans when we met the waves and wind outside St. Lucia. Instead we went east of St. Vincent and
landed in Friendship Bay on Bequia. Here we have been lazy the whole day, snorkeling in a reef nearby, shopping some lobsters and just enjoyed. Tomorrow we might go visiting Mick Jagger and David Bowie in Mystique and bring them on
to Tobago Keys for some more serious snorkeling.
Here you see the three lobsters for todays starter, Tommy is the one in the middle. We bought 6 kilo fresh lobster for less than 500 SEK.
18 december
Sorry for not being in touch for some days. We have continued to be in our most lazy mood. Jocke, Bosse & Magnus took a taxi trip around the island a couple of days ago while Tommy & Pelle sailed to Martinique to pick up Pia. The day
after Pias arrival she & Pelle checked in into a luxury design hotel for a day and the rest of the crew hanged around in the surrounding beaches and bars and made some new Rastafari friends. Yesterday we attended the Prize ceremony
for the race, and this year Aniara got no prices, but wait until the next time. We have got a new crew member since Elaine will join us for a week and a half. We met her in Las Palmas and she is a great character. Today we will sail south, having lunch in Marigot Bay and plan to stay overnight in Soufriere. Tomorrow, after leaving Bosse at the airport we probably will head for Barbados. More about that later.
Yesterday we all dressed up, and one of the male crew members even visited a nail artist.
14 December
Another lazy day. We took a short trip just outside the marina and spent the day in Spinnaker Bar and on the beach. Tomorrow Tommy & Pelle will leave for Martinique to pick up Pia and have some serious talking with our banks in Fort de France. Jocke, Bosse & Magnus prepare a trip around the island to see some rainforest and some Rastafaris.
13 December
The day of Lucia, and we are in St. Lucia, it´s cool. It was a great party here in the marina yesterday evening (which was the Lucia day). Free food and drinks and a lot of ¨put the hands up in the air¨- jumping. During the day we went with the
boat to Marigot Bay, 10 NM south of here. It was as friendly, unique and beautiful as last time we were here. And Kennedy, the banana sales man was around, but his mobile store was upgraded from a windsurfing board to a small hobycat. A lot of entrepreneurs sold us everything from bananas to sea shell jewellery. It is a strange feeling trying to get away from the sun and heat only interrupted with some calls from back home informing of all the latest snowstorms. We think the weather down here is preferred since we can cure our inconvenience with a jump into the water.
Here you see Kennedy in his new shop trying hard to get new business partners.
12 December
We started with some work today. We left our gennaker to a sailmaker for repair and fixed the damaged halyard. We tried to upload a video showing how it looks where we are living right now, but failed completely. So instead we sailed half a mile to just outside Pigeon Island and had after that an experience of our life. To get a lunch on an exclusive all-inclusive resort we had to buy a half day pass and after that everything were free. Guess if we have been eating and if we have tested all available Caribbean drinks? We anyway found our way back to the marina and we will soon go for another beer and/or an ice cream plus listen to some live band which will perform tonight.
After the first lunch we explored and graded a numbers of bars in the resort, and this one this became our favourite.
One or two of us managed to test every single one of these fantastic caribbean drinks.
11 December (Extra News)
If you belive we will miss the traditional Swedish Christmas Table (Julbord?), you can stop regretting our situation. Look on the below photo of an ad which was found among palmtrees and 35 degrees. We have it all!
I am now ready with the promised upload of photos. Check under the next section to be inspired.
11 December
Sitting in a bar in Rodney Bay Marina enjoying an umbrella drink. It´s a good feeling to have firm ground under the feets again. We were welcomed by a lot of our new friends yesterday evening plus a basket with fresh fruits and a bottle of local Rum. Under section ¨Photos and Videos¨ I hope you can find som photos from the past three weeks. Today Aniara has been cleaned and we are just hanging around. Some of us had a BIG head this morning due to the local drinking habits. It´s a relaxing atmosphere in the Marina with a lot of friendly Rastafaris hanging around. We will try to update the homepage from here for a couple of days until we sail on into the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea within a few days. We can asure you that we don´t miss the weather wherever you are.
A proud crew minutes after arriving in St Lucia.
10 December 15.00 (local Aniara time)
LAND IN SIGHT! (We think and hope). It´s a strange feeling to see land after 20 days at sea. We know there is a party on the marina boardwalk tonight, but we might be a little bit late joining. We have started some cleaning and other housekeeping activities onboard. Today we emptied our fresh water tank onboard, yesterday evening we ate our last spaghetti carbonara with fresh bacon. We have had only one can of Bullens sausages served during the crossing, i.e. the provisioning got an OK. Tomorrow we might have access to our own Wi-Fi-network and will than relay some photos from the trip so far. A big hug from all of us to Erik, who kept our web-page alive during the past 20 days.
9 December 15.00 (local Aniara time)
We use the wind and Penta roughly 50 % each. 165 NM to go (wrong distance info yesterday) and we need to find wind for at least 50 NM of these. Warmest day so far, 32 degrees in the shadow, and the interval between our swimming contests are becoming shorter and shorter. The Gold Sponsor of all events in St. Lucia is Heiniken, so guess if the crew are longing ashore.
8 December 15.00 (local Aniara time)
The majority onboard made the choice to turn on the Penta at 21.45 yesterday evening, after spending hours without any winds at all. We have now approx. 200 NM to the finishing line and diesel for about half that distance, so now we will have to use our cleverness on something else than just sailing. But we are still good friends onboard and enjoy better and better new baked bread and tasteful and innovative dinners.
7 December 15.00 (local Aniara time)
Everyone’s moods onboard are focused on our speed, or rather loss of speed. 86 NM the last 24 hours, and sometimes completely wind still. This is for sure a real group dynamic lesson which will test the mental and psychological strength on all of us. Right now the wind is back a little and we sail with 5 – 6 knots. 380 NM (equals 610 km) remains to St. Lucia, and if all weather Gods are with us, we will be there on Saturday.
6 December 14.00 (local Aniara time)
We are right now in the middle of a giant hole of absolutely no wind. Feels strange after a night with 15 m/s and a speed of 9,5 knots. Feels like we are standing still. Less than 500 NM to go, which normally should take 3 three days, but if the present conditions last, it will take us a week. Last night we celebrated, with champagne and some lovely song, that Jocke entered the gang of clever, experienced and handsome boys. HAPPY 50:th BIRTHDAY, Jocke. Paula is a lucky girl who met such a great guy.
5 December 14.00 (local Aniara time)
Another giant (15 kg) mackerel was caught yesterday. The fishing rod is now locked in and safely stored in our safe since we have almost a whole pig to eat. A few single oranges and apples left, from tomorrow we have to test our canned fruit. Last night spent in low speed since the wind disappeared but the gennaker is still proudly up due to strong Tesa-tape and smart foredeck-work. Fantastic weather today, sunny, more than 30 degrees in the sun and 28 degrees in the water. Lucky us !
4 December 12.00 (local Aniara time)
5 guys, 2 weeks, 20 square meters, 1 fishing rod and not more than 800 NM to go. It couldn’t be better! Of course we all miss our wives, girlfriends, kids and friends back home and we are grateful that you let us loose to complete this fantastic trip and mission. We love you! The gennaker is still swinging up in the air, and gee it´s beautiful. Tonight we have pizza on the menu, the question of today is if there will be a topping of tuna or mackerel.
3 December 12.00 (local Aniara time)
We have changed our Aniara-time twice so far and are now three hours after most of you in Europe. Last evening we had a Gratin de Mackerel with wine sauce and a touch of Fond de Lobster. We have stopped the allowance for fishing for the time being since some of the crew members are longing for the Heinz White Beans and Bullens sausages we have stored somewhere. The gennaker has now been up for 30 hours, fixed with silver tape from Tesa, and we start our advance towards the top. We plan to pass two of the boats in our class today, and will than continue with the rest.
2 December (15.00 local Aniara time)
We are still moving forwards even with our genacker broken. 163 NM the last 24 hours, and if we continue like this our ETA will be on Dec. 9. We were just informed by ARC that the first boats have arrived to St. Lucia. We, however, hold to our original plan to enter the marina when all our new friends from Las Palmas are there, welcoming us with Caribbean Umbrella Drinks. It is bumpy out here and our stock of Swedish candies is low, especially our favorite Ahlgrens Bilar.
1 December (15.00 local time)
Unbelievable! We were a bit down after the genacker failure yesterday, but we are running with the wind since late yesterday, and managed to set a new record. AGAIN! 170 NM the last 24 hours and an average above 7 knots. When we started this trip, all of us had a strong belief that we should have plenty of time relaxing, contemplating and reading. So far every day has involved a lot of surprises and new problems that have to be solved. And so far we have fixed them all, and we have done it together and in good spirit. Yesterday we caught a record Spanish mackerel, it was almost one meter long and 10-12 kg. Guess what we will have for dinner tonight. We hope that the waves should be slightly lower so that we dare to use our gas burners in the kitchen.
30 November (15.00 local time)
A friend of ours told us that we must be prepared to shuffle the deck every morning from landed and stranded fly fishes. This morning we used our shuffle for the first time and sent ONE little fly fish back into the Ocean. We are proud over our new record. The last 24 hours we sailed 166 NM, which gives an average of almost 7 knots. Unfortunately this will be hard for us to beat since our genacker broke down again this morning. We will spend this afternoon to see if our sewing, gluing, taping and stitching knowledge’s still are there. An interesting day lies ahead of us, since the result of this repair is a matter of days in arrival time to St. Lucia.
29 November (14.00 local time)
According to our own log we made a personal speed record yesterday. 156 NM in 24 hours gives an average of 6,5 knots. Tomorrow will we pass the 50%-line, i.e. we have sailed half the total distance. Yesterday afternoon we had another break of the top block for our genacker, which meant another trip up to the mast top. Quite an experience to be 25 meters above sea-level with waves of 3 meters rolling the boat. Something for Liseberg! After breakfast this morning we passed an Australian boat, Felicity J on 100 meters distance. We talked with them on VHF, and one of their crew members spoke an excellent Skånish. Pray together with us that our new genacker top-block-construction will withstand the enormous forces out here. If so there is only one way for Aniara II in the result-list, and that is UP!
28 November (15.00 local time)
Today it´s really hot, it must be far above 30 degrees. Water temperature exceeds 25 degrees, so guess if we are longing for the Caribbean beaches. The final countdown is on for our fresh meat . We believe the best-before-date for our remaining meat soon is over us. Yesterday we checked every single piece of our tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and all fruits. Some of them contained more small and strange animals than vitamins. We got our second mackerel today (a GIANT one) and we have plenty of lemons left so we are not worried at all for our future menus.
27 November (15.00 local time)
Yesterday the Aniara medical department performed it´s first operation. The premier patient arrived with a blue finger nail and departed with a blue finger nail with a hole in it. A typical day onboard starts at 07.00, changing the genua to a genacker (for safety reasons do we not use our genacker during the dark hours). New baked bread is served every day, which is baked on a rolling scheme. All five of us are now full feathered bakers. Lunch normally consists of a fruit salad and for dinner we have had Chicken Thai, Pork filet with potato gratin, Chicken Masala etc. Tonight we will celebrate the first Advent with a pot of meat and vegetables in a vine sauce, served with boiled potatoes. Ofcourse we will open our first bottle of Glögg which we will enjoy together with fresh ginger breads. So there are still no reasons for you to feel sorry for us
26 November (15.00 local time)
At last, we are sailing with our genacker! We all pray that the new block will resist the forces developed by this sail. The weather is great, sunny and moderate winds (5-7 m/s) and we log around 7 knots. We got 15-20 new playmates today when a gang of dolphins raced with us. The dolphins won! We are approaching Lat. 20N and the water temperature is continuously going up (is now 24,5 degrees). We are still good friends onboard, especially after that one of us washed his feet, and some strange smells disappeared. We have now less than 2000 NM to St. Lucia, so it´s soon time to watch out for our finish.
25 November (15.00 local time)
The scent (or smell) onboard has changed quite a lot after our swim- and washing-session yesterday. We have changed our track and head more towards the Caribbean Islands, but it´s still a long way to go. This morning we caught our first fish, a Spanish mackerel, who must had taken a wrong turn somewhere. An inventory of our fridge has been done, and we have to eat more and faster before all our meat will rotten. Using our instruments, we can see a few of our fellows around us, otherwise we are in splendid isolation in the middle of the great Atlantic Ocean. Our average speed since we left Las Palmas is slightly under six knots and we have sailed approx. 750 NM so far.
24 November (18.00 local time)
After enjoying a gastronomic breakfast we have planned and performed a repair project for our broken genacker-fall. One of us had to go up in the mast-top three times, with all the others as a great rescue team. We believe we now have fixed the problem, at least in a provisory way. Our solution will be tested tomorrow and you will be able to see the result on the leader board. We keep to our original plan to be somewhat closer to Cap Verde before we head towards St. Lucia. All of you should and will be very proud of us if and when we cross the finishing line.
22 November (15.00 local time)
Last night we met our first squalls (clouds containing a lot of wind and rain) and we sailed safely through them. Our night watch scheme is from 19.00 until 07.00, with four of us responsible for three hours each. The fifth guy is free to sleep through the night if nothing special happens. Checked our position this morning and found out that we are approx. 120 NM behind Triumph, and we who believed we were in the lead (!). But on the other hand, I´m sure that Triumph doesn’t have a bread-toaster and ice-maker onboard. Our average speed the last 24 hours was 6,2 knots and our sailing distance 148 NM. The weather today has been fantastic, and the dress code onboard has been shorts and nothing else. Our lunch today was bacon, eggs and fried potatoes and a surprise dinner is waiting for us. We are gaining kilos ...
21 November (15.00 local time)
Guess if we feel good? The spirit onboard Aniara is on top and we have had some nice hours of excellent sailing already. During last night the wind decreased quite a bit, so our average speed isn´t too impressing. The first 24 hours we sailed 138 NM which means an average of 5,75 knots. With such a speed we will be in St. Lucia on December 11, so let´s hope there will be some better winds coming. Today we had a chicken salad for lunch and will soon start preparing our dinner of Chicken Masala. Since we have a lot of fresh meat and chicken in our fridge have we not been too eager with our fishing, but soon will we start to do some serious fishing. There are still plenty of ARC-boats in our neighborhood (approx. 10 of them within 15 NM) but we believe we soon are will be quite alone. We managed our night watches without any problems. It´s really a great difference to be five onboard instead of two as we were on the way to Las Palmas. We feel happy with our start even if we can´t see our present position as good as you can, looking at the ARC-site. Even if we can´t read your comments during our crossing, we should appreciate that you use our chat on our website. We will read and respond to you as soon as we have reached St. Lucia. By for now!
20 November (19.00 local time)
We are on our way towards the sun. The start of the ARC-race was magnificent. To be one of almost three hundreds of beautiful sailing boats together in a small area, with the sun shining and plenty of spectators around, that was magic.
We have had great winds and was at one time up at 10,4 knots. We have also enjoyed our first lunch (delicious sandwiches) and dinner (pasta bolognaise) onboard.
There are no reason you should feel sorry for us.
20 November
Less than three hours to start and all preparations are done (we hope..). Fruit and vegetables are stored, our spirit is up in the air and we are eager to get away towards warmer weather and water. Soon all 250 boats will be out in starting position, the Spanish Navy will be here and maybe sink us if we pass the starting line to early. Take a look at ARC´s web-site, where you for sure will be able to see videos from the start. It should be something fantastic we are told. There will be three starting groups, and we start at 13.00, in the cruising division. We have made a bet onboard how long it will take before we are in the lead.
We think of all our relatives and friends back home.
The most wellprepared and dresscoded (?) team in the rally.
19 November
Less than one day to go before start and we still have some items to fix. Today we have received our fresh meat and chicken, 18 kg all frozen and vacuum packed since we have no freezer onboard. Still waiting for approx. 100 kgs. Of vegetables and fruit, which all will be carefully cleaned, dried, wrapped and stored. All crew members have been working hard today, cleaning, storing and fixing minor things in and around the boat. We will bring 450 liter of bottled water plus the 750 Aniara has in her tanks. Today Pia left us so now we are only the 5 crew members onboard. We all have our own cabin and we share the three toilets onboard, so there will be quite a luxury crossing (we think). Today Tommy & Pelle attended the final Skippers briefing and it seems we will have nice weather for at least next week. We might meet a tropical storm when we are closer to St. Lucia, but we should do everything we can to avoid it. The spirit of all of us are on top and we really are looking forward for the start in approx. 15 hours. As mentioned yesterday we will be in touch during the crossing. Cross all fingers you have for us during the next three weeks.
18 November
Erik testing the admin role... (and he did it great ...)
18 November
As you can see from the photo below, the present crew of four, are eager to get away and that the remaining guy will arrive. Found an internet-café in Las Palmas and will try to send some additional photos giving a glimpse of the atmosphere here. Look under the section Photos.
From sunday and until we find an internet-connection in Saint Lucia, only text messages will be sent to Sweden which will be converted and displayed on this web-page by Erik Petersson (Thanks beforehand).
You have another ineresting link to our ship Aniara giving you updated information where we are. If you first click on the following link www.worldcruising.com .
Next step is to click on the ARC-event (you find it on the right side) and click the square ¨fleet viewer¨ you will be able to find our position. Aniara has starting number 119. I haven´t have time to play myself with this side, but I am sure you can see a lot of interesting things in it.
As you know we have a satelite telephone onboard and if there is any important emergency information you want to pass on to us, use the following number +881632558218. We will have the phone switched on during daytime.
If we have time we will be back with a short status report tomorrow or early sunday. Keep an eye on the worldcrusing-website wher you will be able to get a feeling how the start and the race will develop.
Bye until later from the crew of Aniara.
Four fully loaded guys.
17 November
Sitting in Sailors Bar and waiting for something to eat. Both Jocke and Magnus have arrived and we are eagerly waiting for our last crew member, Bosse. Pia is still here taking care of us while we are working on the boat and are out buying white baked beens. Still problem to get a good internet conection from the marina area but I hope to get a better line before the start on sunday. We are prepared to send you text messages on this web-page during the crossing since Erik has promised to be a stand-in administrator during this period. Photos from the crossing will be published when we have reached the other side.
15 November
It´s now three days since you heard from us and that is mainly due to a very slow internet connection in the marina Wi-Fi-net. It is understandable with all these boats mailing and skyping all over the world. We have all been very busy with continous job on Aniara, participating in various seminars arranged by the ARC-organisation and have done the boring part of the provisioning, buying all the water, beer and wines. A new autopilot has been installed today by Stefan, we are in the middle of setting up a new internet communication system while we are at the Atlantic. Within the next few days you will get information how we will communicate with you during the race. Today we also received the tracking system which will allow you to follow our progress in the race. More info about how this will function you will find under this section in a few days. Tomorrow two new crew members will arrive, Jocke and Magnus and after that we are only waiting for Bosse who will be here on friday. You can bet that we have been waiting for them sinse they all are bringing tons of Ahlgrens Skumbilar. Fit´s now only five days until we will be out there in the Big Blue Water.
12 November
Now we have been busy for a number of days to get Aniara in good shape. Two experts from Sweden have arrived helping us out, Eva and Stefan. Among others the steering has been serviced since it was in bad shape before. Furthermore our new solar cells are hooked onto the system so we will hopefully generate quite a lot of own power on our trip over, in order to have ice for our drinks when we arrive. Tomorrow there will be a flag parade and Pelle will carry the Swedish flag. We will be in touch giving you the latest information during next week. It´s only one week until we are on our way.
Here you can see a good teamwork between Eva and Stefan fixing our steering.
9 November
It is a tough job to get a video into the internet cloud with a bad connection, but I believe I finally made it. Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dm5YH1a4GQ and you will see how it looks around us in the marina in Las Palmas. Today Tommy left for a couple of days work in Sweden, but we have two new guests replacing him, Stefan and Eva. There has been continuous work to equip Aniara today, and this will accelerate tomorrow when Stefan will unpack all his tools and gadgets.
It is strange to see Tommy dressed up in something else than his shorts.
08 November
Two days spent in the beautiful marina of Las Palmas. We have been working with the boat to get it remarks in shape for the crossing. Today we had a safety inspection onboard with only a few remarks which must be corrected before the start. Our life raft has to be inspected and repacked (something we were aware about), and we hope to get an authorized guy here tomorrow. We have left our air diving bottles in to be pressure tested and will have them back in time for all nice
underwater adventures in the Caribbean. ARC arranged one party yesterday and TWO today, so there is no need for us to buy our own food for dinners. It´s just a great happening here and the marina is full with nice and interesting peoples.
Later on tonight I should try to upload a video showing how it looks in the marina where we stay. It might be problematic since the internet connection not is world class. Take anyhow a look in the video section.
We have tasted many local specialties during daily mingle parties.
06 November
After 7 weeks of sailing we have finally reached our STARTING POSITION (!). We are now in Las Palmas after a trip of approx. 60 NM from Fuertoventura today. By checking our log we can see that the total distance from Sardinia is 1780 NM,
which equals to 3300 km. Quite a trip! Our next one, to the Caribbean will be a little bit longer, 2700 NM, but we expect to manage this in 17 – 20 days. The next 14 days, before start, will we spend to make Aniara and ourselves ready for the trip, but also for just having a great time here on Las Palmas. You will be informed about how we spend our days if you keep your eyes and our website opened.
04 November
Today we have experienced an absolute fantastic sailing day. Started from Arrecife, Lanzarote at 10 in the morning and arrived in Puerto del Rosario, Fuertoventura at 14.30. Sailing distance 35 NM gives an average of almost 8 knots. Max speed
was 9,3 knots, and this with only a reefed genua. All seamen knows the feeling ! Tomorrow John will leave us and start to collect pension points for us in the slightly older generation.
John finally at sleep after continuous falling out of his bed during nighttime.
Many have requested a picture of a Spanish mackerel.
03 November
Arrived in Arrecife in Lanzarote at 13.00. Sailing distance from Agadir approx. 250 NM. We have been underway in 43 hours. Wind directly in the nose way so we had to use the motor approx. half the distance. We had some wonderful headwind parts where we logged 8,5 knots. It´s a big difference to share the duties onboard on three instead of two persons, so Tommy & Pelle has felt like being on vacation. We have seen jumping killer whales (Tommy saw the jump, Pelle the splash), turtles and dolphins on our way over, we caught a giant mackerel (3 kg) and another nice tuna (2 kg) and we even had a swim. Water temperature 20,5 degrees, much colder than in the Mediterranean but it was quite OK. For sure warmer than in Sweden. Our plan for tomorrow is to continue to Fuertoventura.
01 November
Arrived in Agadir at 05.00 in the morning. We left Rabat around 16.00 on October 29, which means that we have been underway in almost 60 hours. Estimated distance 325 NM gives an average of 5,5 knots. Good sailing most of the times and we used our Penta only 5 hours. Now we will sleep a couple of hours and get John onboard.
28 October
I recomend you to go to section Videos. Ther you find a link to a short video shoving the Rabat Marina and give you an idea how we have lived the last 10 days. To make it easier for you you have the link here as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCmNFMvS6yU
27 October
Stuck, stuck, stuck .. There will be a minor ARC-start here on Saturday, since we are 20 – 25 boats all eager to get out. Most of them are heading directly for the Canary Islands but a few, us among them, aim to go furher south here in Morocco. Tired of all price negotiations in the Souks we have started with some alternative hobbies. Below you can find Tommy who experiences a good taste of smoked apple (?) before the sniffing dog gets onboard again.
Tommy practicing an old, very common Moroccan tradition.
26 October
Still stuck in Rabat. The latest information we received is that there is a small possibility to get out on Saturday evening. We must get a good combination of height of waves and tides. To get out of here we need high water and a wave height of max 1,5 meter. Between now and Saturday we face 3 – 4 m high waves. Yesterday we went to Fez by train, so we can soon graduate on Morocco’s geography.
24 October
We are stuck in Rabat due to bad weather, strong winds and high waves. It is unclear when we can get out of here, but most probably we have to wait until Thursday, Friday this week. We have heard a story of a guy who was trapped here for three months, let´s hope we don´t face the same destiny. We have been two days in Casablanca, quite an interesting city, a bit more European-like than Rabat. Yesterday we saw a terrible soccer match in the Morocco Premier League, and we understood which team was which after 40 minutes. It was probably more military and policemen there than ordinary spectators. Today the weather is super bad, so we have had some time to check out some of the stuff we have found in the souks
Two proud and handsome guys trying their new Moroccan sailing outfits.
22 October
We are now safe back in Rabat after two hectical, interesing days in Casablanca. We have seen a HUGE mosque, interesting architecture, and many, many street salesmen. And it was a strange feeling staying in a real bed during the night. Tomorrow we intend to go and watch a football match in Maroco Premier Leuge here in Rabat.
20 October (once more)
It´s fun shopping in Rabat. We have filled up the boat with plenty of good-to-have-things. As always in a new city we have seen all cultural places, as old Mosques, the Medina and the Kasbah. Tomorrow we will take a train and go to Casablanca and probably stay overnight. We will let you know.
Tommy trying a new robe, but lost this one after a too tough price negotiation. However he got another one, much nicer, in another shop.
20 October
On a general request, we herby show the sniffer dog, who liked the smell of our meat-pasta-sauce. The harbor we stay in seams to be fantastic, it´s tidy and safe and is surrounded by a lot of nice restaurants.
Today we will tour Rabat.
Our best dog-friend so far, together with a female police officer and a dog-guard.
19 October
We have now definitely left Europe behind us. We left Gibraltar yesterday at noon and arrived here at 15.00. 165 NM in 27 hours gives us an average of 6 knots. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar was a fascinating experience, but we had done perfect preparation to get the maximum speed over. The night sailing was slightly boring with a straight shore to follow but we are happy that the Gods of the Winds, Currents and Waves all were on our side during this leg.
We have now entered the Marina, after a very long procedure with the Police, Customs and Port authorities. We had a sniffing drug-dog visiting Aniara, but he seemed mainly interested in our leftover meat sauce. All people, however are extremely nice and polite, but have to follow the administrative rules valid here.
We will probably stay here for maybe a week, and make small excursions out from here. Have already decided to visit Casablanca and Marrakesh.
We will for sure have an interesting morning tomorrow, since the Marina is surrounded with minarets from where we can expect loudly prayers every 4 hours.
17 October
It´s a very lazy day. Started with a full English brunch with bacon, eggs, toast, marmelade and everything else needed. Aniara is fully equipped with kitchen utilities to serve the most demanding guest. Yesterday we toured to Tangier, by bus, ferry and hydrofoil. It´s a hectic atmosphere awaiting us when we are over on the African side, so it was good with a short training. Later on today we hopefully will get our genua and binimitop back and after that we only have to wait for
good winds. We decided yesterday, after having seen the port of Tangier to skip this and head directly for Rabat instead. This will be a trip of roughly 160 NM, which will take us 30 – 40 hours.
This picture, taken from the top of the Rock, shows the marina where we stay (in the middle).
15 October
Today we have been tourists the whole day. Tommy watched Wales to be beaten by France in Rugby, told so by Annabel. We have been up to the Rock, studying the apes. Yesterday we worked on Aniara the full day, and we were tired and satisfied when we went to bed. Tomorrow we plan to take a ferry from a Spanish town nearby and go to Tangier in Maroco.
One of the famous barbarian apes of Gibraltar. (Pelle is the one on the left).
13 October
We arrived in Gibraltar this morning at 09.00, after one night at sea. We went by motor the way from Benalmadena since the wind was completely absent. We also experienced a heavy fog so Aniara´s radar had a tough job. After some rest we started to explore Gibraltar, and gee, it really a tiny place. Totally 6 sq.km, so we have almost seen the whole place in only one afternoon. We are a bit worried what to do the next couple of days since we have planned to stay here until Tuesday. But be sure, we will let you know.
12 October
We are still in Benalmadena, but will leave in a few moments (around 20.00) and start our final trip in the Mediterrenean. Hopefully we will land in Gibraltar sometimes tomorrow. Yeasterday we went by scooters to Malaga, an absolutely fantastic city, and today we were up in the mountins visiting an old town calld Meija. Besides all these pleasure we have been busy doing some work on Aniara, so the list of things to be done in the Canary Island becomes shorter and shorter.
11 October
A beautiful morning in Benalmadena, a small touristic town just outside Torremolinos. As you understand we have made a heroic sailing, directly from Alicante to here. 260 NM in 48 hours. After arrival yesterday we had our traditional ice cream and went to bed early, at 21.30. This morning we were awaken by a giant bird flying around Aniara. That was a tame falcon out for training. We will take it easy for some days, maybe do some small work required at the boat. You can be sure that we don´t suffer. Ciao!
Our flying morning friend with his trainer.
9 October
During the last 24 hours we have had the best sailing so far during this trip. We have
sailed almost 150 NM and are just outside Almeria. Yesterday afternoon and
evening we logged around 9 knots for almost 8 hours so we had to slow down
during the night. We just decided to continue towards Malaga due to the present
good wind conditions ( 6 - 12 m/s, halfwind). Of course we had some Spanish mackerel for lunch. We caught four nice ones (about 1,5 kg each) this morning, two for the frying pan and two went overboard.
Tommy prepared for one of his night shifts.
8 October
We yesterday arrived in Alicante, a positive surprise for all of us. Our planned ongoing crew member, Annabel, missed her flight in England, and our three friends from Västra Hagen just left us. This means that Tommy and Pelle are the only guys
onboard. We will leave this afternoon, heading for Gibraltar, roughly 300 NM ahead. Check out where we stop on our way down there. On our way in to the port of Alicante we were involved in a fight between seven Volvo Ocean V70 racers.
They are extremely impressing and they sailed almost as fast as Aniara.
Two of the VOR-ships competing Aniara.
5 October
The final price (for the optimistic looser) in our fishing expectation competition was
won by Pelle. And the price was to change the mooring light bulb in the top of
the mast. According to Pelle, the view from up there, more than 25 meters above
sea level, was fantastic. We rest in a bay, Cala Sahona, just south of Puerto de Sabina in Formentera.
This evening we plan to start our trip towards the mainland of Spain, Benidorm or Alicante.
Behind the mast, in the top, you find a panic-stricken Pelle.
Formentera is known for its large number of nudist visitors. Today a selection of four new asses made a sensational appearance on the beaches of this nice island.
The Swedish quartet, SJÖRÖVARNA, on parade displaying some typical swedish asses.
3 October
After one night in Tagomago we yesterday arrived to San Antonio on the north side of Ibiza after a tasteful lunch, rest and swimming session in Puerto de San Miguel. Today we have explored the entire island of Ibiza on five scooters. If anyone have any question about the nature of Ibiza you will have five experts in the Aniara-crew. Right now, early evening, we are heading a bit westwards and will spend the night in another beautiful anchor place in the middle of the Mediterranean wilderness.
Here you have the entire Ibiza investigation team.
1 october
We have now reached a small island, Isla Tagomago,
just outside the eastern coastline of Ibiza, sailing distance from
Andratx approx. 45 NM. Late last night three new crew members finally got onboard,
and we all started early today, 08.00, and we are now, at 18.00,
in the middle of a nice dinner including another completely fresh fish. We
managed to catch a hard fighting Spanish Mackerel, and it tasted fantastic.
A proud Eva-Lotta showing the catch of today.
30 september
We are back in our safe bay, Cala de Santa Ponca, after a day in Andtratx yeasterday. Pelle filled his diving bottle with spanish air and tested the whole gears succesfully. Tommy bought his diving equipment some five years ago and today we finally assambled all components together. Another succesful test, Tommy survived after a short underwater adventure. Soon we leave for Andtratx to pick up Eva-Lotta, Calle & Janne. We will either start our trip to Ibiza tomorrow or make a trip on the north side of Mallorca.
We will let you know.
Tommy, after his test dive !
28 September
We have been playing engineers for two days now. A new wind generator is mounted and
almost connected. Our life raft is repositioned and we have started to think
about how to mount two solar cells onboard. Still we have had time for some
nice swimming tours around Aniara, the water temperature is 25 – 26 degrees, so
it´s not so hard to decide about these tours. We lay on anchor in a small bay
between Palma and Andratx and plan to leave for Andratx for some shopping
tomorrow.
September 26
We have now spent two days in Mallorca, spending the nights in a nice and very central harbour. Yesterday we took a sightseeing bus around the town and today we have done some serious shopping. A new dinghy and a lot of additional equipent for the boat has been bought. Now, at 17.00 we will leave the harbour and will try to find a nice anchorage place between here and Andratx. This means that we leave our internet connection for some time.
September 24
We have arrived in Palma after 20 hours sailing and motoring. We have had a mixed wether with everything from a fantastic sun to rain and strong winds. Estimate we cruised roughly 80 NM. The night sailing was great, steady and strong winds and star struck sky.
Yesterday we rented three scooters i Menorca and explored the entire island. This was, by far, one of the the most thrilling part during our trip. You should have seen us speeding up to 100km/h in the streets of Menorca.
After 10 meals of tuna fish, we are a bit tired of this diet, so tonight we will have some tappas in the old town of Palma.
September 22
We are on our way and have just reched Menorca. Monday morning, around midday, we tried to leave Olbia and managed roughly 10 NM until the storm was over us. We had to return, and spent the rest of the day cleaning the mess in the boat. We had Aldos goodtasting marmelade all over the main cabin.
Tuesday at 06 am we left Olbia and we reached Menorca 54 hours later. 300 NM means an average of 5,5 knots (half of the time we were using our Penta).
We managed to set a new Aniara record in fishing during the trip. A nice tuna fish, over 10 kgs came onboard, and we have and we will eat tuna for a long time ahead. Take a good look at the wonderful and tasteful animal below.
Tonight we plan to stay here in Mahon and leave for Mallorca tomorrow afternoon, which means a night sailing, with a wonderful clear sky and plenty of shining stars allover.
We will be in touch.
September 18
6 pm, Saturday evening, and WE ARE ONBOARD.
Our flights went smoothly and we arrived late yesterday. Gösta and me had a Wienerschnitzel
in Berlin. Tommy picked us up in Olbia and we had a great dinner. We stayed
overnight in Tommys apartment which had been visited by some buglers since Tommy
last visited. Nothing seemed to be stolen but a few hours time cleaning the apartment
was needed.
We have done some shopping today, filling the boat with diesel and water. Tonight we
will stay in a bay outside Olbia and will hopefully start our real sailing
tomorrow. There are some warnings for a strong wind, the Mistrale, but more
about this later on.
Here Gösta is loading the first goodies for the trip.
Another small accident that occurred today is that our dingy (small rubber boat) was
stolen tonight. We had anyway planned to buy a new one, but now we have to
hurry up with this. Let´s hope we have had enough negative surprises for some
time.
We will soon be in touch again.
Tommy, Pelle & Gösta
September 16
One day to go. Leave Onsala tomorrow and my entire home is a mess with things to bring and not to bring. I will travel with Gösta, but due to my own packing, he will be limited to bring a couple of briefs. So far I have packed over 70 kgs, mostly diving equipment and spares for eventual repair of the boat. I looked in a weather forecast site this morning, which looked fantastic. 30 degrees and a huge sun are waiting for us and from monday the wind will be nice. Tommy makes his last job assigment down in Geneva before flying down to Olbia.
September 7
10 days before starting our trip and I (Pelle) is trying to set up the first homepage of my lifetime. When Tommy and I left Aniara in Olbia, Sardinia, a couple of weeks ago we had plenty of tasks to do before we meet on September 17 for starting the trip of our lifetimes. The first leg goes from Sardinia to Mallorca, via Menorca. There will be three of us sailing this first leg, roughly 350 NM (nautical miles) (1 NM = 1852 meter). Besides our Captain Tommy, Gösta Blomqvist, an old friend of us will join. Last time we sailed this leg we saw a giant whale and caught a fantastic tuna fish (actually Janne Norlind was the fishing man). Let´s hop we are as lucky this year. Gösta will leave from Palma on September 25, and a new crew will arrive on September 30 (more about this later). Tommy and I hope to use the days between changing the crew members to some diving around Mallorca. We have both bring our own diving gears but need some practice before we will pick a lot of lobsters in the Caribbean.
