Category Archives: Pics

Work day: lath floors for our berths

Posted on Tuesday June 21st, 2011 by dafdaf

We need more space in our little home. And the easiest way to accomplish this is to tidy up and/or fix things that we carry with us but did not yet have the time to incorporate. So today Gui spent a couple of hours sorting through our extensive collection of medicine and put everything in order and stored it somewhere in our tiny bathroom. Before that we had all the doctor’s stuff in a big bag standing on the floor beside the toilet. ;-)

And me – I was cutting the wood for our lath floors that will bring more comfort to our nights at sea and (more important) air to our mattresses. It’s a little detail but quite important. And it emptied up about half a square meter of room in our quarter berth ! Mission accomplished.

Posted in Pics, Rancho Relaxo, Work | 1 Comment

Bruno’s 5th birthday

Posted on Tuesday June 21st, 2011 by dafdaf

It’s the Fete de la Musique, it’s Summer, it’s the longest day of the year and it’s BRUNO’S BIRTHDAY !

Our little Party actually took place last weekend as his best friend Victor was here in Glowe and we had fun on the beach, a birthday cake and a little present. Yes just one – and a small one but Bruno nearly freaked out when he unwrapped his Victorinox pocket knife. And I was actually surprised that there is a child proof (if you can say that about a knife) version of the famous red knife. It has a rounded blade, a saw, file, toothpick, screwdriver and tweezers. He loves it (of course !)

And a biiiiiiig thank you to Oscar, Patricia, Victor and Anton for coming another time to Ruegen ! It was great having you here !

Posted in Kids, LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 2 Comments

On request: two pics in full resolution

Posted on Sunday June 19th, 2011 by dafdaf

On request, here again the two pics showing the beach of Glowe with a view of the ‘Tromper Wiek’  and the Marina Glowe. In full resolution:

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Tonsils, horses and wind

Posted on Friday June 17th, 2011 by dafdaf

Thanks to the nice drawings from Bruno and Viola and to you who wrote so many nice Emails to Gui, she’s feeling really better and will be ‘home’ tomorrow in the morning ! Yippiiee !!
One important fact: Gui’s telephone is dead ! If you want to phone us, please use my number. You can see it in the ‘Contact’ details – but only if you’re registered of course.
Well – and here they are: Gui’s Tonsils, her menueplan and Brunos drawing (showing our ship, ambulance and hospital well – and the TV-tower of Berlin ;-).

After our daily visit to the hospital, we went for a stroll with Viola’s beloved Ponies and watched the wind gusts drive the sand of the beach through the air.

In the last pic you can see our current home: the harbour of Glowe. It’s nice here ! – Really. The beach is beautiful and at least 10km long ! Although it’s a bit windy these days.

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Cleaning day

Posted on Thursday June 16th, 2011 by dafdaf

As the weather is not actually very summer like, today we mostly stayed inside and while Bruno and Viola used the time to establish a car dealership…

…I was cooking my morning coffee and looked at all the nice patina in and around our trendy Taylor Para-Fin cooker. Everyone knows, that I’m not really the cleaning person but that was actually too much dirt – even for me. So I started to clean the oven and 1/2 bottle of super-power cleaning gel and two hours later, the stove was clean:

And of course now I was completely dirty from all soot and stale grease and whatelse  – so the next step was quite clear: I continued by cleaning the bilge, and afterwards myself. Yay !

So why would you want to read such a boring post about someone cleaning his stove and boat ? Because I am bored !! Really – after one week of hanging around in Glowe without Gui it’s really getting time to move on. The problem is that even next week there still is a risk of haemorrhage which means Gui will not be fit for sea travel. *rrr* Well – we’ll see…

Two more pics that the kids made: Viola’s can and our ‘board gecko’. ;-)

Posted in Kids, LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 3 Comments

A short break

Posted on Tuesday June 14th, 2011 by dafdaf

After a few days in the hospital, Gui had holiday for the weekend and we had visitors from Berlin. Bruno’s best friend Victor came together with his father Oscar. And despite Gui being still quite sick and me also not feeling too well, we had a really nice time on the beach, riding horses and doing ‘kids stuff’.

Right now Gui’s back in the hospital has probably already lost her tonsils. I’ll wait a little longer before I try to call her. Thanks for all of you that keep asking for Gui and are sending us wishes for betterment. I’ll post as soon as I have word from the hospital. Right now there isn’t much I can do but tomorrow morning we’ll be on the way to Bergen to hopefully bring back good news.

Hmm. The fisheye lens of the GoPro cam really creates funny shots. I like that.

Posted in Kids, LosLocos, Pics | 3 Comments

Little desasters

Posted on Sunday June 12th, 2011 by dafdaf

It’s not all holiday what we’re doing here…. I already mentioned that Gui was in great pain during our last trip from Poland to Ruegen. On that evening the ship’s doctor prescribed Antibiotics because of a strong indication of Amygdalitis. But as next morning there was no improvement and Gui couldn’t swallow or talk anymore we saw the next ENT doctor and he immediately sent us to the next hospital: Gui has an abscessin her throat that has to be removed surgically and immediately. So she had to stay two days in hospital and I was stranded with the kids in this shitty harbour of Sassnitz.

That’s also the reason why I couldn’t do any updates these last days. – There was too much going on here… And it’s still not yet decided whether Gui has to loose the tonsils, so she might be back in hospital the next week. *rrr*

Posted in LosLocos, Pics | 7 Comments

Pics from the trip Swinemuende – Ruegen

Posted on Sunday June 12th, 2011 by dafdaf

Our first dive into the Baltic seas was a slightly harsh one. The sailing was actually nice and fast since we had a constant 5-7 Beaufort but underway Gui’s throat became very painful – more on that in my next post.

So the trip started with wonderful weather – blue skies and barefoot in the cockpit. Until first the warm front hit and shortly before arriving in Sassnitz, the cold front pured down on us. With all the lightning and the only sailing ship around – spooky… But we arrived savely and I could use all that nice rainwater to finally wash our deck. Hehehe.

As for Sassnitz itself: What a horror ! This port is still one of the worst in the whole Baltic sea, I guess. There’s no internet. The showers and toilets are half an hour to walk. And it’s by far the most expensive port we’ve been to ! Sassnitz sucks !!

Posted in LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo, Sailing | 1 Comment

Arrived at the Baltic sea

Posted on Monday June 6th, 2011 by dafdaf

Our first day alone. We miss our friends and our families – but we knew that day would come… We also knew other things that are not so nice and many people would probably go crazy. For example: Our bedroom has 4 square meters, our bathroom has ONE – and it doesn’t even have a shower !! We also have no dishwasher, no washingmachine and our house is constantly shaking. But hey  – we’ve got tiiiiiiime !! Lots of time ! :-)

Today we had  a beautiful sailing day towards Swinemuende at the border of Poland and Germany and also our gate to the Baltic sea. The day was hot and right now we’ve got a little thunderstorm going on outside. But I’m sitting here, using internet (thanks to that great LunaWLAN antenna !!) and I’m already thinking of the todos for tomorrow. Most important: we’ve got to get some diesel. I think there are 10-15l left and that’s no good. But hey. That’s for tomorrow.

Here are some pics from today. Hopefully the easterly wind will come as promised – that way tomorrow I’ll send pics from the coast of Ruegen in Germany.

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First test sail

Posted on Sunday June 5th, 2011 by dafdaf

I didn’t mention that this weekend we had visitors: Our good friends Markus and Hille arrived with their kids Sol and Ida. And since they arrived yesterday and couldn’t do otherwise but support us with our work – today we HAD to go for a little trip.

After putting the sails in the morning, we started towards the Stettiner Haff in a light breeze that allowed for a very RELAXing crusing speed of 2-3 knots. That’s not much to go forward but quite enough to throw ropes into the water and have a lot of fun swimming around the ship and doing stupid stuff.

And that’s what we did: going there and back again jumping into the water every couple of minutes to bear up against that crazy heat we had the last days. But now I have to quit writing – the mosquitos are eating me alive !! We have to get into saltwater tomorrow !

Posted in LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo, Sailing | 2 Comments

Putting the mast

Posted on Saturday June 4th, 2011 by dafdaf

Wooohoooooo !!!!!!!!

After half a year of driving around and owning a motor vessel we finally did the upgrade to a sailing ship again ! :-)

We had lots of work because before puting the mast, we first had to install new cables for a LED toploght and the LunaWLAN antenna. We also put a new remote compass to the mast and finally around 8pm we were ready to put it. Here some pics:

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Arrived in Stettin

Posted on Friday June 3rd, 2011 by dafdaf

Our second day on the ship and still everything at it’s best. We’ve got the best weather we could hope for and a really nice trip towards Stettin. About 20km before arriving we were running out of fuel and had to park the Rancho Relaxo ‘on the side strip’ where we refilled from a jerrycan. Five minutes later we were running again. Phew !

Tomorrow will be the day when we transform the Rancho Relaxo from motorvessel to sailing ship. But before we can put the mast, we have to pull new cables and mount the LunaWLAN antenna on the top. I’ll post pictures from our hopefully successful work.

Ah – and did I mention ? No, I forgot: Viola brought a little present from her last days at the kindergarden: She’s got chickenpox ! Hmmm. We should probably put the Q-flag once we’re sailing. ;-)

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Our first day underway

Posted on Thursday June 2nd, 2011 by dafdaf

After so much time preparing and planning – today we finally cut the lines and left Berlin !!
After so much chaos in the last days we really had the most wonderful start into our adventure. With us is our friend Wolfgang who helped us soooo much in the last weeks that without him, we probably would still be in Berlin for another few weeks.
So we left the Marina Lanke at 06:35h in the morning and had breakfast somewhere between Spandau Lock and Lehnitz Lock.

The day was wonderful with the most beautiful weather and a fast travel without much waiting at the locks. Another sight was of course the ‘Schiffshebewerk Niederfinow’ which lifts ships travelling from Berlin to the Baltic sea about 36 meters !

We arrived in Marina Oderberg at 19:50h and finished our first day with argentinian steak and a Septima Malbec 2009. Perfect !!

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Shortly before leaving

Posted on Wednesday June 1st, 2011 by dafdaf

If everything works out ok, tomorrow early in the morning we’ll be underway towards the Baltic sea.

You probably thought so, but the last days we were quite busy. I had to fix a couple of last minute problems with the ship and Gui is still in the city working on her next Coquito collection. But tomorrow morning we’ll leave. Keep an eye on the little map to the right as I *just* fixed the position reporting system !

As I still don’t have any pictures from our party, I’ll post some work-pics: Viola and Bruno while filling our cereals into water bottles. That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’ll start when the sun rises. ;-)

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Moving in

Posted on Thursday May 26th, 2011 by dafdaf

And not that I’m connected to the Internet – I’ll use some more minutes to post pics from yesterday when I was moving aboard. Today the look is already completely different as I’ve managed to store pretty much everything.

And here two last pics from my battery-tank. Yesterday, Andreas arrived and put the cables in place. Now we’re connected with 400Ah of AGM batteries. Yay !!

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Last visit to Austria

Posted on Thursday May 26th, 2011 by dafdaf

I just wanted to post a couple of pics from our last visit to BEAUTIFUL Austria (two weeks ago). The pics show us hiking unfar my partent’s home in Timelkam.

Posted in Kids, LosLocos, Pics, Travel | 1 Comment

New batteries and water faucets

Posted on Wednesday May 18th, 2011 by dafdaf

Today we put the new waterhoses for drinking water, fresh water and salt water underneath the saloon floor. We also installed new water faucets in the galley and connected the new head to the saltwater inlet. There are a few pieces missing but the water installation is 90% complete (not counting the watermaker, that’s another project saved for later).

The first picture shows the top of the batteries with the 300A fuse right on top of it. That’s to get sure nothing bad happens, should the wires somehow break and shortcut. – In the end, all the batteries are in one big metal box. As you can see in the last two pics. – Actually you can’t because all the lead is inside the tank and covered with my wooden ‘boxes’ that hold the batteries in place. Now the only todo left is to connect everything together…

Tomorrow I’ll be in the office to get my tax files in order and sort out other boring paper stuff….

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Getting rid of the water tank

Posted on Wednesday May 18th, 2011 by dafdaf

As I said, yesterday Wolfgang and me were removing the water tank. To cut it short: We succeeded !! Here is the water tank that was hidden under the saloon bench. We cut it open to see where it is bolted to the ship. The pictures were taken after about 2-3 hours of work:

We also had to cut the inlets and remove the rest of the saloon bench to get access to all sections where the tank was fixed to the hull. After about 7 hours of work the tank was removed. Yay !!

…and one hour later, the saloon looked like this:

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Hoses poposes

Posted on Monday May 16th, 2011 by dafdaf

This week I have help from Wolfgang and the two of us have managed to strip all water hoses from the Rancho Relaxo:

And in the morning while I was with the tax accountant, Wolfgang managed to remove the old potty and replace it with the new Jabsco. He also removed the faucet in the bathroom and put the new Whale pump-faucet in the galley. This one will pump the drinking water from the little holding tank. The big old galley-faucet was also removed but as I forgot to order the replacement, I’ll have to go shopping tomorrow. – But we’ll need 30m of new water hoses anyway. In the meantime we’ve managed to once again make a big mess on board – but there’s no other way. Tomorrow when we’ll try to remove the smaller of the two water tanks the chaos will be even bigger ! (Yeah, and I’ll post pictures – be sure of that. ;-)

Posted in Pics, Projects, Rancho Relaxo, Work | 2 Comments

First results

Posted on Saturday May 14th, 2011 by dafdaf

The second week is gone…. A short week thanks to the visit in Austria and that stupid crash. But still I managed to finish a few things. The old chart plotter was ‘exchanged’ for a Raymarin via Ebay and last week I already did all the cabeling (what a mess !). Now it’s mounted and running. Looks actually quite good there – under the sprayhood. Now the only thing missing is the connection to the radar. But that is still waiting for the cable. Also missing is the Tridata which will be a  VDO (veeeery nice !). The sensors are already in place and so are all the cables. When everything is working, it will be interconnected via the AMAZING NMEA/Seatalk/RS232 converter which will deliver all data also to my board PC. – I’ll post pics as soon as that’s finished.

What else… Well the cabeling in the engine room is pretty much finished. The only things missing are the alternator and the charger for the wind generator which both will happen next week. In the meantime I activated the battery and tank display. The big red key is for the 2kW inverter – so it doesn’t empty our batteries when it’s idling…

Speaking of batteries: The old Diesel-tank is now storing energy in the form of batteries. Hehehe. Yeah. THAT’s a statement ! Four pieces of 100Ah AGM-batteries will end up in the tank. Which is perfect for the weight (deep down) and the tank ensures that the batteries are in a watertight box. – How convenient !

Also new: the two 100W – solar panels are active. I’m very happy with the way they are mounted but I’m nervous about the first locks. Hopefully I will not ruin them… Ah, and as you can see, Gui put the ship’s name on the sides. I think it looks quite good !

Also I brought a car load of new stuff to the ship. Next week the main focus will be on the water installation. I’ll replace all faucets and the electric pump will be replaced by a foot pump. The smaller of the two water tanks has to make room for the watermaker. But I don’t think, I’ll install it next week. This is probably something for underway.

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