Category Archives: Rancho Relaxo

In the Solent Part 2

Thursday we finally can hoist the sails again and we’re enjoying a wonderful trip through the ‘birthplace of sailing’. Via radio we listen a dramatic Mayday situation involving chopper, we see the Alinghy (although we don’t recognize her) and plenty of other racing yachts. We also come quite close to one of the last hovercrafts and have plenty of opportunities to practice the rules of way. There are more sailboats here than in the Kieler and Flensburger Foerde together. Hehehe. In the evening we put into Yarmouth – the oldest township on the Isle of Wight. A really lovely spot with plenty of nice pubs. (One main focus point as you can see ;-)

The next day – because there’s no suitable wind to continue – we’re using the afternoon for a little trip with our dinghy. We go up the River Yar and see some nice houses and an old church. In the evening it’s ‘harbour-cinema’ again. Because of the tide going in and out there are always quite chaotic maneuvers to be seen (ours not excluded). Quite before leaving we were actually crashed into by a smaller boat. Luckily we choose a steel ship – no harm done.

Friday we’re leaving the Solent and pass by the famous Needles – where we cheer with a nice Guinness. ;-) We sail nicely along the increasingly interesting coastline and while passing Anvil Point – we actually get our private flight show by the famous Rad Arrows ! In darkness we enter Weymouth, where we spend the night in front of the flap bridge that will open saturday at eight in the morning. We have fish & chips for a midnight snack and fall into bed. Early in the morning (for us it’s actually 7 o’clock, as we’re on UTC) – we enter the marina and see Michael to the train station. It was a wonderful week together with him – we really hope we’ll see each other earlier than when we return to Berlin.

And now I sit here typing away in the pub. The text that I’ve written earlier while on the ship, I now translated and put the pictures in order. In the harbour the internet costs 3,50 Punds PER HOUR (!!!!!!!) and that’s quite a normal tariff here. It’s really a punch in the face – especially since the marinas here are also impressingly expensive. Well, we’re gonna focus more on the Guinness and less on the internet. :-)


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In the Solent Part 1

Together with Michael we leave Brighton and soon disappear in thick fog. Of course the wind also dissipates and so we steer towards Shoreham, because we don’t wanna motor through the fog. There we arrive quite in time to find our friends Silke and Dieter mooring their boat in front of the lock.

So we spend the evening chatting and using some remote WLAN to surf the net – thanks again to the LunaWLANnet antenna – it’s really amazing to have internet access in the middle of nowhere. And thanks to our on board WLAN, our friends get to use our connection while we spend the evening together. Late in the evening, the water is high enough an the lock opens and we can sail into the Lady Bee marina where we spend the night.

The next day we don’t have any wind, so we’re again using our engine to sail together with the SY Tamora towards the Solent. The best opportunity to put into harbour is in the entrance towards Chichester, where after motoring against a really strong current, we drop the anchor for the very first time since the beginning of our journey, two months ago. There’s a really nice and also interesting beach only two minutes away with the dinghy (rowing). The night is completely without wind and without the sound of nearby streets or cities.  Sweet dreams.

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Big price, small Internet

Gestern Nacht sind wir in Waymouth angekommen, nach einer wunderschoenen Woche, gemeinsam mit Michael und begleitet von der SY Tamora. Die Marinas hier sind sauteuer, haben aber meist kein Internet – und wenn, dann lassen die sich das auch nochmal heftig bezahlen. Grosses Update mit Bildern gibt’s also spaeter vom Pub aus. ;-)

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Towards the Solent !

Yeyeye. We said goodbye to Nina and hello to Michael. And now we’re preparing to leave Brighton to sail towards the Solent -”the birthplace of sailing”. The weather is fine and the beer in the fridge is cold. Off we go !!

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Yeeeah !! Brighton !

After two months of cruising through autumn and winter – we finally found the summer ! It has hidden out in the south of England, it seems. So we’ve arrived here in one of England’s biggest marinas yesterday at 3 o’clock in the morning. We were quite surprised to find the sun shining into our bedroom in the morning. What an unusual sight ! We haven’t felt her warm nice rays for soo long.

Well we came here for two reasons. First: Bruno and Viola want to visit Lola and Darcey and we want to see their mother Nina. Second: Tomorrow we’ll pick up Michael to come with us for one week along Englands south coast. So hopefully the weather will last for a few days…

Ah. And while cruising to Brighton we crossed the meridian of Greenwitch which means, we are now in The West. And also we made our first 1000 nautical miles. 1050 now since we left Berlin to be precise.

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Crossed the channel !

Yesterday the time has come and we finally crossed over The Channel towards England. So now we’re in Dover and already planning to leave as we we’d like to spend the next days in Brighton.

The crossing was quite uneventful and the traffic not that much I think it was more near Cuxhaven, at the exit of the NOK. In Dover we parked the Rancho Relaxo in the Granville Docks and soon after found ourselves in a really nice Pub drinking a pint of Guinnes, eating chips and burgers and enjoying ourselves.

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Summer – where are you ?!?

Yesterday we arrived in Dunkirque (France). I’ll spare you the pictures since this city is quite awful.

As is the weather. It’s windy and rainy, no sun and about 15 degrees. Another perfect summerday. If it wasn’t for our friend Michael who will visit us in England, I would start planning going directly to Spain. I CAN’T STAND THIS WEATHER ANYMORE !!!!!!!!!

Well in two hour’s the tide will be with us and we’ll be leaving the continent for Dover. Yay ! Guinness !!!

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Dunkerque tomorrow… today we’re in Oostende

The plan was to go a little further but as so often, the weather report was not precise and the wind was SW instead of NW so we just went out to sea and immediately put into the next harbour to the west which was Oostende.

Tomorrow there’s gonna be little to no wind and maybe from a different direction. We’ll see… We might give it another try.

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From Netherlands to Belgium

Yesterday we had our most beautiful and by far the fastest trip so far. Going from Scheveningen in the Netherlands to Blankenberge in Belgium, we had a good force 4 to 6 from northwest and could run a beam reach course (does one wright it that way ?) towards our destination. The trip was a total of 70 miles and crossed some of the major shipping lanes towards Hoek van Holland, Rotterdam and Vlissingen. This and the waves that at some stages got quite biog made it interesting, and althought it’s still quite cold here, the sun was actually showing she’s still there somewhere… I was writing we were going fast and yes, we were – at least for our own mesasurements. Which means the current and the wind were pusing our twelve ton Rancho Relaxo with a good 8 knots forward. That’s feeling like flying. Hehehe. Everyone with a modern, light yacht is probably laughing his ass of right now.

When leaving Scheveningen, the customs and immigration came for a visit, both in cool frog-men like outfits and very friendly looked our papers and around the ship and soon after were off with their powerboat and roughly five times our speed. Hehehe.

The approach towards Zeebruegge and Blankenberge (which are quite close to each other) was a little frightening as both cities look AWFULLY when viewed from sea (pic below). But the 80ies style concrete nightmare that’s to be seen from sea is actually hiding some nice housings behind and the marina is crowded but quite nice. We’ve got free rental bikes and one can shower as long as one likes. – Ah, and Bruno wrote a menue plan for us. :-)

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I want more !

Yeah baby… rock ‘n roll ! After having encountered our first storm at sea i will write my first posting to say that with the bravest captain in the world and such a  great ship … there’s nothing to fear.

And I have to confirm what I so often read in other sailors tales, that even though when in the middle of it I was wishing for a Deus Ex Machina to come and get me out of there (NOW!) … after all it was a cool ride. I want more.

The best of it: at the end getting to port and, completely soak and ice cold, use your last strength to mooring the boat, get out of that sticky foul weather gear and finding a last pair of clean dry socks. Ahhhh. Enjoy a beer in the cockpit, look at each other with proud and relief and just go-have-a-good-sleep.

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Arrived in Belgium

It’s late and we’ve had our fastest and by far the most beautiful sailing day going more than 8 knots for hours. Just wanted to let you know, we’re now in Blankenberge, Belgium.

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Video Cuxhaven -> Borkum

Today in the morning we arrived in Den Helder (Netherlands) and right now I’m enjoying the fast internet connection of a hotel in the neighbourhood and am uploading a short video of our Trip from Cuxhaven to Borkum.

The trip from Borkum to Den Helder was quite uneventful. There was little to no wind and we had to use the engine a lot. But the night was beautiful – we saw our first dolphins (?) and during the night the waves surrounding the Rancho Relaxo were full of floursescent light. Fantastic !

Just a few moments ago our friends Silke and Dieter stopped next to the Rancho Relaxo and invited us to a BBQ at 19h. Yay !! So we’ll spend the evening discussing the events of the last weeks and planning our trip towards England. There should be favourable winds in the next 2-3 days so actually we probably will not really stop for Amsterdam but head South to Belgium. Well, we’ll see. The weather seems to be full of surprises.

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Solution to our Picture riddle

…a dredger of course !

And now we must leave the harbour – they wanna work at our pier. We’ll make a second try towards west….

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Beginners mistakes

I think it was in the blog of the Spica that that I wrote something like our own story: After waiting a week for the right weather, they put to sea and tried to go westward. The habourmaster didn’t say good trip but ‘see you later’. And they were back, like six hours later… ;-)

Well we tried our luck yesterday and made 25sm to the west but after really heavy thunderstorms and a really rough sea we went back to Borkum. “But didn’t you say you wanted to go through the channels, inland ?” Yes, we did. But we decided otherwise, because: Motoring through the channels is reeeeealy boring. And the way through the channels takes a lot of time. So we’ll wait another day or two and try our luck again in the North sea.

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An interesting Trip to Borkum

In the end, the four days of waiting in Cuxhaven we could have gone to Holland. We *were* waiting for better weather but in the end got it quite bad…

So we started yesterday at 03:40 in the morning with the outgoing tide and had a pleasent sail with about 3 Bft. and were gliding out into the North sea. The sailing was perfect, the weather quite nice and the wind increased to a perfect 4-5  Bft. from the right direction. The kids are happy, the sindvane does it’s job.

But there’s something wrong. We’re in the North sea after all… What is it ? Ah, there….

The air pressure is going waaaaay down. From 1013Hpa to 996Hpa (!!!) But the next harbour for us is Borkum and we’re actually really good underway. So we slide past the Islands Norderney and Juist, the wind is increasing to force 6 and we’re sailing with the second reef. Finally we’re closing in on Borkum and it’s starting to rain. Wind still increasing, now force 7. What’s that ? Didn’t the weather guis talk about easy 5 Bft ?!?

We’re now sailing in the third reef up until the last 8 miles. From here we use the main sail and engine. The Rancho Relaxo is bouncing up and down the waves while the Kids are downstairs and reading (Bruno) or painging (Viola). Gui and me are trying to find our way through the dark. The spray fills the air and the water is now more white than black. I have no idea how strong the wind is but it’s rock’n'roll. And the waves are huge  – despite the land being quite near. At midnight we enter the safe harbour Borkum and fall into the beds.

But now I have to finish my breakfast. We want to go up the river Ems with the ingoing tide. To go through the inland channels towards Amsterdam.

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Summer in the Northsea

We already knew that the Northsea is not like the Mediterranean. But hey – WHERE’S THE SUMMER ?!?!?

If we would be here on our one-week charter trip I would be quite disapointed. But luckily we have a little more time and also the hope that somewhere more southerly we’ll find the sun. Up until now this feels rather like autumn…

But there’s of course something good about our situatuon: First: we’ve washed all our clothes and second: our brand new wind generator ROCKS !!! Yes – we’re not using shore power but rather the strong wind to power our laptops, WLAN, fridge, etc. Our batteries are always full and no neighbour has complained about noise (yet). But the Silentwind is really – well – silent and can be heard only up to about 4Bft. Above that the wind singing in the rigging of the sailboats is louder than our generator.

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Plenty of new pictures

As we’re stuck in Cuxhaven for the monent, we use the time and the expensive WLAN connection to upload all those pics from the Baltic sea. Everything from the trip through Berlin towards our farewell party to Ruegen, Flensburg and the channel is to be found in the pictures section (in the top menue). Have fun !!

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The last ones at the pier

It’s funny that every morning when we finally wake up and go out of the cabin – all the others are gone. ;-) What are all those other sailors doing that early in the morning ?

Well we’re pretty much finished with breakfast and ready to go through the lock ‘Brunsbuettel’ and into the North sea. Today we’ll only go to Cuxhafen as the weather will really go bad during the next 48 hours and we don not want to be part of it. So we’ll use those two days in Cuxhafen and wash a mountain of dirty clothes and then we’ll see how we get to the Netherlands….

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Leaving the Baltic sea

After one month of repairs (ship and human-wise) and a little sailing we’re now leaving the Baltic sea behind us and enter the harsh North sea (tomorrow). We still hope for suitable winds to go quickly towards Amsterdam but right now it looks as if we would have wind in the right direction but waaaay too much of it. Meaning it will start easy during Thursday but will increase towards +7Bft during Wednesday night. And 7Bft are (maybe) ok in the Baltic sea but definately not in the North sea. So we’ll watch the weather report carefully and will make a decision on Tuesday morning.

But enough talk about the weather and the future. Today we had to say goodbye to our good friend Wolfgang who had to leave for Berlin. :-( But he made this wonderful picture of us:

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Laboe

Finally underway again. Ahhh ! What a great feeling.

So yesterday we started in Flensburg with enough wind to just use the main sail. But it died down quickly and we had to use the engine – while I was on the foredeck preparing our new sail, etc. But we couldn’t use it because despite a really harsh thunderstorm in the evening, we had little to no wind at all and had to sail pretty much the whole trip using the engine…

We arrived late at around 23h in Laboe where Nikola and Markus where already waiting for us. They’re planning to go on a two year trip with their beautiful ship ‘Supermolly’ sometime next year. And as they have two kids who happen to be the same age as ours, there’s a lot to talk about. AND of course we had to celebrate Gui’s birthday – that was yesterday as well.

So in an hour we’ll leave Laboe again to go through the NOK and into the North sea. We should arrive until Thursday midday as this is the time when the wind will change to NE – and that’s a pretty rare event. We’ll see if the low pressure system really will do what we expect it to do…

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