Category Archives: Rancho Relaxo

Dancing with Mosquitos

The mosquitos are buzzing behind the nets, the sweat is running down my forhead and onto the already wet cushion. The linen sticks to my back and I ask myself: Why, oh why didn’t we sail to Norway ?!?

I get up in the middle of the night and go to take a cold shower. Afterwards I grab the camera and try to make a few night shots. But the mosquitos impede any attempt to keep still for longer than a few seconds. After a few pictures I flee back on our ship and try to find sleep before the temperature starts to rise again.

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Sauna in the forepeak

It’s absolutely incredible, what temperatures we can reach here in Panama. It’s actually only 33 degrees on the outside (at 10h in the morning) but the humidity never gets lower than 80% and there is absolutely no wind here in the marina.

So we play a little with the water and empty our cans with water from Kuna Yala. We’ll fill them up again, when we reach the Gatún Lake.

Every day some boats are leaving for the Pacific and new ones arrive. tires and panama-lines are wheeled through the marina daily. And one always meets new and interesting people. Just as yesterday when we ran into Sabine and Heinz from Hamburg. They already sailed around the world once and are now on their second journey. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for the ship’s name, but I’ll do that today.

And now Bruno and me are gonna deflate the dinghy and maybe – if there should be no rain – we’ll do a little rust cleaning later on…

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As linehandler with SY Tamora and SY Kira through the Panama Canal

As many other sailors, we also help out on other yachts as line handlers for the Panama Canal. Every vessel needs four line handlers, a skipper and an ‘advisor’, who’s sent by the channel authority and looks that everything runs as it should and keeps the communication with the control center.

Friday we get ready and give our kids to the SY Mares, while Gui and me get aboard the Tamora to go to the ‘flats’ (the anchorage in front of Colón) where the advisor is to come aboard. We’re in a hurry as the time for the passage was moved from 16h to 14h and we still have to get some fuel. Bas, the fourth line handler could not be found in the hurry and was replaced by Marissa from the SY Tevakenui, who only had five minutes to prepare. :-)

We drop the anchor in the flats just in time and hand over Gui to the Kira that arrived yesterday. Thus all line handlers are on their ships and everybody is ready. Only the advisors are absent. It’s getting 14h… 15h…. 16h… we call the channel authority’s scheduler and get a big shock: We’ll not get through today, they re-scheduled us for tomorrow 16:00 ! Usually that wouldn’t be bad, but every ship has three additional crew aboard and we gave our kids to friends which makes things a little more complicated…  But we can’t change it and it has the advantage that we’ll be able to celebrate Tim’s 29th birthday on the Gatún lake, in between the Atlantic and Pazific !

Next day at 16:00h a big pilot boat closes in and drops of a very friendly advisor. Just two minutes later we’re on our way to the Gatún locks, where just in front of the first one, we go alongside with the Kira to form a pack of two ships. A big freighter from the Philipines is going into the lock in front of us and seconds later the monkey fists are thrown towards us. We connect the lines to ours and get into position in the first of three locks on the atlantic side. The lines are pulled up and as soon as they are tied up, the lock closes and water flushes in.

Everything runs smooth and we’re through all three locks just before sunset. We drive a few minutes into the Gatún lake and tie up to a big mooring buoy. The Kira goes alongside and only minutes later we jump into the lake to have our first bath in a sweet water lake since a long time.

We have a excessive birthday party and when the advisor arrives at 06:15h in the morning, nobody has had any sleep. :-) With small eyes covered under sunglasses, we enter the ‘Banana Cut’ (a shortcut) and sail slowly in between little islands covered with rain forest, while we try to catch up with our sleep. At around noon we arrive at the first lock on the pazific side and again everything runs smooth while we go down the three locks together with the Kira.

Big smiles on all faces as the last lock is openend and we slowly enter the Pazific ! Silke gets out some champagne she brought from Germany especially for that occasion. We sail around Balboa and drop the anchor in between SY Kira and SY Thor, in front of the amazing skyline of Panama City. Soon after we start our voyage back with the bus and arrive in Colón just before sunset. We are greeted enthusiasticly by our kids, have a final beer in the marina bar and fall into the bunks very early in the evening. In a few days we will do the passage again, this time with the Rancho Relaxo. Hope that everything runs just as smooth.

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Two nights in Panama City

Gui’s father is in Panama City on behalf of the ILO and invites us for a visit. Of course we don’t hesitate and immediately leave the boiling hot marina. As the marina is on the north side of the american continent, we have to wait for the ‘Cap San Raphael’ to get through the Gatun lock and into the Atlantic ocean, as we wait in the Taxi. A surprise was that the bus wouldn’t go today as this monday was declared a bank holiday because a former president died. We were lucky and could share the cab with a nice canadian man who’s traveling to the airpoirt. Having arrived in Panama City, we enjoy the air conditioning in the hotel room and the kids are fascinated by the big TFT screen. – Two things quite uncommon for us sailors.

We pay a visit to a beauty saloon and the captain looses about 0.5kg of hair and looks like a human again. Viola also gets a haircut and her nails done and Gui enjoys a pedicure. Now we go back to the hotel and have a nice dinner together with Gui’s father.

Next day we start our search for a competent optican to get new optical sunglasses for me. The last pair, I got anew in the canaries but lost them while crossing the Atlantic ocean. As we’re already here, the kids also get their eyes tested and everything is ok !

The city itself we don’t like too much. Although we used to live in big cities the last years, right now we’re quite overwhelmed by the noise, the dirt and the stress in this city. Ok, we didn’t visit the nicer parts of Panama City but still, I’d rather do without air conditioning but hear the birds sing and the monkeys howl in the djungle, instead of the constant honking in the city. The traffic is actually quite amazing: Despite us being quite used to the latin american way of driving, the way the buses plow through the streets is still frightening. It’s a fight for every place at the traffic light and people in smaller cars better stay behind, otherwise they’ll loose…

Back in the marina, we meet Dieter and Silke from the Tamora, who felicitously prepare for their passage tomorrow. I’ll be on their ship as a line handler and Gui will go with the Kira on the same day. The kids will spend two days on the SY Mares in the mean time. Beside the Mares is a free space now: Laura Decker also took her SY Guppy into the Pacific. And I’m reading on the web that our friends from the Hitch-Hike-Heidi started their voyage back across the Atlantic. The Roede Orm reached the mainland of Europe again and the Chiloe is about 600nm away from Uruguay.

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Waiting for the passage through the Panama Canal

As so many others, we’re now sitting on our ship and wait until the time comes for us to pass through the Panama Canal. It seems that we’re already in the rain-season as it’s pouring down heavily every couple of hours. Not exactly helpful when the temperatures never go below 30 degrees. The climate inside is like in a turkish bath. Our date right now is set for the 20.5.2012. But this can still be moved around, so we’ll post the definite date one or two days before leaving – because: There are webcams in both the Gatun and the Miraflores locks and maybe someone will see us while we steer the Rancho Relaxo towards the Pacific.

And of course we again changed our plans for the next days. With the weather like it is all paint jobs are impossible and so we’ll have to do without antifouling until we reach a place that is a little dryer. While the small rust patches along the waterline we might be able to do when there are a few hours of sunshine and no water movement… Someone mentioned a possibility to haul out the ship in the Tuamotus but we don’t yet know where that is exactly. Maybe somewone who knows could drop us an email…

Yesterday the SY Mares arrived and Bruno and Viola were extremely contented to see Laura again. The three spent the whole evening chasing crabs on the jetties and swimming and diving in the marina pool until 23h in the night. Right now we’re doing school and afterwards we’ll visit Laura to probably go to the pool again. Hehehe.

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Back in civilisation (?)

After one complete month that we spent in Kuna Yala, we’re now back in the so called western civilisation. The contrast couldn’t be any bigger. The San Blas islands, little sand patches with palm trees and beautyful corals and now Colon, a stinky town with rotten buildings and lots of noise.

After seven months that we spent on islands we’ve now put our feet on a continent for the first time since leaving Portugal. Right now we lie in the Shelter Bay Marina where our kids spend the day in the pool and the djungle begins right after exiting through the marina door and one can hear howler monkeys and lots of birds all day. There are crocodiles (!!) in the harbour water and we meet many sailors that we ran into on other islands in the Caribbean. All discussions are about the channel, the date when to leave and what is still to be done at the ship. Really pleasent to be with many other sailors again.

And we’ve been very busy since arriving: We’ve done all paperwork for the passage, the ship is measured and fenders and panama-lines are rented. We also did our biggest shopping until now and got groceries for about 900 dollars on board. Enough to last until Tahiti we hope. Gui was at the doctors and got antibiotics for her otitis of the middle ear – so in the next weeks there’s medicine instead of snorkeling…

Tomorrow we’ll leave the marina and sail towards Portobello where we’d like to persuade the Kira to follow us into the Rio Chagres. And as soon as we know the date for the passage into the Pacific, we go back to Colon to get the Rancho Relaxo out of the water and do new antifouling and take care of a few little rust patches on the waterline. Mmmmh.

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Past San Blas and towards Colón

10 days have passed. Andres an Yoko have left with a speedboat towards Carti today in the morning. We’ve got ten amazing days together. Unfortunately we had a lot of wind and rain during the last days but still managed to have a lot of fun !

We’ve been to the Cayos Limón, Cayos Holandes, the ‘pool’, back to Cayos Holandes West and back to Cayos Limón. We went hunting with the speargun and had nice fish for dinner, we saw big rays and we saw our first shark while snorkeling ! – A nurse shark with about two meters length; it’s not dangerous, they say.

On another day I helped an italian skipper to get out a grouper with about 35 kilos. Amazing fish and very tasty !!

Too bad, our friends have no more time. Today the sun is blasting again and we could stay for another while. – but – we will leave for Porvenir today, to clar out of San Blas. Tonight or tomorrow we’ll sail towards Colón to get our ship out of the water and do anti-fouling and fresh paint. After that we’ll prepare for the canal passage.

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Amigo – where are you ??

First the important stuff: SY AMIGO – WHERE ARE YOU ?? We’re out of toilet paper and have no more beer !!! This is a serious situation, you’re putting us in. Please, Kira & Co, if you read this: Send us a mobile phone number of them or something. We’re on CH68 but are also calling on 16, 69, 72 and 73.

We have two guests for holiday and they are thinking of filing a complaint with the panamesian tourism board: The weather is unusually BAD !! Since they two arrived, we’ve got one day of sun, the rest was *very* windy and rainy. Dark clouds run past us and the wind is howling in the rigging. (It rains so much, the dinghy is 50% full after one night !)
From Cayos Limon we went to Cayos Holandes West, where we spent the last few days waiting for better weather. As the swell went too big and the movement of the ship got uncomfortable, we drove through the rain towards the ‘pool’, where we are now at anchor, safely covered with reefs around us, so no big waves here.
We’re doing watersports, going sailing with Pinguin in 6 Beaufort with two grown ups aboard, going snorkeling in the rain and generally opening and closing all windows of the ship 20 times a day. Well, the Kunas on Turtle Island say, the weather’s gonna improve after two more days of rain, so Andy and Yoko might be lucky and see these amazing islands in sunlight again.

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Viola’s 4th birthday and visitors from Argentina

Yesterday we welcomed Gui’s brother with girlfriend on the Rancho Relaxo and today is Viola’s 4th birthday. We spend an hour on the internet to enable our family to send their wishes and afterwards we’ll sail to the Cayos Holandes to spend the birthday at the wonderful beach !

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Time to say goodbye (again)

Alone again…

The last two weeks were beautiful. – Being together with our friends, diving together, having parties or just talking about everything there is… But now all started to go west towards Portobello and Colon, to start the tiresome paperwork connected with the canal passage. We on the other side will have visitors and we’ll stay two more weeks in these beautiful islands of Kuna Yala.

So right now, we’re not doing much and hang around in the Cayos Limón. Tomorrow, we’ll sail to Carti where Gui will leave with a 4×4 to go to Panama City, where she’ll pick up her brother and his girlfriend.

Otherwise there isn’t much happening here. – The wind has disappeared again and it’s incredibly hot and moist. The only chance to not go crazy is to spend as much time as possible in the water. Heh.

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Many new posts and pictures

There seems to be something wrong – our last four posts were not published on our blog, so now that we’re connected to the Internet for once, I’m doing a big update of all the infos of the last weeks. I’d have a ton of photos but the connection is too slow to upload them all.

Right now we’re back in the western, ‘civilized’ part of Kuna Yala and are at anchor at the Cayos Limon. And there’s a little bar at the beach that has satellite connection and internet – unbelievable.

Well. Enough talk… Here come a few pics from our crossing of the Caribbean Sea:

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Oh wie schoen ist Panama !

Jetzt sind wir bereits fuenf Tage in den Cayos Coco Bandero und wollen noch immer nicht weg. Hehehe.

Anfangs war die Anchorage ja etwas voll und vor allem haben die Generatoren der groesseren Schiffe uns genervt. Nun aber gehoert der Platz zwischen den drei Inseln uns alleine und das diesige Wetter der letzten Tage wurde von einer leichten Passatwindbrise weggeblasen. Die Passatwoelkchen stauen sich im Gebirge an der Kueste, wo es im Dschungel taeglich regnet.
Dorthin sind Gestern auch SY Kira und SY Thor aufgebrochen, nach Nargana. Dies ist die einzige Insel, welche nachts beleuchtet ist. Somit die einzige mit Stromanschluss. Angeblich soll es dort ja sogar Internet geben, bislang haben wir von unseren Freunden aber noch keine Bestaetigung bekommen. Die Insel selbst ist im Vergleich nicht schoen und das Wasser wegen des nahen Rio Diablo natuerlich nicht so klar wie hier, sondern gruen und voll mit Leben aus dem Dschungel. Wir bleiben also erst mal hier, denn bei den Temperaturen, die nur Nachts mal kurz unter 30 Grad gehen, muessen wir viel Zeit im Wasser verbringen. Anderenfalls wird man bekloppt. Dazwischen machen wir Ausfluege mit Pinguin zu den Nachbarinseln – Gestern hatte ich die ‘zwei-Palmen-Insel’ mal begutachtet. Die hat einen Durchmesser von ca. 15 Metern und es stehen – zwei Palmen – drauf. Sonst ist da nix. Irre !!

Jeden Tag gibt’s mal ein Gespraech ueber die Schoenheit der Inseln, wie schwierig es ist, sich als Indianervolk behutsam an die westliche ‘Zivilisation’ anzunaehern und vor allem, dass dies wohl einer der schoensten Orte unserer gesamten Reise sein wird. Denn auch die Inseln im Pazifik werden dies nicht um viel toppen koennen und angesichts solcher Vergleiche fragt man sich dann auch schnell mal, warum man ueberhaupt weiter fahren sollte und wohin diese Reise denn fuehren soll.
Warum sind wir auf dieser Reise und was versuchen wir zu finden ? Diese Fragen gehen uns oft durch den Kopf. Und die Antworten fallen je nach Gemuetsverfassung stets anders aus. Eines ist auf jeden Fall sicher: Fuer eine junge Familie und vor allem fuer die Kinder ist eine derartige Reise eine unglaubliche Bereicherung. Alles andere ist sekundaer.

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(Deutsch) Coco Bandero und die Wassersammler

Wir haben’s geschafft und konnten uns nach ueber einer Woche von den Cayos Holandes losreissen. Gegen Mittag setzte sich die Flotille bestehend aus SY Tamora, SY Kira, SY Thor und der SY Rancho Relaxo in Bewegung. Wie sich’s gehoert, natuerlich bei wolkenverhangenem Himmel. Tja, so wie’s in den Buechern steht, klappt’s halt nun mal nicht immer. Der Himmel war ja blau, als wir losfuhren, dann zogen die dunklen Wolken auf. – Kann man ja auch schlecht dann mitten am Meer uebernachten. Also sind wir voraus und bei der Annaeherung an die naechste Inselgruppe ist Gui mit polarisierten Sonnenbrillen in den Mast geklettert. Auf die Art konnte man die Riffe auch bei bedecktem Himmel gut erkennen. Aber immerhin ist eines noch immer richtig: dem GPS kann man hier absolut nicht vertrauen ! Laut Kartenplotter sind wir ueber zwei Riffe gefahren und ankern nun auf der Insel. :-)
Coco Bandero ist unserer Meinung nach nicht ganz so schoen, wie die Cayos Holandes. Dies liegt aber evtl. auch am riesen-Charterkatamaran und der Motoryacht, die in unmittelbarer Naehe liegen und den Generator Tag und Nach laufen haben. Witzig auch: in Kuna Yala ist Charter und Tauchen verboten – und direkt neben uns steht dieser Kat mit 20 Personen und 100 Tauchflaschen an Bord. Die Kunas koennen (oder wollen) sich dagegen wohl nicht wehren.

Am Aussenriff liegt ein eindrucksvolles Schiffswrack, welches vermutlich auch fuer die Oelklumpen am Nachbarstrand verantwortlich zeichnet. Nach einem kurzen (10 Minuten !) Rundgang um die Insel hatten wir die Oelklumpen an unseren Fusssohlen nicht bemerkt und haben so unser Dinghy ordentlich versaut. Aceton hat’s aber wieder gut gemacht.
Und wie’s manchmal so kommt, landeten Gestern dann irgendwie alle Freunde aus der Anchorage auf der Rancho Relaxo. Nach Sonnenuntergang trafen die Crews der oben beschriebenen Boote, sowie von SY Amigo, SY Bora und SY Quizas bei uns ein. Zwei Guitarren und ein Schifferklavier, mehrere Flaschen Rum, sieben verschiedene Nationen und fuenf verschiedene Sprachen sorgen fuer einen lustigen Abend. Und das Cockpit der RR. war mit 15 Personen auch mal richtig gut befuellt.
Katerstimmung kam am naechsten Tag nicht auf, gegen halb acht am Morgen wurden wir von einem Gewitter geweckt und der Skipper huschte wie ein Blitz um’s Boot, verschloss in Windeseile die Luken und begann die Kanister mit dem kostbaren Nass zu fuellen. Trotz amateurhafter Technik haben wir in wenigen Minuten ueber 60 Liter Regenwasser aufgefangen und im Dinghy stehen nochmal so viel bereit zum spaeteren Waeschewaschen.
So und jetzt gibt’s erst mal Fruehstueck.

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This is the most beautiful town, I’ve ever seen !!

One of the main attractions of Kuna Yala is the snorkeling. And we go every day. Mostly just to watch all the beautiful, colorful creatures and sometimes with the harpoon to catch some fish or lobster for dinner.
Usually Bruno and Viola acompany us in the dinghy and are afraid of the dark things in the water that try to grab their feet from deep down. I remembered from my own childhood, that I loved swimming above sand but was afraid of everything dark, I suggested to come snorkeling with us.
At first both of them were completely against that idea but I told Bruno and Viola that they’ll see the most wonderul place down there, the colorful world of the coral and fish. And all the dark stuff, you see from above is actually shining in all colors and full of life. So we set out with Pinguin (Gui was already there, together with Tim, Claus, Ornella and Gabriel (from SY Amigo)). We put on the diving glasses and snorkel and slowly slided into the water, always with a hand for the kids. The first two minutes they had to get used to the breathing with the snorkel but both immediately lost their fear. We swam over corals in 2-4m of water, went along the slope where it drops down to 20m. Both were pointing with their fingers and when I lifted my head out of the water, I could hear them: ‘Aaaah !’, ‘Ooooh !’, ‘Look this, how cute…’ They both were completely absorbed and we only got out after about one hour when everybody was already a bit cold.
Back on the ship they sat down and began to paint what they’ve seen. And here it was, where Bruno told me that: ‘This was the most beautiful town, I’ve ever seen !!’ – The town of the fish.

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(Deutsch) Waisaladup, Kuna Yala

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

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The two sides paradise

After a night at El Porvenir we received notice from the SY Thor and immediately got up the anchor to meet them at the Cayos Holandes. Here we anchor between two islands with a view out to the open sea. The two islands to the sides are covered with palm trees and mangroves, the water is clear and full of coral and colorful fish. Currently there are six sailboats at the anchorage and besides a visit or two of Kuna fishermen we’re quite out of touch with civilisation. The islands are uninhabited and we walked around the more westerly one in about one hour. All around the island the beaches are nice and the water is full of life. But on the windward side one can see the manifestation of western civilisation: Tons of plastic ! Everywhere there are bottles, shoes and pieces of all kind of plastic. I guess should mankind sometime disappear from the surface of the earth, the remainder will be thousands of flipflops on the most beautiful beaches of the world. It’s really sad to see all that waste here. But the Kuna have no possibility to get rid of the trash and so all that the ocean leaves on the beaches will stay there. But besides that, everything is wonderful here. We have a great time with Christine and Christian from the Thor and yesterday we received an email from the SY Kira and the SY Tamora that both of them are now underway towards San Blas, they should arrive sometime tomorrow. Yesterday Bruno and me took the sailing dinghy for a ride and went three islands to the southeast and back again. Really beautiful to be underway with no engine and being able to watch the amazing islands in all their quietness. Today we made BIG cleaning on board the Rancho Relaxo: we got all our food out of the lockers and the bilge and cleaned everything to get rid of small bugs that inhabited some loose flour and a package of muesli during the last few days. We hope that now we’ve eliminated all the animals aboard and also we now know how much food we still got left. Good stuff.

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Sind wir die ersten ?

Was ist denn da los ? Vor Monaten dachten wir noch, wir wuerden unsere Freunde auf den San Blas verpassen und nun sind wir die ersten ? Na mal sehen… morgen drehen wir mal eine Runde und vielleicht finden wir ja die SY Ninita oder SY Thor. Und Bruno und Viola fragen mindestens 10x taeglich nach der Tamora und der KIRA !!!

** So, hier muss man sich dann acht voellig unglaubliche Bilder von den traumhaftesten Inseln ueberhaupt vorstellen. Leider kann ich hier keine schicken, aber IHR habt ja Internet und koennt sie euch trotzdem auf Picasa oder wo anschauen. Ah ! Ich im uebrigen auch. Muss nur vom Bildschirm aufblicken. Hahaha. **

Das Ankommen war traumhaft. Mit gut fuenf Bft. im Ruecken sind wir die letzten 180sm nur mit Genua gesegelt und hatten zuletzt folgende Etamale (Seemeilen von Schiffsmittag bis Schiffsmittag 12h UTC): 120 – 120 – 120 !!! Nicht der perfekte Koerper, aber dennoch wie ein Lottosechser. Hehehe. Wir haben uns bis auf den zweiten Tag nicht besonders verausgabtund haben dabei (bis auf das mittlerweile reparierte) Deflatable auch nichts kaputtghemacht. Den Salon haben wir am vorletzten Tag nochmal ordentlich mit Salzwasser gewaschen. Die Decksluke im Salon war offen und wir hatten mal wieder ein paar hundert Liter wasser geschoepft, dass von einer Seite des Dann zur anderen schwappt, wenn das Schiff kraengt. So macht man das !! Tja. Alko putzen ist sowieso angesagt, genau so wie das Thema Tiere an bord. Dazu ein ander mal mehr. Hahaha.

Ok wo war ich ? Ach ja. ganz huebsch hier. Bloedsinn !!! Voellig fantastisch ist das ! Fast wie eine Zeitreise die dann auch noch zufaellig an einen der schoensten Orte der Welt fuehrt ! Wir sind heute mit dem Segeldinghy die naechsten drei (!) Inseln abgefahren. Alles super kleine Schmuckstuecke, die man mit dem Beiboot schnell mal besuchen kann. Die Kuna sind aeusserst freundliche und offene Menschen und obwohl die Inselgruppe um El Porvenier auf keinen Fall zu den schoeneren unter im San Blas Archipel zaehlt, faengt einen die voellig andere Kultur mit den Frauen in ihren unglaublichen Trachten, der Haeuser aus Holz und Palmenblaettern, den Kanus, der Landschaft, den vielen Kindern einfach sofort ein. Das alles ist, wie aus einem alten schwarzweiss Film – nur halt in Farbe und 3D !! Aber das sind ja erst mal nur erste Eindruecke. Morgen werden wir nochmal mit dem Dinghy zwei Inseln weiter duesen und Obst holen, sofern’s denn welches gibt und dann segeln wir mit der Rancho Relaxo mal weiter Richtung Suedosten, dort s ind die naturbelasseneren Inseln. Wir haben schon Handys gesehen, aber Internet ist hier nicht. Leider gibt es also erst mal keine Bilder in naechster Zeit. Ich hoffe, da faellt uns was ein – Brieftauben mit Polaroid oder so…

El Porvenir ist ja auch einer der beiden Inseln, auf denen man hier einklarieren kann und hier kommt man normalerweise auch wegen des Flughafens her. Aber die Landebahn (auf der gerade mal etwa 600m langen Insel !!!) wird gerade mittels Saugbagger und Muschelsand etwas erweitert und so ist kein Flugverkehr bis mindestens Ende Mai (haha). Der Flughafen in Carti ist im uebrigen auch gesperrt, weil die Landebahn immer mit PKWs befahren wird (!!) und so wollen sie einen Unfall verhindern. Aber man kann mit dem Auto hierher, es gibt Kuna Taxis, die einen recht guenstig aus Panama City (oder nach !) bringen koennen. Ach ja – und wir haben schon gesehen: Die Entscheidung, Landfall gen Mittag zu machen war angeberacht ! Das Gebiet ist gespickt von kleinen Korallenriffen, Felsen, Sandbaenken und die sind teilweise so klein, da hat man kaum eine Chance. Uns hat’s heute mit dem Pinguin fast ‘aufgestellt’, als wir so eine seichte Stelle mit einem Brocken drin passierten. Viola ist bei dem Aufprall vom Bug ins Wasser gefallen, wurde aber einenhalb Meter weiter wieder aus dem Wasser gefischt. Ah – und Bruno ist heute das erste mal alleine, ohne alles in ‘tiefem’ Wasser geschwommen, also neben dem Schiff.

So. Das reicht mal fuer’s erste, jetzt kommt der verdiente Schlaf nach 861 Seemeilen.

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Crossing the Caribbean Sea, day 6

72 miles to go ! Yay ! So this will be our last night on sea in the Atlantic ocean, it seems. Just before sunset, we shifted the Genoa to the port side as we’ve now got wind from the north. The day has been pleasent and the seas and wind quite steady. No blister today as we have to time our landfall to be during the day and with the genoa and an average speed of five knots, we should arrive around noon on wednesday. As always… not much has happened. We’ve got a couple of flying fish on deck in the morning and the kids collect and inspect them before throwing them back into the sea. Oh, one really stupid thing happened: The dinghy (our deflatable) was stored on deck (inflated) and somehow was placed on top of a sharp thingie on the staysail-rail. After five days of little movement, it tore a hole. So tomorrow we’ll have to repair it. Mmh. Not sure, if there’s enough time for the glue, we might take Bruno’s Pinguin for our landfall. Actually the new dinghy will come in handy here in Kuna Yala in a couple of ways. But most importantly, we can use it to sail (and row) up the rivers of the mainland. The Kuna get their drinking water out of the rivers and do not allow dinghies with engines to go there. But we can. Yay ! And I read there are lots of monkeys in the forests, so we’ll definately set out with it for a jungle tour. Well, well. I’m writing about the future… I’m looking forward for the landfall, that might be the reason. Well. No I don’t know what more to write, so I’ll end with the usual data bar…

LATITUDE: 10-12.05N LONGITUDE: 077-52.93W COURSE: 236T SPEED: 5.3 WIND: N4-5

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Zehn nach Zehn, die beste Zeit den Blister zu bergen

Heute hat’s uns schon wieder eiskalt erwischt. Sowas, sowas… In den letzten Monaten habe ich mehrmals gehoert, dass die See in der westlichen Karibik ‘nicht schoen zu segeln’ ist, konnte aber nie erfahren, warum eigentlich. In den letzten Tagen haben wir viel darueber nachgedacht, was hier eigentlich los ist. Wir haben (fuer das Gebiet) eigentlich recht wenig Wind, hier hat’s normalerweise fast immer +6 Bft, wenn der Passat blaest; wir haben eher 4-5. Die Wellen sind auch nicht groesser als sonst. ABER: Der Wind dreht etwas mit der Sonne mit, wird also tagsueber westlicher – und um 22:20h (heute wieder, auf die Minute genau) macht er einen Schwenk nach Ost. Klappt also in Ausgangsstellung zurueck und legt 1 – 1.5 Bft zu. Und genau das ist die Zeit, wenn der Captain vorne am Bug haengt und mit viel Krafteinsatz den Blister zaeumt und in den Sack packt. Morgen werden wir deshalb bereits um 22:10 die Genua setzten. Mal sehen, ob der Trick funktioniert. Hehehe. Ah, aber zum ‘unschoenen Seegebiet’ nochmal. Also wir finden’s hier auch nicht so prickelnd. Und dies liegt eben vor allem an den Winddrehern, die die See aeusserst chaotisch machen. Wellen in allen Groessen und aus allen Richtungen, hat man manchmal das Gefuehl. Heute Abend eben wieder ganz schlimm, wobei wir mit der Reling ordentlich in die See eingetaucht haben und der Spibaum mehrmals einen Meter tief im Wasser steckte.

Fischglueck hatten wir heute auf eine andere Art: Zuerst sahen wir jede Menge Fische – vermutlich Tunas – aus dem Wasser huepfen, was Bruno veranlasste den Tintenfischkoeder gegen einen ‘Plug’ (Koederfisch) zu tauschen und kurz darauf hatten wir zum ersten mal seit Barbados Delfine als Begleiter ! An der europaeischen Atlantikkueste waren ihre Kunststueckchen schon zum Alltag geworden, hier haben wir – und vor allem Bruno und Viola sie nach langer Abwesenheit ueberschwenglich begruesst und standen lange am Bugkorb. Sonst ist alles im Lot, das Bordleben hat sich eingespielt. Wir warten noch auf den grossen Schiffskonvoi richtung Panama-Canal, den werden wir vermutlich am Vormittag erleben. Bislang ist hier zum Glueck nicht viel los. Aktuell haben wir noch 162 Meilen bis Panama, sollten also in ca. eineinhalb Tagen ankommen.

LATITUDE: 11-17.97N LONGITUDE: 076-46.43W COURSE: 218T SPEED: 5.0 WIND: NE4-5

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Crossing the Caribbean sea, day 4

Still no fish on the hook ! What’s wrong ? Have they all died in the BP oil spill ?!? Bruno’s getting nervous about his goal… Sailing-wise it was an interesting day: During the night, the wind increased as always and we were sailing really fast (avg: 6.7kn, top:7.8kn). Gave us a whopping 142 miles on our daily log. In the morning, the wind shifted towards ENE and we were making good progress, already hoping we could make it to El Porvenir in two days. But then the wind suddently backed towards NNE and we were left in a really ugly sea. The ship began to slide to both sides and we were making a sideway-angle of +/-30 degrees (imagine that optically for a moment !) Eveything that was secure during the last days was falling through the cabin, including the complete set of Asterix comics, the childrens school stuff and lots more. We quickly got the Blister down and are now sailing with Genoa again. The movement immediately stopped, the speed decreased and we will not make it ’til tuesday I guess. It’s not safe to enter the San Blas islands in darkness, so we would have to wait until sunrise anyway – there’s no rush… Also we’re now on the NW-corner of Columbia and here the wind always is quite a bit stronger; no need for big sails here. I was reading a lot about Kuna Yala which is the ‘real’ name of the San Blas archipelagpo and can’t wait to get there. The ore I know, the more interesting it gets. I also read about the Panama Channel and I’m already getting nervous about the procedures, forms, the waiting, etc. But the waiting might be an excellent opportunity to get the ship out of the water and do anti-fouling before entering the Pacific. There should be good boat slips at the Panama Canal Yacht Club and a filet mignon waiting for us there…. But – hey – that’s a month from now. Let’s not get too much ahead with the planning. Hehehe.

LATITUDE: 12-42.34N LONGITUDE: 075-56.36W COURSE: 228T SPEED: 5.1 WIND: NE4 Dist. to El Porvenir: 273nm

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