Category Archives: Rancho Relaxo

Treffen 1x die Woche auf der Rancho

Warum zoegern wir nur immer so lange, das bunte Tuch rauszuholen ?!? Gestern hatte ich ja bereits angekuendigt und heute nach dem Fruehstueck haben wir dann den Segelwechesel auch gemacht. Genua rein und Blister rauf. Und siehe da: augenblicklich ist die Schlinger-/Schaukelbewegung dahin und statt der 4.5-5 Knoten rauschen wir seither mit konstant ueber 6kn dahin. Sail fast – sail safe. Genau so ist das, jaja ! Wobei ich gerade mit etwas Stirnrunzeln zur Geschwindigkeitsanzeige blicke, da wir mit 7.6 Knoten nahe an der Rumfgeschwindigkeit sind. Aber das sind nur kurze Ausreisser.

Auch kann ich berichten, dass gleichzeitig mit dem Stoppen der Rollbewegungen die Energie der Crew zurueckgekehrt ist ! Kann auch sein, dass es am beruehmten 2. Tag auf See oder an der erfrischenden Seewasserdusche lag. Auf jeden Fall haben die Kinder heute gemalt und gebastelt wie die Wilden. Bruno hatte einen MahiMahi an der Angel, der aber leider beim Einholen entkommen ist. Dies hat dafuer gesorgt, dass Bruno dann eine Stunde lang geschimpft hat. – Da kennt er keinen Spass ! Versoehnt hat er sich dann, in dem er zuerst ein Buch ueber Tropenfische und dann sein Lieblingsbuch: ‘The cruiser’s handbook of fishing’ durchgeblaettert hat. Vermutlich hat er sich neue Ideen fuer morgen geholt. Hehehe.

Zwei Schiffe haben wir heute auch gesehen ! Ein Tanker an Backbord und ein Frachter an Steuerbord. Beide haben uns mit ca. einer Meile Abstand passiert. Man merkt schon, dass wir uns dem Panama-Kanal naehern. Sonst ehen wir nie ‘so viele’ Schiffe.

LATITUDE: 14-05.11N LONGITUDE: 073-39.10W COURSE: 241 SPEED: 7.2 WIND: ENE4

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Day two, crossing the Caribbean Sea

Yesterday I started lamenting about being land-blocked for too long, I’ll continue from there. Hehehe. So we’ve got our sealegs alright. But the thing is: The laziest crew of the world is more sleepy than usual ! It must be in connection with us not sailing for so long. But really – everybody is just lying around. Ok, the kids looked books and made a few drawings and of course we do all the necessary stuff like cooking, blogging, going to the toilet… But otherwise than that the only thing I started was to build a new drain plug for the dinghy out of a piece of wooed. And that I only did because I was just too bored. We look forward to the point when the energy comes back. Until then, well – we’ll be here waiting. Where else should we go ? 550 miles lie ahead of us and about 250 we’ve covered. No fish yet and no sail changes yet. Actually the only thing we did (sailing – wise that is) was to adjust the windsteering – twice. That’s it for the last 48 hours. But as the wind decreased slightly during the last hours, tomorrow might be a good time to get the Blister out to make some speed.

POSITION: LATITUDE: 15-39.20N LONGITUDE: 071-51.60W COURSE: 234T SPEED: 4.6 WIND: NE4

Posted in Rancho Relaxo, Sailing | 2 Comments

Die Rancho Relaxo schaukelt wieder

Nach 28 Tagen an Land eine ungewohnte Erfahrung. Also mal abgesehen von ein paar kleinen Ausflugsfahrten zwischen Bayahibe, La Romana und der Isla Saona waren wir ja quasi ‘landblocked’. Die letzten beiden Tage hatten wir allerdings schoenen Schwell am Ankerplatz, so sind uns quasi noch vor Abfahrt die Seebeine gewachsen. Hehehe. Wenn man die +/- 15 Grad Schwingung im 5 Sekunden-Takt mal ausblendet laeuft sonst eigentlich alles wie geschmiert. In den ersten 24 Stunden sind wir die fuer uns ueblichen 120 Seemeilen gesegelt und das obwohl teilweise recht wenig Wind war. Nachts frischt es ungewoehnlicherweise etwas auf und wir legen einen Zacken zu. Aber eilig haben wir’s ja nicht. Und so oder so brauchen wir noch 5-6 Tage bis wir auf den Inseln landen. Also machen wir das beste daraus, spannen das Sonnendach ueber’s Cockpit, hoeren Musik und faulenzen. Bruno hat heute fleissig, aber leider erfolglos geangelt – und das obwohl er 40 (!) Fische fangen moechte, damit alle unsere Freunde, die wir auf den San Blas Inseln treffen, was zum grillen haben. Hehehe. Ansonsten gibt’s nicht viel Aufregendes zu berichten. In der ersten Nacht hatten wir zwei sehr knappe Begegnungen mit Berufsschiffen, die beide ca. eine Seemeile hinter uns vorbei sind. Heute haben wir ausser blauem Meer, weissen Wellenkaemmen und ein paar Regenwolken nichts gesehen. Die Crew ist wohlauf und wie immer in den ersten Tagen noch fauler als sonst. Der Captain und die Capitana wechseln sich brav mit den Wachen ab und sehen sich auch tagsueber nicht viel, da erfolglose Schlafversuche der Naechte am Tag erneut probiert werden wollen. Klappt leider nicht so ganz. Aber wie immer wird sich alles nach zwei Tagen eingespielt haben.

POSITION: 16-52.36N, 070-28.78W, COURSE: 228, SPEED: 5.8kn, WIND: NE5

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Off towards Panama !!

After checking out we’ll leave the Dominican Republic and sail towards Panama. The destination is El Porvenir in the San Blas archipelago. Belonging to the people of the Kuna, there is no infrastructure, no power, no internet, no shopping and no garbage disposal. It is said it’s one of the most beautiful spots on our planet and still looks the same as it did hundreds of years ago.

The trip is roughly 800 nautical miles and should therefore take us 7 or 8 days. We’ll have our sattelite phone turned on every day at 12:00 UTC while sailing and we will update the blog via shortwave radio. As we now should be able to receive comments some kind of communication should still be possible. But don’t expect an answer on the same day. Hehehe.

Details about the communication can be found on the page ‘Contact’ – but only for logged in users !

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

Testeintrag via Kurzwelle – kommt dieser nun auch auf Facebook

…wenn ja, dann bin ich gluecklich. Dann koennen wir in den naechsten Wochen, wo wir kein Internet haben via Amateurfunk auch Facebook posten. HEhehehe. Und Kommentare sollten uns ebenfalls erreichen. Werde ich auch noch gleich testen…

Posted in Rancho Relaxo, Sailing | 3 Comments

Nightly dinghy-shopping and the pirate vessel ‘La Grace’

It was late in the evening when we came back from shopping and had to move lots of beer and an enormous amount of little shopping bags into the dinghy. What once was a logistical nightmare is now quite normal and we managed to get everything aboard dry and safe.

Something quite mysterious happened while we were away from our ship: The stern of the Rancho Relaxo was full with dead bees. And the dinghy was full of them ! Hundreds, maybe a thousand dead bees, all cut in half or somehow else destroyed. We have no idea what might have happened but we’re quite lucky that we weren’t aboard when the massacre took place.

Next day we saw a beautiful tall ship in the anchorage and I immediately recognized her as the ship that we saw in Las Palmas in November. Back then it vanished before we could have a closer look but this time Bruno and me took the dinghy and entered immediately !

The first thing that amazed both of us was that they have cannons on board ! And not only that – we were greeted by two boys in full pirate costume – with real daggers. The second thing that I found quite astonishing: This ship is actually just two years old ! Has been built in Egypt and is now cruising the seas as a school ship that also takes charter guests. The vessel is running under the flag of the Czech Republic which is as uncommon as the austrian flag, hehehe. The friendly crew showed us around and we spend mazbe two hours on this beautiful sailing vessel. Nice !

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

Guillermina can dive !!!

After Bruno learned to swim, Gui couldn’t wait any more and finished her PADI Open Water course. So now she too is an licenced diver ! Yeah !!!

I joined her on her first dive in the ocean and took a few pictures. Unfortunately the site wasn’t that exciting and the visibility was not too good. But we had a lot of fun and there are cannons, anchor and other things from a ship lost in 1752 down there. We saw lion fish and lots of other colorful little creatures.

After four wonderful days in the hotel together with Gui’s parents we’re back in Bayahibe and started to prepare ourselves for the crossing towards Panama. It’s not yet decided but I think we might leave on tuesday after checking out in Casa de Campo. Our friends on the SY Kira are right now underway to Cartagena in Colombia and the timing seems good to meet them in the Islas san Blas in a week or so. And the hopes are high to also meet with the SY Tamora and the SY Thor since both of them are right now in Bonaire and wait for good weather to go to Panama, too. Sounds like there’s gonna be a big party soon !

Posted in Learning for life, LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 5 Comments

Bruno can swim !!!

Despite MANY good events in the recent days this has to be the headline. For a family living on a sailboat this is by far the most important thing and now it happened: Bruno learned to swim ! It’s difficult to tell who is more happy about that – the parents or the kid himself.

And for me it’s difficult to find a beginning. As always – many things happen at the same time. My family is back. And they brought along the grand parents with whom they spent a week in Miami. Now we’re enjoying a holiday in the midst of our holiday-like journey. Gui’s parents invited us to spend four days together in a wonderful hotel near Bayahibe.

The Rancho Relaxo is alone at anchor in front of the Marina de Guerra who promised to keep an eye on our floating home and our dinghy while we enjoy the all inclusive club and have Campari-Soda and Caipirinhas at the pool.

Today Gui started her PADI diving course and tomorrow we’ll go diving together somewhere out on the sea. I don’t know exactly where, but it’s gonna be fun and I’ll bring along the GoPro to make pics and videos ! That’s all for now. It’s been a long and eventful day and I’m the only one awake right now as all the others fell asleep right after sunset.

Posted in Animals, Kids, Learning for life, LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 3 Comments

Last night in Bayahibe

Wow ! A week has already passed ! Tomorrow I’ll sail the Rancho Relaxo towards Casa de Campo marina to pick up my loved ones in the afternoon.

Not much has happened the last days. I got about 20 kilo clothes washed, dried and stowed away. Today I cleaned the ship on the inside and repaired a few little things. Finally I found the little crack in a waterfilter that got replaced, a vent of the engine broke and was repaired. And the funniest thing: Just before leaving Viola or Bruno put a lock-code on my iPod ! – Couldn’t use it anymore. ARRR !! The only chance would be to connect it to the computer it was first synced with (which doesn’t exist anymore) or to erase and reprogram it – resulting in the loss of about 55GB of good music. So I tried all of the 9999 possible combinations to the lock. Since Bruno mentioned that it was something with nines, I started from the back.

Now guess what the code was ? Eh ? Well…. 0003. Maybe I should have started from 0000 that would have been faster. But – hey – I got my music back ! Rock’n'roll !!

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Alone at the bar…

…not really at the bar but more so in an internet- (or as called in the 90′s: cyber-)cafe. Hehehe. Yeah, internet through the good ol’ network cable.

I wish, I could tell some amazing stories of the lonesome sailor in Domrep but actually I’m quite bored and feel lonely. As said before, there isn’t much to do in Bayahibe. I’m cleaning the ship, got two gigantic bags with laundry to the shore and now I’m in the net, trying to get an old website of a friend to work.

Posted in Net, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 5 Comments

A cake a day and the teeth go away !

The captain found a nice place to hide: no internet and no network coverage. That’s a good beach to get older without anyone noticing.

Gui and the kids are up early on the 3.3.2012, decorating table and cake and drawing a nice birthday card. The skipper is 38 and gets a massage under palm trees for his back. Bruno tries the first piece of cake and – CRACK – what was that ?!? Bruno’s first milk tooth just came loose. Bruno is extremely happy as now he is ‘older’. Loosing the milk teeth was one thing he was waiting for with great excitement.

After breakfast we leave for the beach and have a wet landing thanks to a little swell that developed during the night. Viola’s life vest got a little too wet and – PFFFFFFF !!! – transforms from a little red thing in a big yellow one. Well, at least we know that it’s working. Heh.

Posted in Kids, LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 8 Comments

Pics from the Isla Saona

As promised, I’m gonna post some pics of one of the most beautiful beaches we’ve seen so far. (The others being: Islas Cies, White Island and Barbuda). I guess, I’ll just skip the text as the photos will speak for themselves:

There are more photos on our Facebook-page. I hope my repaired Macbook will be back soon, then I’ll upload a ton of pictures on our gallery.

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

Isla Saona – teaser…

We’re back in Bayahibe after two nights on the wonderful island of Saona. Tomorrow I’ll post more photos, right now just a teaser for you.

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

Sieht aus, wie eine schoene Insel…

PFOAH !!!

Ja, so wuerde man sich im allgemeinen die schoensten Seiten der Karibik vorstellen. Bounty-Werbung pur ! Das heisst, wir ankern auf 3m Wassertiefe und koennen die Steine am Grund zaehlen, der Strand ist beinahe schneeweiss und gesaeumt mit Kokospalmen. Absolute Ruhe. Wir sind Gestern um ca. 16h hier angekommen, als die letzten Ausflugsschiffe gerade zurueckfuhren nach Bayahibe. Sofort haben wir das Dinghy gestartet und den Strand erkundet, sind unter den Palmen entlanggelaufen und haben mal wieder versucht, die eine oder andere erfolglos zu erklimmen. Der Strand ist voll von Korallenbruchstuecken und Muscheln, kleine bunte Fische im Wasser und viele seltsame Voegel, die merkwuerdige Laute von sich geben. Es soll ja auch Affen geben auf Saona, vielleicht werden wir diese heute entdecken… Den Sonnenuntergang haben wir uns vom Strand aus angesehen, doch eine dunkle Wolke hat uns auf’s Boot zurueckgescheucht. Umsonst – denn der Regen zog an uns vorbei und nach wenigen Minuten funkelten schon die Sterne auf uns runter. Voellige Ruhe. Der Strand glaenzte im Mondlicht und wir sassen noch lange im Cockpit und quatschten, waehrend die Kinder nach einer Gute-Nacht Geschichte schon friedlich dahinschlummerten. Eine leichte Brise aus Ost-Sued-Ost laesst den Windgenerator die ganze Nacht leise dahinsaeuseln und tagsueber knallt die Karibiksonne auf die Solarpanele. Da die Batterien randvoll sind, starten wir taeglich den Wassermacher und so ist auch der Tank beinahe voll. So laesst sich’s aushalten. Am Strand gibt’s ein paar Huetten und Liegestuehle fuer die Touristen, die in kuerze hier mit grossen Ausflugskatamaranen und Schnellbooten einfallen werden. Leider ist dies auch die Schattenseite, denn dank der vielen Urlauber findet man am Strand ueberall kleine, weisse Plastikbecher und auch die eine oder andere Colaflasche. Tja. Ist zwar ein Naturreservat, doch eben auf DomRep-Art. Vielleicht kommt irgendwann mal ein Vertreter fuer Pappbecher vorbei und macht den Deal seines Lebens. Die Tier- und Pflanzenwelt von Saona wuerde sich sicher darueber freuen. Und natuerlich gibt’s hier kein Internet – hier kommt mal wieder unser Amateurfunkgeraet zum Einsatz. Ach, ja: Und eigentlich sollten wir Kommentare nun auch ueber Funk empfangen koennen, wer’s gerne mal probieren moechte, sei eingeladen hier mal zu antworten. So. Jetzt aber auf zum Strand !

Posted in Rancho Relaxo, Sailing | 7 Comments

Quiet days in Bayahibe

Not much going on here…. Once again I cleaned the bilge and made a few improvements to the interior of our home. Gui took Pinguin for a test sail. She’s now infected with the virus of Dinghy sailing. Yay !

Tomorrow in the morning we’ll leave for the Isla Saona to spend two or three days there before we’ll separate for a week. And I just found out that the Isla Saona “…is promoted amongst European visitors as the setting for the famous Bounty chocolate bar adverts…” Great !

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Sterling-regulator installed and on to Bayahibe

On our last trip we had to run under engine for an entire day. In cases like these it would be nice if the alternator would fill up all batteries to 100%. But this is ususally not the case. Therefore we installed the new, digital Sterling alternator regulator that will now handle the charging. I installed it together with Bruno before leaving to Bayahibe so we could test it on the way. It works great !!

So now we are in Bayahibe – just five miles east of the marina but it’s much nicer to be at anchor again. Although the village here doesn’t provide much. There is a small shop and a few restaurants, a cyber-cafe (where I’m at, right now) and a dive shop. The beaches are crowded with large skiffs with huge outboard engines. Those drive the tourists to the Isla Saona that’s around the corner. This island will be our next stop. It must be beautiful as every day hundereds of people are going for a trip there.

What else ? Well there are only six days left for Gui and the kids until they leave for Miami. Huh, then I’ll be alone here in this little village – just me and the Rancho Relaxo. Well – could be worse.

We spent a nice afternoon at the beach where we found a palm tree perfect for beginners. Everybody tried to climb and saw how difficult it is. We didn’t even get to half of the height, but still we managed to do a few quite good pictures. Hehehe.

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Carnival in Casa de Campo

While the crew of the Rancho Relaxo is busy washing clothes, putting new cables across the ship, repairing the bathroom door, backing up all laptops…. The harbour is being transformed and guests and employees alike prepare for the carnival show tonight. Not much to write about… Look the pictures:

Posted in LosLocos, Pics, Rancho Relaxo | 1 Comment

Cleaning the ship and a stroll with Pinguin

Today in the morning as Gui was busy getting everything together for her Visa application, the kids and me were strolling through the marina and looking at a very beautiful ship that’s lying on the next jetty. A beutiful and big schooner with the most amazing stern I’ve seen so far. But how unfortunate – the ship has not been moved in more than four years ! And nobody takes care of it. So it’s rotting away…. Poor thing  – they should give it to us, we could use a little extra space. Hehehe.

And then we were doing something we never did before: We CLEANED the Rancho Relaxo and her tenders ! While most of the boats around us are not sailed but only cleaned, we usually do ot the other way around. We sail a lot and let the spray and the rain do the cleaning. But since the water in this marina has too much chlorine to put it into our tanks, we used it (a LOT of it) to make the deck and cockpit white and shiny again. We also cleaned our two tenders and finally found the little hole where our deflatable has been loosing air the past two weeks.

After that much work we took Bruno’s little ‘Pinguin’ for a ride. We left the marina and went out to sea. But not very far as our destination was the river Chavon which we sailed up for about an hour. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any nice pics as I was busy handling the boat and the two kids at the same time. But it was a lot of fun and both kids enjoyed it very much.

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The cruise to the Dominican Republic

Sorry for the delay… But after three months of anchoring we finally arrived in a marina. And as it is… there’s NO Internet ! Pah ! On pretty much every anchorage we had access to the net using our amazing WLAN antenna – but here, where we actually pay for services like these there isn’t any net available. So now I sit in a bar while Gui and the kids watch a movie in the cinema. Also not too bad.

So here are a few pics. Not too many as there wasn’t much happening during the trip. The kids did some artworks using batting and glue while Gui and me were handling the sails. And this we did quite often. It’s amazing how the Rancho Relaxo changes during a few minutes. Passat sails up, down, Blister to starboard or to port. And the last night we were sailing on the wind. Especially our batteries liked these last hours. The wind generaor was working hard and the energy supply of our ship was filled up during those hours.

Which brings me to the next mood point about that marina: Of course they have different power connectors in the Dominican Republic but why don’t they provide adaptors for us poor european sailors ? Well, the sun is shining every day and the solar panels should do for now.

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Arrived in La Romana, DomRep.

After a wonderful trip of three days and roughly 350 miles we arrived in La Romana. We’ll post more pics and a little story tonight but first, we’ll have a shower and go to town…

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