We are definitely not on vacation right now ;-)

Sewing a throw-line bag, among other things....

Polishing the (not-so) stainless steel, among other things...

Pre-cooking, among other things...

Nov 9-25: Las Palmas, Gran Canary Islands

We have arrived! Our last destination on this side of the Atlantic, our last destination before St. Lucia! After a slightly rough but surprisingly speedy trip from Morocco to Las Palmas, we are now "parked" on the catamaran dock until Nov 25. Oh my, there is so much to do! Not only do we need to finalize things on the boat, such as get the SSB radio going, need to do the provisioning for 5 people for 3 weeks (even though we hope to arrive around day 16 of the voyage), need to get pet documents ready for import to St. Lucia, there's also the ARC program that started yesterday. There's seminars, dinners, cocktail parties, Happy Hours, and so on and so forth. We already had our ARC safety check done yesterday, you would be proud of us. And so that you don't worry too much about us during the crossing, here are some of our safety measurements:

• Life jackets for everybody including spray hood, tether, crotch strap, light, whistle etc.; 
• Jack lines on board to use with the tethers; 
• First Aid Kit;
• Raymarine life tag for the night watch to wake everybody up in case of a man overboard (MOB) - and for Chester; 
• ResQLink and SeaLink for Rolf and me (personal locator beacons); 
• MOB Lifesling with whistle and light;
• MOB pole with ring, whistle, drogue and light; 
• Liferaft for 8 people; 
• Grab bag with emergency water, flares etc.;
• 6 normal fire extinguishers plus two automatic ones in the engine compartments plus one behind the electric panel and one in the battery compartment; 
• Fire blanket;
• Rigging cutter;
• High power search lights;
• All kinds of flares;
• Emergency tiller;
• Storm drogue;

and so on...
And don't forget, we'll have a doctor on board as well (Richard). I think we are very well equipped!

Our Atlantic Crossing will start on Nov 25 at 12:30pm Las Palmas time. We will not only have our usual SPOT on board to send you location notifications via this blog, you will also be able to follow our course on the ARC web site, details on that will follow.

Nov 1 - 4: Exploring Morocco

We spent four great days exploring a very small part of Morocco. Kazaio crew, Rolf and I rented a car with a driver, what a great way to move around! We went to Fes first, where we also hired a guide to show us around. We stayed at a traditional Moroccon home, called Riad, and had dinner at a semi-private, family-run restaurant. Great food!
The second day we continued to Meknes via Ifrane. Ifrane was weird, as the whole city looks like a town in Switzerland - well almost, I guess... the style of the buildings anyway. We couldn't find accommodation - our driver turned out to have no sense of direction (and no GPS), so we continued on to Meknes. What a lucky move! We stayed in another Riad (Riad Lahboul), run by a British-Moroccon couple. Had the best food in all of Morocco right here as they luckily served dinner. And what an outstanding building! Very traditional. And as a special treat, the couple, both musicians, gave a little private concert one night. On our last morning, we explored the Medina of Meknes - the nicest one we have been to, relatively clean, well put together and just fun to explore - from the smelly butchers' stalls where they cut a cow's head in half (yuck!) to the stalls offering spices, or olives or sweets of all kinds, to the clothes, yarn, ceramic and shoe stalls. Luckily, none of us suffered from Montezuma's revenge, something to be expected as we were told. Though very interesting, the trip was also tiring and we were all happy to get back to the boat for some well deserved rest and home cooking. Nevertheless, we felt like we had spent at lest a week, so much did we see, and it was nice to be on "vacation" away from the boat for a change.
In the end, it was too far to go to the desert and we only saw the mid-Atlas, which wasn't all that exciting, so we actually should come back for a longer visit. Maybe we will.
Today, we spent one more day at Sale/Rabat and will head out with the high tide tomorrow at 6 am, going towards Lanzarote, a three nights-trip.

Fes' Medina - between 9,000 and 12,000 little alleys - believed
to be the largest contiguous car-free urban area in the world

Those Medina alleys can get pretty narrow...

Tannery in Fes

Tannery in Fes

Meknes market - Meknes was capital of Morocco in the
17th to 18th century

Meknes Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, who is noted as one
of the greatest figures in Moroccan history (not only because
of his alleged 888 children)

Meknes market

Private concert by Simon and Mouna
at the Meknes Riad Lahboul - check out their
web site www.riadlahboul.com to see their lovely place

Surprising Moroccan scenery - so green!!!

Volubilis, a partly excavated Roman city,
 developed from the 3rd century BC onwards

Volubilis

Volubilis

Hand made mosaic tables

Pictures

Crossing the Gibraltar traffic separation zone  - it was uncomfortable, with 3 knots current
against us and 30 knots of wind from behind. Even though the waves were not large, they were
close together and steep. Not much fun!  

Waiting for the pilot boat to take us to Rabat Customs and Immigration. We were in famous company:
Distant Shores II in the background - a Canadian couple known for their Sailing Adventure TV Series
(www.distantshores.ca)

Following the pilot boat up the river

Exploring Sale and Rabat - a different way of displaying meat....

Having lunch at the market

Gorgeous displays of fresh herbs - among other stalls that sold leather shoes, jewellery, spices
clothing and more.

Rabat/Sale, Morocco

We have left Europe and are heading to the Gran Canary Islands in big steps. Those big steps found a planned halt in Rabat on the Moroccan coast due to heavy wind forecasts. We fear (or hope?) to be stuck here for a week, weather dictates. Didn't quite expect so much rain as we had yesterday, the desert is close after all. Regardless, Kazaio's crew and I explored the Medinas of Sale and Rabat, enjoying the sweet peppermint tea at the river before heading back to the boats in a taxi, soaking wet. Today, we will decide what we do next. Is there time to explore the interior of Morocco, or will the weather change so that we should stay put and take the boats further south ASAP? We'll see.

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“Towards” and not “To” – A lesson learned

On a sailboat your have to keep a log book in which you enter relevant information about your voyages. Logbook entries supposed to be titled as  going from “Towards” and not “To”? When sailing you never know what happens. So it has become customary to speak and title the logs “Towards” and not “To”. No all printed log book publishers know of this custom though. The logbook we received from our broker with Next Life use the term “To”.

The weather may require a change in your plans, or technical problems may force you to look for another harbor. Today’s weather forecasts are reliable enough to make it less of an issue for short trips of up to 3 days.  However, during the times with no real weather forecast these customs were established. Recently, a sailor in an British magazine wrote about his experiences, and that on occasion he forgot the “towards” and went by the “to”, only to find that he put his boat and the live of his crew in danger.

Our story of changing “Towards” - or Next Life's Odyssey 

We had struggled this whole trip from April on to be at the pick up and drop off locations for our several sets of guests at specific times. Our departure from Les Sables was delayed because of a really bad spring. It was bad enough for a British sailing magazine to dedicate a four-page article on it, and on the jet stream which kept sending low after low south when it was supposed to keep them further north.  So we had to delay several times the arrival of Silke's dad, who was joining us for the crossing of the Bay of Biscay and beyond. Our delayed departure from Les Sables meant that our guests joining us in Malaga had to change their flights. Then we had to make it to Mallorca for their departure. Pressing on under engine up the Spanish coast, mostly against the wind and waves, made it so uncomfortable that some of our guests decided to abandon ship early and fly home from a different location.

Petra, Silke’s sister, was brave enough to stay on. We tried to make it from Ibiza to Palma for Petra’s return flight a day before her departure. About 5 miles after leaving the protection of Ibiza Island the waves got really bad. Also our friend Gonzalo called me from Mallorca to report that the easing winds in my earlier forecast had been replaced with force 9 (41+ knots) near Mallorca during the time of our estimated arrival. When the next breaking wave on the beam made Next Life appear to stand on her ears, we decided to turn back and run for cover.

Petra searched the Internet for options to change her flight, use a ferry or a local flight to make it to her plane in Palma on time. In the mean time I got weather forecasts from several sources and convinced Petra that the next day really looked better. In deed we had a good crossing.

Costa Concordia - not "To" but "Towards"

For our next guest, Andrea, we got wiser and planned to make it towards our next destination early. Good we did that as a leaking water maker forced us to spend several days in and unplanned harbor to wait for the new part from the US. Because of further delays with the repair I took the water maker out of the boat and left it with the service center. We continued to Rome where we rented a car and drove back up the coast to pick up the fixed water maker a few days later.

We dropped Andrea and picked up Kim in Rome. We had planned continuing down the Italian coast, but our wind instruments still did not work, even though we had just received a new mast head unit. So we did a 180 degree turn and went all the way to Hyres on the French Riviera with Kazaio to try for a third time to have our wind instrument fixed. Hyres has one of the largest Lagoon dealer and Raymarine installer. I am glad we did repair it there, as it has been working ever since.  (Update: I looked at the instruments 5 minutes after I wrote this and no wind readings. Luckily, after restarting all instruments the wind readings are back. Do they want to tell me something?)

Having learned from past experiences we left Corsica rather early to make it to Corfu. for our next guests.  When we arrived in Corfu we where exhausted from making it to all the previous appointments, so we decided to change their travel plans. 

The Schönwalds

When the Schoenwalds arrived we proposed to them that they would have to take a ferry from a convenient island in the Cyclades to Crete for their return flight. We felt we would not want to make the long trip from Corfu to Crete in two weeks, and drop of Kim in Athens just a few days later.

At the same time we told the Arbingers, our September guests, to change their arrival airport. We had made plans to pick them up in Rhodes and drop them in Catania on Sicily two weeks later. After a series of emails they changed their arrival from Rhodes to Santorini in the Cyclades. We thought we where all set now.

Next Life's Meltemi Odyssey

As it turned out this year's Meltemi – the summer north wind in the Cyclades – was blowing like mad and often for a full week with no break. We got storm locked in Naousa on Paros. For a few days we could not even cross the little bay in our dinghy to get into town, neither did the ferry boats run to the beach near us. A nice spot to be locked in though. Kim even learned to wake board.

Kim's first wake board lesson

When we finally did get into town, all ferries to Crete were sold out. Can you believe it? Well, school started the next week in Germany and probably in other EU countries as well and everybody was leaving the islands. A mad rush followed to book a ferry the dame day to Piraeus (north), a hotel there for over night, then a ferry to Crete (south), with another hotel there. We have to thank the Schoenwalds for taking on such an odyssey through the Greek island, on what I am sure were crowded ships with not place to sit, on voyages that measure in 10ths of hours.

Instead of sailing to Athens against the Meltemi to drop off Kim, we decided to just sail one Island north to Mykonos. From there Kim and I took a flight to Athens, while Silke and the pets stayed in Mykonos.  We got to see the Acropolis and the Plaka.

Kim at the Acropolis

Even air travel is not without “Towards” effects. Kim’s flight was delayed for 14 hours. I had booked my flight back to Mykonos 30 minutes before Kim’s departure. It should have worked great as for the international flight we were at the airport 3 hours before scheduled departure. My local flight only required me to go through security only 30 minutes before departure. Well, the long line up caused by rebooking so many people caused me to have to leave Kim in the care of a nice Greek couple with two grand children in the line up. Kim was put up in a hotel and arrived almost a day late in Victoria. Two weeks later she got stuck in Vancouver on her flight to Tokio for a full day due to a medical emergency with a passenger.

In the mean time Silke was sitting out a storm in Mykonos.

After Mykonos we went back to Naousa and got storm bound for several days again! After a few days we dared to leave our anchorage and start heading south toward Santorini for the Arbingers. The fight north out of the bay against the steep waves and maneuvering between little rocks and islands to get some shelter on an otherwise lee shore was not fun at all. It felt like someone was under the boat pounding it with a sledgehammer every 5 seconds. Spray was coming over the boat all the time. At one point Silke and I got totally drenched by solid water on the fly bride about 3 meters above the water. Boy, where we glad when we could point the bow down wind and get the waves from the stern. Three reefs in the main and genoa was all we dared to carry with winds gusting over 40 knots in the acceleration zone between Paros and Paxos islands.

Waves pound Next Life

Santorini was a challenge to find a suitable anchorage and we spend over 4 hours going from spot to spot. Next day we picked up the Arbingers and did some sight seeing. We then told them that making it to Catania in time for their return flight would be highly unlikely. We decided that we look for a return flight from one of the Cyclades islands or Athens, depending on where we will end up. 

Santorini

When the weather forecast looked like less wind, we started going towards the island of Anafi, east of Santorini. Well this excursion did not last long. The waves became so big and and steep on the beam that we got scared and turned back toward Santorini. Having given up on our excursion east we decided to get closer to Athens and send them on a ferry to meet their flight there. With some more rough weather passages under engine against the wind we made it to Adamas on the island of Milos. This is where the Arbingers left by ferry and this would also be our jump off point two days later for the start of our return trip through the Mediterranean. But that is another story.