At Union, the 27/1, the day after Henriks departure we were advised, by Tiger the owner of the mooring boy (60 EC$=150DKK / night), to move to another boy closer to the reef. We did so and got a fantastic view over the kite surfers playground and there were lesser swells.
Finally Alexandra, with the whole close family on board, left Rodney Bay for a sailing-trip to St Vincent and the Grenadines the 20 of December. First we stopped at Soufriere with the spectacular mountains Petit Piton 2460 and Gross Piton 2619. (3h38min,17.05NM, SOG avg. 4.64 max 6,75 kts, TWS avg.11.33 max22.20).
The next day21/12 we were of to St Vincent island and Wallilabou anchorage bay. (6h15min, 38,71NM, SOG avg4,29 max8,74 TWS avg9,82 ax29,50kts) Here you have to drop your anchor and also give a line to a local who then tog it to a tree or a rest of a bridge or anything on land. They want to have money for that job. They also live big on that the picture Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed here and have a little museum. We had an excellent dinner at the pink house by the dingy dock. Fish for the day was tuna.
The 27 of December we left Admiralty Bay and sailed south to the island Mystique, famous for its many star inhabitants. (2h41min, wind from SE, 12.47NM, SOG: avg. 3.77, max 6.26, TWS: avg.12.95kts, max 24.10kts). Here you had to pay a mooring fee for three nights EC$200 (500kr) even if we only stayed for two nights. The island is private owned and many rich and famous people, like Mick Jagger and Bruce Willis, own houses here. We got to see the estates on a taxi tour (not aloud to walk around freely on the island because privacy for the inhabitants are strongly cherished).
The 29 of December we sat a northerly course to Kingstown on the Island of St Vincent to clear out with customs and immigration. Because of big swells in the harbour we sailed around the corner to Buccament Bay and dropped the anchor. Lars and Maria took a taxi driven by Elvis who guided us around in Kingstown. After touring around the city visiting a closed immigration office because of demonstration, police station and customs that did not want to do there job, Elvis had to drive us to the airport and there order us to patiently wait in the car for our turn to clear out of St Vincent and the Grenadines for this time for a double price because of the late hour. It was a costly tour but interesting and a stop by the supermarket on the way back made it better. In the meantime there had been swimming in the bay and located a cave with a bat colony while we had bin away.
Next day (30/12) we all wake up with mosquito bite and unfortunately worst of was our beautiful little grandson. Now we had to hurry up to get to the popular Marigot Bay on St Lucia, our New Year place. (? NM SOG avg. max TWS avg. max).
We were lucky to get one of the last moorings in the beautiful bay. SY Bellafonte from Canada did not get a mooring the next day and had to go back to Rodney Bay and another ARC boat from GB had to drop the anchor further out.
New Year dinner were reserved at the cosiest restaurant and it was a good choice. We had a wonderful three course dinner after champagne on Alexandra, without the Queen Margretes speech despite many trials. Lars and I was even up dancing for a while. At 12:00 we were back on Alexandra and had a celebration of the knew year with a nice cava thank´s to Jørn and Sus. That was the last bottle with pearls for celebration. Thank you all for them.
We sailed up to Rodney Bay and anchored and the next day continued north to Fort de France Martinique to clear in and provisioning. Fort de France have a nice anchorage. Every morning the bay is filled up with local swimmers that sad bonjoure when they past by Alexandra.
Kristoffer had to fly home early 5/1-16 so we sailed to a bay close to the airport and from there we could get to the airport, by foot by walking threw the mangrove, very early in the morning. Thanks for the tip to the friendly Norwegian sailor in Las Palmas de Grand Canaria! We met a lot of joggers and bikers, in the early morning getting there exercise while it was not to hot.
On the 22 December we had a leg to the island Bequia and Admiralty Bay were we intended to stay over Christmas and we did stay there until the 27 of December. (apr. 3h, 14.9NM, SOG: avg. 4.78 and max 7.70, TWS 16.16 max 28.90 kts). We got a mooring and started to prepare for Christmas. My parents Christmas tree were folded out and Anne-Marie´s “kravlenisser” placed there and my mother in law’s hand-kraft were hanged up. The Christmas huts brought by Frederik and Jeanne were hanged up so we had a touch of Christmas aboard Alexandra. We had “risengrød” (rice porridge with cinnamon and sugar) made from long corned rice for 23/12 dinner, and that was fine. The porridge could be used for “risalamande” dessert on Christmas eve with chopped almonds, vanilla/sugar and “kirsebærssås” (cherry sous) from home but without crème that obviously is hard to get here. It tasted good. I have not seen whipping crème here yet. We had tasty chicken, marinated by Jeanne and grilled on the gas-grill on aft deck, for dinner. We were invited to have dinner with the other Danish people in Bequia but we wanted to be by our self on that evening. It was a very special Christmas having our first lovely grandchild with us.
At Christmas day we ordered a water taxi to transport us all to land and have a nice dinner at the hotel. When we should go back to Alexandra there were water taxi available but luckily a Norwegian sailor herd our pledge on channel 68 and came and fetched us. He sailed twice because we were so many. Lots of thanks to him!
Next day we all took a walk to beautiful Friendship bay where I and my two sons bathed in high waves. Beautiful resort were here but a little simpler living for the locals. I was bit by a dog on our way back to Admiralty bay but remembering that I have a fresh tetanus booster took the worries away. Bathing from the little beach in Admiralty Bay was good for rinsing the wound and little Oskar could come into the water testing the knew bathing ring.
We sailed back to St Lucia and Rodney Bay and the D pontoon, were we had a reservation. On the 18 of December al precipitant in the ARC and family were transported by mini buses to a sport arena for the price giving party. It was very hot there but the rum-punch helped. As placed on 4 position in our group we did not get a price but we fought that we did good sailingThe rest of our family, our eldest son Frederik, daughter in law Jeanne and our grandson Oskar arrives in Martinique 13 December 2015. The day after Lars, Maria and Kristoffer sail up to Anse Mitan, Martinique and fetch them.(35.18NM, 8:30h, SOG avg4.23 max8.24, TWS avg11.06 max18.40). We dropped anchor in Fort de France for a couple of days to make provisioning. Also Lars had to clear in and out with customs and immigration. He did that in the local chandelier and this was the only place we did not have to pay anything because it is EU. over the Atlantic ocean on 17 days and 10 hours with a maximum over 24 hours of 284 NM. It was a long and somewhat tedious ceremony but in the brake they served tapas and more to drink so we hold out. We did not leave empty-handed because Lars got a bottle of rum for having been net controller under the tour over the Atlantic Ocean.
Hilsen fra os ombord Alexandra. Alt godt efter 24 timer med knald på i kuling. Nu skinner solen og det går fint på spiled fok og rebet storsejl
Alt godt på Alexandra. Tre døgn 600 SM. SSB Radio virker perfekt. Lars styrede sin netgruppe i dag. N-C fandt lækage af saltvand og Jens og Lars fik gang i watermaker som lavede 120 L vand. Knus specielt til Frede Jeanne og Oskar
Spinnaker 1 up since early morning. Receiving mail works now. Getting SMS (Inge tak) and Grip files also. Two Gould mackerels for dinner yesterday. Al of us have gotten good 6 hours sleep over night.
Dejlig dag på Atlanten med morgen bad i havet, spillersejlads, farvel til spiler 1 efter lang rift, rugbrødsbagning, köttbullar med lingonsylt, skøn stjernehimmel.
Good day aboard Alexandra. Fixing pump problem fridges and freezer, bathing sunbathing, running the washing machine, fare winds to good winds in the afternoon when having guacamole made from the last avocado.
Fejrede at vi var halvvejs med foir gras og champanie den 2/12 kl 24! Nu styrbord halse, 20-25 knots og irriterende swells. Bølgerne gør det svært at bevæge sej rundt i båden og lave praktiske ting. Nu står solen op og tørrer op våde håndklæder mm (luge vask). Spiser godt. Vi har stadigvæk dejlige friske grønsager og frugt. Skinken der hænger akter ud bliver nu brugt til at give ekstra smag på forskellig vis.
Friday morning at six a clock UTC the sun goes up and another beautiful day on the Atlantic can be expected. Yesterday was cloudy and humid and the 4 m waves made it difficult to stear. Now we have about 1000 nautical miles to go so 5 days at least before we reach Sant Lucia.
Skøn morgen efter heftig nat med vores første squall i 18-20 ms. Det blev en rodet nat med alternativ vagt orden. I går blev der repareret på fresh water pumpe af Peter, badet på badeplatformen, serveret æggekage af Bænni og entr’e cotte med bagte rodfrugter og rødkål salat med appelsin/æble af undertegnet. Nu kan det ikke gå hurtigt nok til St Lucia og det kæmpes om en tredje plads til det sidste!
A good day on Alexandra after a not so good night when the asymmetric spinnaker from top to bottom on the forward edge was gone apart. All crew on deck to get down the spinnaker and into a bag. Today we have sailed with spinnaker 2 and made good speed also during the last night on this long leg we hope. Reading about St Lucia, baking bread, washing cloves, bathing, successful celestial navigation (Jens) and relaxing were there time to.
With main and spinnaker 2 we are heading for Rodney Bay on Santa Lucia with approximately 53 Nm, with a speed of 6-8 knots and a wind of 9-12 kn. (5-7 ms) with a temperature of 33 degrees in the shadow. We can not wait for the rum punch on the beach!!!
We made it crossing the Atlantic Ocean!
We have now got our Yellow brick tracker installed. You can follow us across the Atlantic on the following address:
http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/eventfleetviewer.aspx
We are in the ARC, not in the ARC+
We will start our transport Atlantiskepassage on the 22 of november
When ready to leave Marina de Santa Cruz, early in the morning, we called the harbor and the night guard came to the boat and exchanged the harbor key cards to EUR. Good service. Upwind sailing most of the day took us to Gran Canaria. We moored at the pontoon at the reception because it was Sunday and no harbor attendants around. We took a nice walk around the harbor and looked at the big boats mooring on the east key, Dique Este.
The next morning we were ordered to move to the R pontoon, mooring 8, on the north key, Contradique Norte. We had to very intense weeks trying to make Alexandra as good as possible before our good friends Lene and Bjarne arrived. Empty aft cabins, making drawers for the galley, washing clothes cleaning up etcetera.
Lars used a day to try to fix the outboard Yamaha but it was Bjarne that fixed it later on. We were lucky to spend some time with the Swedes from EOS and got a lot of good advice from the to very experienced, once around the world, sailor. Also time to join the other Scandinavian sailor at the sailors bay (bar) every Friday at 20 h. Here we got a lot of advice from very competent sailors some of them who had sailed single-handed around the world.
A tour home to Denmark to see the family and friends (not enough time) and empty our house, while Lene and Bjarne took care of Alexandra on the best way, have we also done.
Last week we had a very appreciated visit from Sweden by my brother Stefan end his wife Affi. We enjoyed bathing at the very nice Playa de Canteras and meals and drinks at restaurants and on Alexandra.
We have made check in at ARC office, helicopter rescue demonstration, sad goodbye to ARC+ (we miss them, especially the Odyssey crew) on a party arranged by the city, have been through security check (had to by another radar reflector to our aluminium boat!).
We have also enjoyed our first sundowner with the ARC. Not forget to mention our tour with the dingy to the start of the ARC+. It was a lot of fun. Now we look forward to have the family here soon and also the “pro sailor crew” arriving at the 14, 15 and 19/11!
The sailing leg to Tenerife, one of the Canaries island, was not ideal from the start because the Grib file sad there will not be much wind. It did not fit in with our plan to stay longer on Madeira and there were no chance for getting better winds the next days. We had some wind though in the beginning, so we could sail fast with asymmetric spinnaker and main. After passing the islands outside Madeira the good wind disappeared but we kept on sailing for sail during the first night. After that we tried once in a while combining motor sailing with sails until we reached the coast of Tenerife and got some wind to sail on for a a couple of hours. We had sailed about 22 hour for sail and 27 for the engine. When mooring at the pontoon bridge we realised that it was a long time since we arrived to a marina during daytime and found that it was very nice. We had sailed for about 50 hours and 264.7 Nm on 14-16/9-2015.
After relaxing the first day we rented a car and took a tour up the mountain Teide, 3900 meter. The last volcanic eruption was in 1906. It was a fabulous nature experience we would not have missed. The pine-tree forest and the different colours of the earth, cliffs, and fauna al the way up the mountain.
The last day was spent waking around the city Santa Cruz.
Saturday the 19/9 we stated of for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, our final destination on the first part of, what we hope will be our, around the world sailing tour.