A new decade, a new era

We're starting the celebration of the new year with a bottle of Spain's finest. We're utterly convinced that this upcoming decade will be the best in our lives and we're sure that goes for all of you. Happy new year to all of our dear readers and have fun tonight wherever you are in the world!! Love from Canaries / Taru and Alex

Burning skies

The sky is on fire. We're just about to have dinner with a light wind, some luminescent plankton and a purple-pinkish shimmer around our boat as the only peaceful company tonight. See you tomorrow in Gran Canaria. /T

Updates

When hearing and reading about other peoples Atlantic crossing this year, we are glad that we'll have a late approach for it. The tradewinds were late to establish this year and many of the people we've been in touch with or read about in their blogs, have suffered from seasickness due to poor winds and the rolling of large seas and many seem to have experienced their crossing as a very uncomfortable one. Our original plan was to cross the ocean in early December but as of many unfinished boat projects, we're about one month late to the original schedule. Good like that, and the new plan for the ocean crossing is set to begin after New Year. There are still a couple of things we need to complete on the boat and also a couple of packages to receive and we're scheduling ourselves for a departure towards Martinique on the 10th of January. Let's then all hope for the best and pray for the tradewinds to be working it like they should - and a landfall is wished to be made about 3 weeks thereafter - where we'll be good in time for meeting up a couple of friends on the Caribbean side. Cannot wait for getting started with the crossing, but also we're glad to have made the decision to await for a perfect time to get it all started instead of stressing us through this first part of the tour. By the way, Marina Rubicon where we're staying at the moment has been an excellent stop for us. Peaceful, clean, fresh, great service and good facilities. The price a bit high (23 Euros/night) but over all an excellent marina. We're just about to leave for Gran Canaria and Las Palmas this afternoon where we'll make a quick stop before heading to the Southern parts of that very same island. 

New Year is now due to be celebrated in Gran Canaria, we have no plans whatsoever on how to spend NYE, but I'm sure we'll figure something fun out tomorrow when we arrive. Christmas and New Years celebrations have not been high up on our priority list for this year. But at least we have the fridge full of Champagne for a new years toast. /Taru

Photo from the Atlantic beach of Rabat, Morocco.

Cabins and Swedish candy

Some of you were interested in having a look into our cabin .. so this it is. Not very extraordinary but oh so cozy. This is where I'll spend the rest of the night with a movie and candy* as my PMS doesn't allow me to do much else without getting in a bad mood. Good night. /T

* Stina my dear, would you please be so kind to bring some Swedish sweets when you come to visit next time! Everything is finished by now and I would die for some djungelvrål, sura nappar, dumle and ahlgrens bilar mmmmm...

Surf in Lanzarote

I have always known how important surfing was to Alex for about 15 years ago or so. When he was a surf teacher in Biarritz on the French Atlantic coast and when he was traveling the world from Mexico to South Africa to Angola and Bali, Portugal and the coasts of Morocco in search for the best waves, but I had never seen it myself as yet - and as it was such a distant image for me. As I never seen it IRL, I had also hard to picture him as the surfer he obviously once was - even though I've seen some old photos of it. He's been mumbling about getting that board in the water once we get to warmer waters like the Pacific or such, while I at the same time have felt his worries for being a bit too old and rusty, and with time I have also somehow thought that yeah, he probably is a bit too old and rusty to get it going on the big rolls. But so today I finally got to see him working that board for real for the first time in my life and while sitting some hundred meters away, prepared with my tele-objective, I could slowly start to realize the deep importance the surfing have had on him - and obviously still does in a nostalgic, deep way and I felt such strength of seeing him excellently maneuvering the board after such long time. Obviously a lot more stiff than I can imagine him in his 20's, but still he had the flow. 

For some odd reason I even started to cry for fucks sake, when I saw him taking off on a two meters left. Two meters (6,5 foot) is really nothing when it comes to serious surfing but it did made me proud to see my handsome man making some action after such long time. Is that the second you know that you never loved anyone higher - when you're almost 30 and you begin to cry when watching the love of your life doing something he really loves from the bottom of his heart or is that just a sign of that human beings (me) gets more pathetic with age? Seriously. Either way I had an amazing time watching the show and Alex was obviously really happy to have found himself some good waves again. Can't wait to learn this sport myself and I'm glad I have the perfect teacher for it.

Also I definitely need to get a good waterproof camera/video cam so that I can shoot better pics and videos of Alex (and maybe even me) surfing on our tour around the world. This is something we cannot miss out on I'm telling you.

Safety equipment part 1

What was that fashionable bracelet I had on the last picture, you might ask. So I'll tell you: It is actually not a thing with a fashionable purpose, more with a surviving one. This wrist transmitter from Navicom is connected to our radio which is connected to our GPS/Chart plotter and in case any of us would fall overboard, this will transmit a distress signal to the radio and GPS. This armband is for us a necessity during night watches, as it will awake the person sleeping if the one of us two on night watch would fall out of the boat. Obviously we will in every way possible avoid falling overboard in the first place (life vest attached to lifelines) - but would it somehow happen - this armband will immediately send out a high sounding distress alarm awakening every living person onboard and at the same time indicate on our chartplotter exactly where the person fell out and we will have a higher chance of finding the person in the water. One of those security things we find invaluable for our trip on the seven seas. /T

Lanzarote!

We had a peaceful Christmas night on the sea with 20-25 knots of wind coming from the NW, right on the beam. 240 nm was quickly done in 39 hours. This is how it looked when arriving to the islands this morning- It is so hot over here, one could almost mistake these islands to be Caribbean ones. Sorry for the bitchy-early-morning-look on my face but that's how it goes when trying to avoid getting too much sun in the eyes while balancing with a bony ass trying not to fall over board and at the same time dying for getting back into the cockpit to enjoy Christmas breakfast with my baby.

Anyway, now we're finally here! I'll speak to you later. /T

Goodbye Morocco

The lunch is eaten (grilled turkey with rice cooked in garlic and red pepper).

The dessert is enjoyed (my delicious nutella cheescake - will post the recipe here one day if you'd like to try it).

The autopilot is repaired for now.

Rods and reels are prepared. Planning on catching some big mamas this time. Will keep you posted.

The wash is dried.

And we're ready to leave Africa and head towards the Canaries, por fin. It was a very pleasant stop, but now we're more than done with Morocco for this year and this time around. We will spend our Christmas eve on the ocean battling some 3-4 meter (9-13 foot) seas from the NW that are forecasted for the next 48 hours, but rather that than having to wait here for a longer time. We're ready to move on and so is our boat. Have a beautiful Christmas eve tomorrow if we do not speak before then. Will keep you updated from the sea when I have the chance. / T&A

Chilling in Agadir

Like I said earlier, we haven't done much else than relaxing lately. Still waiting for the gale to move on up North so we can leave towards the Canary islands and get on that Atlantic crossing asap. We're dying to get started with it. Until then we'll continue with what we do best right now. Chilling out, eating, surfing (in dirty water), sleeping and reading... we're getting a bit restless over here yeah, but what to do. /T

The thing

So this is the piece of steinless steel that got damaged. It's called tiller bracket, maybe? Anyhow it is this thing, of two, that is mounted around the stock (is it called stock?) My vocabulary for mechanics and technicalities in English is as poor as my interest in the same. And Alex word knowledge in these type of things are mostly limited to French words. Luckily we have you guys, all of the experts out there, who have taught me a couple of things already so please inform me of what this is as well, will you. Anyway, words are just words and luckily Alex is an expert when it comes to the actual work around them - mounting, installing, fixing etc.

As you can see, this thing which earlier was ripped apart is now welded back together (although very poorly done by the Moroccan workshop we left it to but that's another story) and hopefully it will hold together for a while. /Taru

Dolphins

Tried to put this one up on our channel on Youtube but the quality sucks (even more) once uploaded over there. I can't seem to understand why I cannot get the video uploaded online in as good quality as it is in my computer. Any video experts here who can help me with this?

Once again I'm sorry for my shaky filming, definitely have to work on getting more stabile with the camera. Can't blame the wine this time. /T

Christmas times

In the last two days we have done as little as possible. We've had some walks around the city, we've been eating a lot, sleeping late in the mornings, read a couple of books and simply enjoyed a little vacation from the vacation we're on. It's Christmas soon, we just figured out. Not that any of us are particularly in love with Christmas anyway, but it gives a cozy feeling knowing that people are in their holiday spirits and together with the people they love. These moments are the ones we miss our other loved ones more than ever and we wish and believe that they all have a beautiful Christmas and NYE in their parts of the world. Special Christmas greetings goes today to Sarah and Alexis Bryant, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Make sure to make the best out of the upcoming new year!

/Taru and Alex

One night in Casablanca

Sorry for my shaky video recording. I blame the wine..

Obviously we had to take a tour to Rick's Café in Casablanca, a restaurant-piano bar recreated with inspiration from the mythical bar of Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in the Casablanca movie from 1942. Built in a beautiful Moroccan courtyard style mansion, where Kathy Kriger, the American owner, has her home just above the restaurant, just like Rick in the movie.

We had a drink with Kathy who told us the story about the place and her life and projects in Morocco. She is a former American diplomat and entrepreneur who fell in love with Morocco and decided to leave the government and the administrative world and instead opened up the legendary Rick's bar in the heart of Casablanca. The place was established seven years ago and have naturally received a fantastic welcoming from both visitors and locals alike. Definitely interesting that an American women, of all, are able to establish such a project in Morocco and tells quite something about the modern position and tolerance of the country.

The architecture and the interior reminds utterly of the settings in the movie with the balconies overlooking the courtyard, the white stone walls and curved arches, heavy wooden doors, the central spiral staircase and the old piano in the middle of the restaurant. To give a final touché reminiscent of the movie: the song As time goes by is frequently played and was sounding from the piano just when we entered the restaurant. Giving an instant flashback to the classical film.

Soulful live music with a mix of 40's and 50's jazz and French chansons was played by the house pianist Issam Chabaa (to the right on the photo with Kathy and me) at the 1930's Pleyel piano along with his musicians - a repertoire and feel which was above any expectations. Definitely a delightful dinner accompanied by an excellent musical performance and well worth the extra journey for. If you're about to visit, make sure to book a table in advance as the place tends to be very busy. This is a place we'll definitely get back to when in Casablanca again. /Taru

Still in Morocco

We're very glad that we got this autopilot issue happening now and not on the long ocean passage. The joint or link or whatever it's called that links the autopilot and the rudder, is left for reparation. The whole piece of steel got teared apart by the waves and it needs to get welded to get back in shape. We hope that this will be enough of reparation on it for now (it's a Raytheon ST6001+ autopilot, if you wonder).

Marina d' Agadir is a very commercial but OK marina to stay in, although we would love to get going and head more West. If we get our things sorted out here properly and soon, we might leave tomorrow for Lanzarote, if not, we will have to wait out another gale which is rolling in over this area on Tuesday. /Taru

Photo from our aft cabin/bedroom, very Moroccan - or thousand and one night, if you prefer.

Sleepless nights and damaged electronics

The last post was the first one written and sent from the sea with our Thrane & Thrane satellite unit. And this is another one. I hope that the quality of these posts are OK despite the fact that I cannot connect properly to the blog interface and also I had to lower the quality of the pictures a bit so it goes faster to send them over - because as you might know; connecting to the Internet through a satellite connection is still ridiculously expensive. Also I would like to inform you that it might be hard for us to answer comments and emails from the sea, we'll catch up on it all once we're on land again.

The second night on our passage from Rabat was a bit of a painful one. Alex felt sick from something he had eaten so I had to stay on watch for the most of the night. I'm sure he could have taken one watch if he absolutely had to, but I wanted to save him from his pain with a long nights sleep. The wind was a steady 20-23 knots all night long and we literally flew over the ocean towards our destination with an average speed of 6.5 knots. Unfortunately we had some problem to get the windpilot working correctly that day so we needed to depend on the electronic autopilot. The wind increased in the morning to above 25 knots and shortly after we got also our autopilot dysfunctional due to huge impact from the larger waves (the link between the rudder and the autopilot got teared apart). These little steering problems forced us to stand by the helm most of the day yesterday. It was a slightly uncomfortable ride in 26-28 knots of wind and 2-3 meter rollers smashing against our beam. Later on we noticed a change in the forecast and apparently the wind were due to kick up even further in the evening from force 5-6 to 6-7 so we made the grown up decision of ducking into the port of Essaouira for the night. Safer like that. With one man sick and the other one who didn't have a proper sleep for around 30 hours we wouldn't have made much of a comfortable passage. And on top of that having to stay by the helm for 50 more hours. No thanks. C'est la vie, nothing beautiful in life comes without a little bit of pain, right. And how boring wouldn't a painless life be when I think about it.

After a 12 hour ultra comfortable sleep in the bustling and very interesting fishing harbor of Essaouira, we left with a bit better mindset and little bit more energy and we are now underway towards Agadir where we'll stay until we get the autopilot working again. At least we have solved the windvane issue for now.

So these last days we have got five electronic things damaged so far. The autopilot, the SPOT tracker, the 220 W power supply for the fridge, the Mac charger AND the Camera charger (all those three last ones due to power surge in the Rabat Marina. ((Is it called surge? I have no possibilities to check it from here so forgive me if it has another word. What I mean is that there was a huge electricity failure on our pontoon and all our things got over-charged)).) Thank god we still have some equipment left!

Luckily I still have the other camera working, although there is no video function on it. Hopefully we're able to find a charger for the new camera in the Canaries. In Rabat they had the charger for Mac luckily, but not for the large camera. And when talking of electronics, if anyone know of anyone who works at the Garmin International, please do let me know - I have something I would like to discuss with them and I can't seem to find my way through to the correct people on their website.

Over and out. /Taru

Day 2 crossing Morocco-Canaries

Hi there,

First I want to inform you that our SPOT tracker has stopped working for some odd reason and you should not freak out if you can't find ourprogress on the Spotwalla website. That machine have driven us crazyalready so we're thinking of getting rid of it for good. The thoughtof throwing it in the water is oh so tempting. Maybe I'll wait untilwe get into deeper waters so I know it will be gone down as far aspossible.

We are now around 120 NM from Rabat and we're on our 24th hour of sailing towards the Canaries.

The wind was light and made for a comfortable evening ride last night. We were wonderfully accompanied by a couple of dolphin families on two different occasions and I recorded a video with the amazing creatures which I will put up here for you to view once we're on land again. I would say that dolphins nowadays are as common to us as maybe ducks orcats are to most landlubbers, but nonetheless they still take our breath away when the graciously dance around our boat. Yesterday we also had the chance to witness them making another type of play that we haven't seen before, one where they jump straight up from the water and land hard on their sides one after another - whatever that trick is called. I have a bit of that show on the video as well. Shortly after the first dolphin appearance, we caught our first fish, or only fish so far, a 4-5 kilo bluefin tuna as shown on picture which we first enjoyed grilled in the night after sunset and today as a sushi lunch. Tasted like heaven, just like it always does when preparing fresh fish straight off the boat. The night sailing went pretty smoothly, we shifted watches after each two hour and around 9.30 am we were both upfor breakfast in the early morning rise. Our Sailomat windpilot works really good and we're glad to not have to use the electric autopilot as much as it's sucking down the batteries fast. Also we're glad thatthe wind has been pretty stable around 15-22 knots so that we do not have to run the engine at all. Now around 500 miles more to go and if we keep on like this we'll probably land on one of the islands on Saturday lunch or so. Ciao. /T

Leaving Morocco

We're half dead today after only been sleeping for 4-5 hours - although it was much worth it. We hired a car and a driver last night for taking the opportunity to experience Casablanca - at least for a couple of hours. There were apparently no yacht marina established for smaller vessels in Casablanca at the moment so we had to take the roads to get there. It was a lovely night on one really amazing restaurant which I will show you pictures from later on. Now we're getting ready to leave Bouregreg and Morocco and head West towards the Canaries. Weather looks good with a calm sea and light wind and we're expecting to land on one of the islands in maybe four days from now. I don't know how our satellite connection will work along the way but I'll keep you posted if I have the chance to get connected. This will be our longest passage together so far and it is good that we're well prepared with loads of food, fresh veggies and fruits, tons of good books, good music in the ipod's, new sails and perfect weather. All we need really. See you on the other side. /Taru

Oriental dancing

I have been trying to find a proper Moroccan cabaret for days now. You know: a smokey, reddish gem where you can smoke water-pipe and admire voluptuous females dancing in their bright colored costumes full of coins and bells making for a rhythmic musical symmetry. But as soon as I or we have asked anyone for suggestions on where to go to experience this, the Moroccans have looked at us like we just were saying something similar to "excuse me, do you know of any place where we can find naked, dead people and dance around them in circles" - you know that kind of look. They are really religious over here and these kind of things are not OK, at least not to talk about in the public room. So the search for an innocent belly dancing place have came to an end, at least in this city as I have no time to run around and look for it myself, through town. Therefore I figured, just like in many areas and situations in life, that I have to take the command to get things done, as oneself is the only one to trust if you want to get things done properly - so I bought some sexy oriental clothes and am now planning on giving my man a private belly dance show, at least. I really love the greenish color of this hip scarf, makes such a nice contrast to tanned skin. You think he's gonna like it? /T

On Caos last night

One of my old childhood/school friends that I haven't seen for ten years showed up here in Rabat yesterday with the boat* of his friends in which they three are sailing around the world. What a lovely surprise! We invited them over for drinks and shared sailing stories and other stories all night long. Roger, one of the boat owners, is Finnish just like me and they brought the famous lakkalikööri** with them. One of the best things from my home country. Mmmm delicious. Not for my head today though. Alex is one lucky man who doesn't drink alcohol for sure. /T

* Allegro 27
**Liqueur made of the wonderful cloudberries - which you'll find tons of in the cold Finnish forests.