Blog

We land on June 29 in the morning at London Gatwick and take the train to Southampton. Through the window we see Europe passing by: raked gardens without wrecked cars or other junk in them, good roads without potholes; everything looks very neat compared to the Caribbean. The transport ship appears to have sailed faster… Continue reading Homewards…

On May 3, the alarm goes off at 6:00 am and we sail out of Deshaies Bay at around 7:00 am on our way to Antigua, some 40 nautical miles north. It will be our last crossing, because as mentioned before, the Pantera will be shipped to Europe from Antigua. With a lot of current… Continue reading Antigua `Land of sea and sun’

So, on April 9 we sail from Dominica to Guadeloupe, or to be more precise the Îsles de Saintes, just below the main island of Guadeloupe. The wind is again strong, but luckily we don’t have to sail close to the wind, but a little lower, which makes it a bit less uncomfortable. After about… Continue reading Guadeloupe

It was of course wonderful to have family visits on Martinique! Enough to catch up and we also sailed with the five of us and stayed at anchor overnight, so that the visitor can experience a bit of what it is like on board. Awesome! Martinique is, as previously described, super French and there are… Continue reading A little more about Martinique….. and then on to Dominica

I think everyone can imagine the concept of “sailing in the Caribbean”, including us before we left. Blue sky, blue water, nice breeze, then hop a bit from island to island. And that is partly true, but only partly: luckily, we still have something to complain about…. The Caribbean is in the trade wind at… Continue reading Sailing the Caribbean and visiting Martinique

It was not easy, but for various reasons and circumstances we have been forced to make a major decision: we are not going to sail back to Europe ourselves. Instead, we will have the boat transported on a freighter from the Caribbean to Europe (around mid-May from Antigua to Southhampton to be precise). We fly… Continue reading Tough decisions…

Yes, and now Sant Vincent and the Grenadines. The 1st is the largest island and is the most northerly. The Grenadines are a number of small islands of which we will visit Union Island, Mayreau, the Tobago Cays, Canouan and Bequia before going to Saint Vincent. The islands are close to each other, so we… Continue reading Suriname…. Grenada with Carriacou…… and now St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Just an in-between-greeting from the Tobago Cays. We hate it here 😉 Click on the star to continue watching….

After a month of Suriname, we set course for Grenada on Monday 17 January at 9.00 am. Initially we wanted to go to Trinidad and Tobago, especially to see Tobago, but it is complicated and expensive to enter this country, so we decide to sail between the two islands on to Grenada. A crossing of… Continue reading From Suriname to….. Grenada

After the stopover on Isle du Salut it was time to set course for Suriname. A journey of 175 miles. In order to arrive at the right time at the outer buoy and estuary of the Suriname River, we left at the end of the afternoon. Along the way it was always a puzzle because… Continue reading Suriname

If you read through the previous blog post about THE crossing, you may get the idea that such a crossing isn’t really that much of a deal, that it’s easy and you’ll be on the other side before you know it. That is not quite the case. So, here’s some extra info about THE crossing… Continue reading THE crossing

The 1st 500 miles  We leave Friday December 3 around 1 pm from Mindelo where we have been for almost 14 days. The 1st week with family visits from Wageningen and the 2nd week while supplying for the crossing. More boats leave and we have ‘company’ of some other boats between Sao Vicente (the island… Continue reading Crossing to French Guyana / Suriname

We have arrived! It wasn’t champagne sailing (perhaps a bit of Martini-sailing, albeit “shaken ánd stirred” 😉), but that doesn’t matter anymore: we’re on the other side, we have crossed the ocean! Last night we dropped our anchor at the Iles du Salut of French Guiana. The bottle could be opened! From here we continue… Continue reading Champagne!

We finally left Pasito Blanco on Gran Canaria on Monday November 8 for the crossing to Cape Verde and arrive at Sal on Sunday evening November 14 after a crossing of 6 and a half days. It is already dark from about 6 o’clock, so we slowly approach the anchorage for the village of Palmeira… Continue reading Cape Verde “No Stress”

We stayed a bit longer in Gran Canaria than planned, also because we had to wait until our third future member Ingo had flown in. We expect the long crossings to be less difficult with the three of us. The boats of the ARC+ have now found themselves in Las Palmas. We visited Las Palmas… Continue reading Off to Cape Verde

Arriving at our final, most southern port on Lanzarote (Rubicon), we decide to slow down. We have constantly been busy planning the next steps, touring the islands, arranging shopping, etc. and we need a little less. We go to the beach for an afternoon, lie by the beautiful pool at the harbor, do some boat… Continue reading Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria

The crossing from Madeira to the Canary Islands started well: we were waved goodbye by two pilot whales who showed themselves quite close to us (no images, sorry, just like the sea turtle later in the trip), and we had a nice backstay wind (coming in diagonally from behind). We sailed past the Ilhas Desertas… Continue reading Luxury problems

After the anchorage at Porto Santo, we cross over to the big island of Madeira. We have anchored in Porto Santo nice and free, with a large number of Norwegian yachts around us where parents with children are apparently also busy crossing to the Caribbean (the ARC flag is flying on their boats; ARC =… Continue reading Lanzarote and looking back upon Madeira

So after the Portuguese west coast we arrive at the Portuguese Algarve. It provides gives a mix of experiences: coastal towns full of tourists, large expensive marinas, lots of entertainment, but also beautiful deserted bays and beautiful anchorages. And the latter makes you realize again why you are doing this… After the trip to Barcelona… Continue reading On to Madeira

Well Portugal……. It’s different from Spain, but what exactly? That is a bit difficult to say. Less dogs, more differences in appearance in people (blue eyes, people with obvious roots in one of the overseas territories of Portugal), the many mosaic tiles on the houses give streets a beautiful appearance. Also, less high-rise buildings. But… Continue reading Portugal

It has been a week and a half since we left Muros and are spending our last days in Spain. We are now quite idyllically at anchor in a bay in the Ria of Vigo (yes of Celta de Vigo of La Liga). It’s definitely summer here now with lots of sun but also some… Continue reading Spain for a little while longer…..

Yes, we also saw our first shark. And blue sharks too, according to Wikepedia “… from the family of requiem sharks (also known as predatory sharks, Carcharhinidae),the family responsible for most attacks on humans.” That sounds exciting and gives a nice headline above this story. But the content is only at the end of this… Continue reading Sharks!!

The arrival in A Coruña was a kind of milestone, but in our case it was somewhat split in two, because we had already “landed” in Cedeira the night before. But it was nice to have completed the crossing and to drink our 1st Spanish beer in the harbor and also eat some good Spanish… Continue reading Northern Spain

Well, the Bay of Biscay. Famous and infamous among seafarers. The weather can change quickly and because the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean rises in a short distance from a few kilometers deep to less than 150 meters (the continental shelf), the ocean swell can rise to dangerously steep waves. It is therefore wise to… Continue reading Biscay

We leave on Tuesday, July 13 at 8 am, after a last “app”-greeting out of Camaret-sur-Mer (near Brest) to our family. We will be out of range for a few days. There is wind force 5, so the 1st reef has been set and with the jib instead of the genoa we leave. There are… Continue reading Crossing the Bay of Biscay

The tanks are topped up (water and diesel), provisions have been taken in, the forecast looks good: we are leaving tomorrow morning from Camaret sur Mer heading for La Coruña! 350 miles to go, non-stop, and a notorious stretch of water. We are eager and anxious!

Today, July 8, we left Amsterdam exactly one month ago and we are now in Brest. Lézardrieux was our 1st port in Brittany and is located a few miles inland on a river. We arrived here late at night in the dark. The entrance of the river still had a considerable cross current and with… Continue reading Along Brittany

After a last month of extra preparations, we said goodbye at Pont 13 on the IJ on Sunday 30 May. The sun was shining and everyone was enthusiastic about the location. One more week, then we would really take off….. Tuesday June 8 we had packed everything, emptied and cleaned our house and left for… Continue reading The 1st 3 weeks