Month: May 2014

Just like being back home, if your from the States, or a glimpse into the future if your from the UK – small malls lining the streets with roadhouse restaurants:

So many filters changed, oils, impellors, belts – we expect to go through the calm Horse Latitudes and won’t see much wind on the way to the Azores. So it will be a NE reach, motoring, then picking up the Westerlies to the north. With a little under 2000nm motoring range we could burn fuel to get there but that would make for a horrible journey. The time to put to sea is just around the corner. We have vacu-packed and frozen meats, bought a ton of food (simple to cook this time!) and will soon take on fuel and

The Beneteau 40 yacht Cheeki Rafiki has probably been abandoned some 620 miles east of Cape Cod. This is an ARC 2013 yacht and will be well equipped. The crew will be well trained. They will take ditch bags into the liferaft. We were trained in Sea Survival by military trainers and we are sure they will have endured the same. The crew set off locator beacons and their location was recorded. A cargo ship appears to have photographed the hull, upturned, the keel gone. The weather in the area was poor. The loss of Cheeki Rafiki and her four

Here we are looking for hydraulic bits and pieces in the odd bucket whilst tons of the stuff goes straight over our heads…now all I need is a stepladder!

Get your camera airborne near the runway threshold…these are our going to be amongst our last photos of the Caribbean seaside. Everything is getting so much easier; there’s nobody here! But even with our addition of a 6,000 BTU air conditioner in the companionway we are still hitting 32 deg C in the saloon. Ha! Last night we thought it was getting a bit chilly as the airco got us down to a low of 28. We had a quick peek inside the airport to see how the majority travelled – at 440 knots!  

We were very well cared for by the guys at FKG. It’s a very professional rig shop and not only are they seriously tooled up, backed by loads of supplies from metal stock through to hydraulic parts, they are also knowledgeable and efficient. Our furler came straight from stock and was fitted in the space of a day and a half. The bill followed about 10 minutes after completion, on a Saturday, completing the job.

Most of the big stuff has moved out and there are hundreds of meters of empty pontoons. But occasionally something new turns up. We think the motor yacht in the final picture is undertaking an oil change and it looks like the third or fourth container tank carrying old engine oil is being craned off.

The bridge into Simpson Bay Lagoon feels tight even when we go through it and we have nothing to be concerned about. Some of the superyachts inch their way through at such a painfully slow pace that they appear jammed never to move again. Lots of boats amble up to the bridge and they always miss the entry opportunity. When they complain to bridge control over VHF they unleash a torrent of abuse from the bridge. Sometimes it’s third time lucky. Standard Dutch practice and familiar to anyone that has passed through Holland. We used to get yelled at on