Cloudy Bay - 7 Dec: Sailing, Marlin and dolphins

What a day again! The whole night and morning we had great speed from our Gennie! She doesn’t stop pulling... as long as there is wind though, we had up till 18 knots during the day and we were flying straight to St. Lucia. Later on, it dropped back to around 10 knots and changed direction :/ so, we were tacking along to get the best course. As we finished our fish the other day, our lure is out again. Yesterday we caught a small fish (of unknown species) which we released and we had again a big one we couldn’t reel in close enough to see what it was. This time it got lose without the lure still attached :) BUT today... we reeled in a monster! Technically it was not a monster, but a beautiful blue Marlin!! It put on a pretty good fight, but Sanne didn’t give in! We decided it would be a. read more...

Cloudy Bay - 5 Dec: Cinnamon roll saturday and Sinterklaas

Saturday again!! Which means it’s time for cinnamon rolls for breakfast, yumm :) I prepared them the night before and with this heat they rise almost uncontrollably! After they come out of the oven, they get drizzled with a coconut glazing as a finishing touch. So, with a coffee in one hand and a roll in the other we enjoy the sun in the morning. For lunch we had fish tacos with the last pieces of the massive Mahi-mahi we caught the other day. And after lunch it’s time for Sinterklaas! A Dutch traditional feast for which my lovely mom gave me a package with a note “not to open before the 5th of December” as a little surprise. More cookies and candy typical to Sinterklaas, lol!!Sailing wise we are doing well. It’s not easy to keep the sail from flapping or collapsing sometimes and twice. read more...

Cloudy Bay - 4 Dec: Catching up with wind

Gennie has been pulling us constant yesterday and today. We finally are in the wind zone again and catching up with the miles. Every 4h we are getting the position reports in and calculating our position in comparison with others. Are we losing or gaining on them? We are gaining baby!! Every time a small highlight :) Looking forward to sail the night away. The last few nights, the moonrise has been amazing and with some shooting stars it’s not a punishment to sit in the cockpit all by yourself to enjoy the moment!Ilse. read more...

Cloudy Bay - 2 Dec: Gennie, sun and an even bigger fish

We are still sailing strong :D All through the night, not fast and not so stable either. With the morning the sun and the wind came out and Gennie (as we call the gennaker now) is loving it! She is pulling us like a real hero. The whole day has been sunny and super warm. We all have been lazy laying around, reading, eating and napping in the shade. Just another nice day out at the wide open ocean. And then while preparing dinner, the fishing line went ppfffrrrrrrrr... The fish was putting up a decent fight and as it comes closer to the boat we can see it’s a beautiful big Mahi-mahi. It’s swimming just below the surface from left to right in all its blue/green yellow glory! As we hook it and pull it on board, it starts to change color :o The yellow disappears and the blue is getting more. read more...

Cloudy Bay - 1 Dec: Patience, sail changes and a dive

We should not have stated that we sailed for 7 days straight :o As of last night we have been struggling with the wind and sails. Starting with a flapping goose wing, we tried the gennaker. It worked for a while, until the wind really died to below 3 knots and the engine was started. The wind picked up... sails out again, wind dies down... back to the iron horse. At around 10 this morning, we wanted to try every sail configuration we could think of. Gennaker again, Code 0, only poled out jib and goose wing both sides, nothing seemed to do the trick with a variable4-8 knots and a little swell. The flapping drove us almost crazy... That was the point where we decided to let us just drift on the waves and to take a dive in the great blue ocean!! We always had one man on the boat just in. read more...