the Panama Canal

staying in the shelter bay marina in colon was all about stocking up and servicing several bits and pieces on maloo.

while mark did an engine and generator service, cleaned and polished i went several times to the supermarkets to buy food that would feed us to australia.

as things are said to be rather expensive (if available) in the southern pacific, this seems a good thing to do, but how much f.e. pasta does one need for 7 months- how many bottles of shampoo? - how many cans of peaches? how much uht milk? and most importantly...how much beer?

well, we are not sure if we answered these questions right, but I'm pretty sure we will have too much of some and not enough of other.

then the big day came! the transit through the canal. we had already done some line handling on lazy bones a week earlier, to get a feeling of whats going on - still, doing it on and with your own boat is truly special!

just a few facts: the panama canal starts with the three Gatun Locks on the atlantic side, then little boats like us get to stay one night in Lake Gatun, a beautiful fresh water lake surrounded by forrest and howler monkeys. it is also said that there is crocodiles in the lake - we haven't seen them though - at that stage, the ships are lifted a total of 26m (which sounds much more impressive when you say 84feet) from atlantic sea level. the next morning you start at 6:00am going about 30nm through the lake and through the Gaillard Cut to the Pedro Miguel Lock and then further onto the two Miraflores Locks - so 3 Locks down again, before finally entering the pacific - and here you might be lowered a total of 31m, as there is a 5m tide on the pacific side.

all in all the transit cost us 1300US: 800US for the canal itself, the rest for extra fenders and lines and the agent and and and. the big container ships pay up to 350,000US -so we got away cheap, hey?

so on the 25th of march at 1.30pm an adviser came to our boat and off we went to the first locks. we rafted up with a little french yacht - being the bigger boat with the stronger engine mark had to do all the maneuvering - not sooo easy if you are in two monohulls and especially challenging if the captain on the french boat does not want to give up his wheel and starts steering too...but mark managed just fine.

and how good he was he got to prove just in the first lock, when the line thrower up on the lock wall missed the stern of the french boat. it took him forever to get his throw line sorted again. with nothing holding the raft, we drifted towards the wall (you will see a little bit of it on the video) and with only a meter left to the wall and to the big container ship in front of us, finally the stern line got put on and the raft was pulled to the middle. only the bow thruster and mark using our prop walk held our maloo off the wall.

after that though, everything went fine! a lovely night in the lake with great people - our line handlers mike, bob and cale - and an early start the next day. sure enough at 6:00 sharp two new advisers came on board to do the rest of the transit with us.

so enjoy our little video....and see if you can spot the "full moon"! thanks mike!

better to be watched on youtube though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJ3Asl89nk&feature=youtu.be

Mark, the adviser and Bob focusing on the job

one last look back!

Panamax = bloody huge

relaxing ON the buoy for the night at lake gatun

just as we came in to panama city -  a surprise visitor: Steve Job's yacht Venus

have to admit she's quite stunning seen live  

the (unexpected) skyline of panama city

one of the few 2-finger sloths that live near our anchorage

and they do move quite fast i have to say

we are currently in panama city - stocking up on a few more things (like new fishing gear and a spear gun) and will head off to the las perlas islands soon. there we will wait for a bit of wind to go to galapagos...or flat enough seas to motor there, as the doldrums go straight through that passage and not a whole lot of wind is to be expected.

nevertheless...galapagos, here we come!

the umpa-lumpas

we sailed two nights through the rough waters of the colombian coast, leaving the rio magdalena 30nm to port to avoid the debris being washed into the sea.

the sail itself was rather uneventful, if mark and i hadn't spent the last 4 days in cartagena under various air conditioners. the result: we both came down with a rather nasty head cold feeling achy and sick for the whole trip - arriving in paradise with a little fever.

but two days later and able to breath again, we wake up surrounded by these little islands with coconut palms on them, some hardly bigger than a picnic blanket. the water is crystal clear, the coral reefs are colorful - only the sky is grey and will remain grey for the next 10 days only allowing us 10h of sunshine scattered between little rain patches.

the wind is howling - nevertheless a bit of paradise for us and the first real "exotic" place with indigenous people living in tiny huts on the palm-treed picnic blankets with names like "dupwala" or "nulnudup", "warsobguadup" or "wichubuala"

with the island so small, there is not much room to grow tall. the kunas of kuna yala (the correct name for the autonomous san blas area of panama) are the second shortest people after the pygmies in the world - and after seeing them for the first time we could not help it but calling them umpa-lumpas. 

the women dressed mostly with traditional beads and molas, they spend days sitting around fires making these great pieces of craft. 

men are out fishing or watching the mola-making and wait for the days to go by.

we spend our days watching the mola making, snorkeling, spear-fishing (mark shot his first barracuda adding another tick on the list of must-dos for manhood: buy a boat, cross an ocean, shoot a barracuda with a speargun....you know;)...these sorta things)

and wait for the days to go by trying to ignore the voices calling from panama and the boat asking for a layer of anti-foul.

in short: life is good - but after crossing a quite harsh bit of sea on this planet we feel like we deserve it! (that we've been lucky enough not to experience the harsh bit is a small cosmetic detail not spoiling the beauty of this feeling)

the only thing that spoils this paradise is the amount of plastic debris found on the windward side of most of these islands - so much of it that the kunas gave up collecting it. we try do to the right thing when we burn our plastic-rubbish and also collect a tiny amount to burn with it. i know, burning plastics does not sound very environmentally sound, but unfortunately you can either collect it and bring it to panama, where it will be blown out to sea and back to the san blas, or burn the hell out of it leaving nothing but ashes. just don't do your marshmallows on it!

the amount of ship wrecks sitting on reefs, from tankers to sailing yachts the size of maloo are sobering. it makes you wonder why you still see boats coming to anchorages in the middle of the night or with full sail flying. personally i do prefer to maneuver through reefs in the safety of daylight with the engine slowly propelling us forward - my eyes looking out from the bow and mark's fixed to the depth sensor - as the charts are not accurate and sometimes 100meters out this seems to be the only sensible thing to do. 2 meters too much to the right make the difference between a safe anchorage surrounded by wonderful islands and reefs and being a landmark for other sailors for years to come in these sometimes narrow entrances ....but well, that's just us - "cowards" that we are!

other people around here seem to be real dare devils making sure there will be enough wrecks for years to come!

soon we leave the umpas behind and make our way to panama  - the last miles through the caribbean sea, the last miles through the atlantic - wasn't it just yesterday that we went through the straight of gibraltar? - and thousands of miles ahead of us in the planet's biggest ocean.

before that, maloo demands a bit of tender love and care - and rightly so, as panama is the last easy place to give here what she needs before australia.

so we will give her what she needs and then load her up with food for the next 8 months....so follow us when mark and i try to break the record for the longest receipt ever printed by a supermarket-cash-register!

....wilson!!!!!

a local kuna-lady making a mola (i.e. a picture made of layers of fabric hand stitched together)

the local clan on holandes-cays

a typical dug-out made out of driftwood

taking the dog fishing...the puppy was in the dug out when ever it went out to sea

colours of colombia

the hot days in colombia are merciless. 

the sun burns down, melts the asphalt and you kindly ask the street dogs to share their little spot of shade with you.

how people remain so friendly is a mystery - the good mood is contagious though and soon after the last possible drop of sweat has left your pores you start laughing about the fact that just a couple of nights ago you were sitting in your cockpit with long pants and the wet weather gear on wondering were the summer went...

we arrived in santa marta after a nice two-nighter from curacao, mark and i set our foot on the south american continent for the very first time -  not quite sure what to expect: people with a crazy amount of guns? officials with a crazy amount of stamps? hills? lush green - tones of "snow"?

as it turnes out, we were not sooo wrong, but the gunmen are friendly, and the officials were taken care of by our trusted agent "Dino" who dealt with them instead of us - so clearing-in meant having a cool drink on Chilli Cat and the loss of some american dollars - a good trade, if you ask me.

after our first night out together with our new friends from "lazy bones" and our "chilli cats" i discovered that ordering something without meat in colombia was not too easy - on top of that they loooove green coriander - which is the "herb from hell" in my opinion, simply spoiling every bit of food! but pure heaven for mark: meat AND coriander!

to escape the heat and try out our legs again we planned an afternoon trip to the national park "minka" up in the hills. how to get there was the question. after figuring out that the prices we gringos would have to pay a taxi driver to get us there to be way too expensive we decided to go local - head for the public bus station. walking through the town market memories of marrakech came back to us. a lot of intense smells, people trying hard to make a living....but with much less despair. it might be, because colombia in general made such a hugh jump in the last years as far as living standards are concerned, that even the poorest of the poor are hopeful to get their share soon, it might be that with the standards improving people find it less interesting to fight, causing the drug war going on there to cease a little...who am i to know, but the feeling remains: people seem at ease

up in the mountains we had a swim under a beautiful fresh water fall - with it's temperature of 18°C max i almost felt reminded of home, but the lush green and the sound of rainforest frogs made sure that feeling wouldn't last too long

refreshed we went back to our boat planning our trip to cartagena.

we took a bus, leaving our maloo in the very well protected marina of santa marta and 4,5h later arrived in the wonderful old town of cartagena des indias.

the colors of the houses and narrow little streets are enchanting and beautiful. nevertheless the old town of cartagena is a hip little place with way too expensive designer shops and cafes that sell latte and paulaner beer. after weeks of escaping the "world" mark and i were used to living in munich there we are - in the middle of the wallpaper magazine. a great change and good fun...but scary at the same time as we feel like cockatoos (i.e. aussie-slang for a farmer) in "the town". for the last months our heads set priority on weather, nuts, bolts and antifouling - not on chocolate brownies, the latest grey's anatomy and the colombian designer who must have done an internship at helmut lange's. funny how your brain is able to adjust to daily "necessities" by slowly changing your mindset without you noticing. (the sign that should have rung a bell though is when i found yourself sitting on a table with two other lovely sailor-girls not talking fashion but rust-removal on stainless steel ;)

don't you worry though - it only took me a a day to be fully back in immersing myself in the wonderful superficial! and it was great to feel "cosmopolitan" for a day, to find myself in a nice little dress instead of the old t-shirts with stains on it and do window shopping, having a colombian lunch at one of the street stalls (cheese filled with cheese....i kid you not!) and my favorite lulo-juice with fresh mint taking tonnes of pictures of colors on walls.

three days proved to be more than enough for me though and i start to get annoyed with people running into me, and cars almost running over me.

so after three nights of the creature comforts of a hotel room (and a satellite tv! - hence the mentioning of grey's anatomy;)) we are back in santa marta - stocking up for the san blas/kuna yala in the local supermarket which resembles more a oversized street cafe with people having chats and sitting down on the benches provided by the supermarket (?) to make the wait at the checkout more comfortable. if you are in a hurry then you are in the wrong country - if you like to see people enjoying each others company and a cashiers having time for the old lady who forgot her glasses not quite sure what she's got in the trolley - going through every item and discussing it vividly - than this is the place to be for you....and so it was for me.

stocked up we leave santa marta and the colombian coast - sad we did not have the time to explore more and go inland...sure to return one day - exploring all the colours of colombia.

a checkpoint on the way to the hills of minka - pretty serious looking kids, but quite friendly

the waterfalls of minka

a nice way to escape the heat

impressions form our little road trip

old town of cartagena des indias

old town of cartagena

one day i would love one of these!

also a way to do the shopping - just dangle a basket down

...and give precise (and loud) instructions

one of the many fruit ladies

if it's not deep fried it can't be good

modern cartagena

on the backside of the shopping mall

PS.: we are sorry if we can't update our blog as often as we would like to - or update 2 posts within short time, but as our destinations get more and more "exotic" it gets harder to have internet - access. some of the ares we visited have hardly any internet available and for the san blas not even mobile phone coverage. we do have our sat-phone to download weather files and small emails, but we're talking a file size of 200kb that takes us 6 minutes to download....so you get the picture!

if we don't update our position or blog - please don't worry....we have not sunken (hopefully;)) - we simply went offline, which will happen more often the further west we go, especially in the south pacific.
it is actually quite a healing experience to be without mobile phone and internet for a month - and we can only recommend it!

if we should get into serious trouble, we will set off our epirb and close family will be notified immediately....or you'll read about it in the news should one of us be eaten :)

big hug from maloo!!!!!
karline &mark

sprechen Sie dutch?

looong time no post! sorry about that, but it still amazes me that you guys are still interested in what feels like "the same old sailing-story" when i write it.

and on top of that...well it has just been way to nice to sit down below on the navigation-table when there were beaches to be conquered and reefs to be snorkeled, cocktails to be tested and hang-overs to be cured;)  - simply: we had a great time getting into the carribean nexus, where time is relative and worries evaporate like a cold beer from the bottle.

our second week in grenada already started to feel like being home.

after moving around a lot we were "confined" to this beautiful island, anchoring in Prickly Bay waiting for our sails to be repaired.

spending a longer period of time in one place has it's ups and downs. "up" is definitely that you get to know a place better, find your way around and know the logistics of getting some shopping done, doing laundry, getting those fancy stainless steel screws you were looking for forever...etc.

a slight downside would be that this means spending less time in another place that might be just as beautiful...or maybe better?

the best thing about it was having spent time with our new friends from fabiola, chillicat, senta and tegan before itineraries and (hopefully fair) winds would blow us in all different directions - what is left is great memories filled with months of laughter ringing through the nights, stories shared and also experience had together.

so a few sad and teary goodbyes later it's not all that sunny in the caribbean. 

but the same feeling and the same tears will make sure that our paths will cross again!

and luckily, some paths are shared and i can look forward to some more wonderful warm evenings...

after we got our sails back, new adventures awaited maloo, mark and i. 

we headed off for a a 2,5day sail - just the right length to get into the groove again - setting course to bonaire.

some surprise visitors got on the plane to meet us there and enjoy the 3rd best divespot in the world!

so we got the diving gear out and went submarine!

having christoph, marc and evenline with us was great great fun and no one would have guessed it was their first time on a sailboat - knowing their way around like old sailing pros after just a couple of days.

we snorkeled the beautiful reefs of bonaire and saw barracudas, porcupine fish, angel fish you name it!

the crystal clear water is just amazing and boniare will definetly be up on top of my list of places to return to.

just clearing in with the customs people is worth a stop - no charges and tones of information about the best carneval-parties on the island (including private photos to give proof!!!!) 

a warm recommendation if you visit is to book a rental car loooong before you get there as we were unable to get hold of one...but our friend from customs (the one with the photos)  organized a taxi for us so we could visit a few landmarks like the salt-factory or the slave-huts.

i probably could have stayed another 3 weeks in bonaire - just not getting bored with snorkeling the clear water seeing all these fish and beautiful corals....but curacao started calling out for us!

so off we went for a day-sail over there taking our guests out for their first real passage...."nice" and rolly in front of the wind with serious sea-sick potential...but no green faces to be seen - makes you wonder if austrians are in fact real sea-people!

curacao is unbelievably dutch...which is kind of obvious being a former dutch colony - still rather surprising though, when you come from the windward islands where a rather different culture has developed incorporating the (and i have to guess now) best of african culture.

if any other culture would have had an impact here on curacao it would have to be venezuela and columbia being the closest neighbors.

you see it in the people, you hear it in the music (the version of "gangnam style" played here is rather samba-ish ;)), you feel it on the streets.

nevertheless people are as friendly as on every other island in the caribbean we went to.

just a couple of days ago we missed the hourly bus going into Willemstad and after not seeing a taxi for quite a while, we decided to give it a try with hitch-hiking. mark and christoph said they would feel safe enough as i was there to protect them, so up came the thumb. the second car passing stopped for us and even though the driver had no intetion of going into town, he took us anyway, as it was his lunch break (honestly - i don't know how you are going. but i surely had better things to do in my lunch break when i still had a job!) after we arrived we wanted to give him a bit of petrol-money he didn't even wanted to take. we basically had to throw it at him and quickly shut the door;) - but this is just one of the exceptional stories we have in our "carribean diary".

sadly we had to send our "kids" christoph, marc and eveline back to a real life again - all our offers of staying with us were denied...oh well! it was great having them on board and for me to talk a great deal of german again, catching up on some news at home and just having a real ball together...thanks again dropping in and also for all the goodies you smuggled into the country for us. (if you expect drugs now you are kind of right! I reckon that manner schnitten, appenzeller-cheese, black bread and really really yummie strawberry jam classify as highly addictive substances for an austrian girl - mark preferred the salami over the cheese though)

tomorrow we will head of to santa martha on the columbian coast, leaving out the first island of the abc-s and even more important the first island in the beach-boys song "kokomo": aruba.

we plan to do a bit of columbia sight seeing...can't wait! - then it will be off to kuna yala (san blas) for us before we get to panama - leaving the great atlantic and carribean sea in our wake.

before we get that far though we will have to cross quite a bit of sea with a horrible reputation. the waters in front of the venezuelan and columbian coast are supposed to be the 5th worst in the world (the other 4 being above or below 50° north or south -according to Jimmy Cornell, one of the blue water sailing gurus)

the high mountains in columbia in combination with a rather permanent low system above it can create a great deal of breeze....but surly not when we are there - because we booked the "nice cruise down to oz 2013 - package" including some free drinks and flat seas - so not to worry for us.....or?

before going to petit saint vincent on our way to grenada, we had to stop in union island for a cold beer in this "crazy" bar

a taste of luxury - the high end (and high price) resort on petit saint vincent

georgetown on grenada

the crystal clear water in bonaire

snorkeling in bonaire

a porcupine fish - apparently puffs up when annoyed

still one of the nicest things - swimming with turtles

a brain-coral

changing flags (curacao and the yellow q-flag for "quarantine"  (needs to be up when entering a new country)

loud evenings at the carneval of curacao....

......and quiet days at the beaches

curacao

pelican on curacao

willemstad...or amsterdam?

going local for lunch

choosing from the pan

our neighbor in spanish water anchorage - a pipeline-laying rig