frohe weihnachten - merry christmas

christmas is a wonderful time - not only because of great biscuits (which of course my mami makes the best ones of!) and holidays.

for me it is also a time to be a bit humble and grateful for my family and friends - for my fantastic mum, who came all the way to st.lucia to celebrate with us -and for many many other things, for my great brother pauli, who was the greatest support for me in the last weeks and deserves the "brother of the year award 2012", for his wife barbara and my two nephews theo and emil, who we miss dearly -they not only sing the most beautiful sailing-songs in the world, for my brother christoph, who also had a big year with lots of news and came to be with me on my wedding with his new lovely partner, - for my dad, who had a hard year, but nevertheless  breezed through it not only because of his partner astrid -

for my australian mum gerda, who is the best mother in law one girl could have, and also came to see us with pete and shannon, who i can't wait to see in fiji - for nicole and fin, my sister in law who took my lovely nephew on his first long haul flight to be the biggest surprise on our wedding and rick who made sure that she would be able to do so, as they were setting up a new business just then with lots of work involved - for terry, being a great brother in law and a great friend to mark and me, for gisi, who is a great support and my sister! and made our wedding the most special one in the world! - for sarah, nina and laura, my most beautiful nieces, whom i thank for being so nice to their weird aunty charlie! you girls are great friends:) - for mark's uncle col and aunt lynn - words can't say how thankful we are for what you've done for us!

for my friends helmut and elke, who have not forgotten me already and are always welcomed on maloo - for tobi and barbara, who themselves are about to face the biggest challenge in life, and i know you will be soooooo good in it! - for daniel, who helped me through the last years so much!  for cornelius, who writes the best letters, that read like being written on paper - all the guys at the bsh PCP/MA-DS who make me miss work every now and then - 

for all my friends like ina, ronny, christoph, chris and anke, katja, elisabeth and julian, and all of those who won't be angry, that i forgot mentioning them - for all the new friends that we made on the way from the yachts senta, fabiola, azzurro II, island lady too, chilli cat, sirius and many many more...

dieter and monika, who we think of with great admiration every day, as they gave us their wonderful adaco/maloo to take care of - and she takes great care of us!

of course and especially for my brave uncle michael, who helped us across the pond and made sure we'd have the best fish to eat when we ordered it (....I don't know of any fisherman who fishes to order :) )  -and my aunty liesi, who let him do so and who though of getting us adventskalender and especially an adventskranz! my cousin tina and her husband klaus and son killian, who let the nonno go, and will add a surley wonderful person to all our family celebrations soon! for luki - who showed his dad how the fishing is done in the med, so michael could feed us!

and for steve, who was a great help with boat jobs and doing the graveyard shift.....without you guys, we would probably still be out there!

for my friend with the rose garden - who not only inspired me but also dared me to dream of a rose garden of my own some time in the future!

my lovely buddy - behave!!!!!  - we've heard you've been a bad boy! not sure if the christkind will bring you a bone this year ;) - we miss you dearly every day and you are in our thoughts wherever we go!

and last but definitely not least my husband mark, the love of my life, my best friend and the greatest husband of all times, who not only makes sure that maloo is not sinking, but also always keeps me afloat!

to all of you  - frohe weihnachten - a merry christmas  - and thank you all for your loving and lasting support! - all your little messages make sure, we still feel safe and never lonely even when things go wrong.

lots of love,

mark and karline 

17days 9h 34 sec

at 16:29:34 seconds maloo crossed the arc finish line in st.lucia.

apart from being happy that we are here - we are even more happy that neither crew nor boat suffered from any breakage in what would have to be renamed "the atlantic destruction derby for cruising yachts"

the conditions were rough and the crossing was fast - never ever would we have thought to do it just under 18days as we are only a 42 footer and nowhere near a racer!

a lot of boats suffered serious damages and we wish especially the yachts that are still out there all the best for the rest of the journey!

so...how were the last hours?

it started of with probably the longest 5nm in my whole life. sitting and staring on the screen, watching the "distance to waypoint" go down it felt worse that waiting for the christkind and the easter bunny all together!

i have to admit i hardly had an eye for the beauty of the island, as i was just nervously waiting to see the end.

coming into the bay, we could see the yacht that marked the finish line and with a wonderful reach doing 7,5kn i had the honor of taking us over it.

what a welcome that was from the arc (thanks for that!!!) as we opened a well deserved bottle of piper heidseck and proceeded to the marina.

to get into the marina one has to go through a rather narrow channel - with people sitting left and right and congratulating us on our trip we arrived in a totally different world than the one we left 17 days ago.

the best though was definitely all our friends from senta, fabiola, sundancer II, open blue and many more welcoming us on the jetty. (that is surely the best thing of not arriving first!;))

and here we are! it`s 29°C, the sun is shining, the water is lovely 26°C, the rum punch is on ice... and finally our world is not moving anymore. you can not believe how great it is to have a bite to eat without holding onto plate, food and cutlery, to drink a glass of water without spilling most of it....

in short...st.lucia feels like pure heaven!

how is it to sail across the atlantic?

mark answered me the same few things that came to my mind ad hoc: blue, sometimes grey, sometimes petrol colored... but never boring.

days go by faster than imagined - the scenery of the ocean is wonderful and I really enjoyed being out there!

but it is physically also much more demanding than expected. not only because the conditions were mostly rough, you are in a 24h gym - even sleeping you are exercising. 

the result: we all lost weight! - so did everyone I have met so far! even though we ate really well, a couple of kilos were paid to neptune.

I also think that some of us underestimated what they booked in for...having had a rougher trip to lanzarote already, mark and i were pretty well prepared, and although we hoped to have a smoother one, were not that surprised (i wonder if that's purely a good thing ;)

there is no cm on my body that has not seen a bruise in the last 2 weeks...but no serious injury was done.

and even though there's no lie about that fact that some hours were just awful and I wished myself on a couch with buddy at my feet, I do not have a single doubt that I would do it again...in a heartbeat!

and in fact, mark and i are going to to it again - even being out at sea longer: in approximately 3 months from now we are to cross the biggest ocean of our great blue planet - the pacific.

3 months is a lot of water under the keel though and before that, there is an awful lot of caribbean to be conquered!

where the hurricanes are born....becalmed on the atlantic in the first week

st.lucia ahead of us.... the last 3h that felt like 3 years

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 16 to 18

at 12:42 pm local time we have 32nm to go

and although it's not that much any more these miles seem to take for ever!
some of our friends have already made it and probably enjoy their well deserved cool drinks on land....how I wish we'd be with them already;) - good on you, guys - congrats from the maloos!!!!!
it is time we'd arrive - with the boat rolling heavily over house-like waves (surely some over 8m) sleeping has been quite hard and doing things below like cooking is just no fun anymore.
if the distance would be any longer we'd probably try to find a nicer angle to the waves to keep the boat still for a day, but I was promised a breakfast in rodney bay on saturday....so no way we can make extra "comfort-miles" ;)

the sailing has been quite good the last couple of days. with only the genoa out we managed to go pretty much straight line for st.lucia - having a record day of just over 180nm in 24h the day before yesterday

unfortunately the wind eased off (as predicted) and for the last hours we had our penta helping us on and off.

there have been the odd squalls and gusts, but I actually enjoyed riding them out. with never more than 32kn it was good fun surfing down the waves doing just over 12kn.

what turns really out to be a shocker are these flying fish! just last night again I had one hitting me from behind on my shoulder costing me at least five years of my total life expectancy.
they really seem to enjoy scaring the sh... out of us by hitting us in the middle of the night.
in fact I do believe they are drawn to the lights on the boat... still you could never be sure about a mean element in these fishy kamikazes now could you?

we are out of fresh fruit - but canned peaches and pears are just as divine! there is still fresh vegetables left - some of it I am going to cook tonight...maybe as a chinese noodle stir fry!?
yesterday we had chili con carne...still a bit of meat left too!

thank god the fridge is getting emptier now, as I had to fit in the bottle of piper heidseck for our arrival! - it is still very abstract to think that we would soon (hopefully) have crossed the atlantic and find ourselves in the caribbean...I keep staring at the chart in our salon and the reality of it still hasn't hit me....most likely it will though in a couple of days like one of these flying fish!

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 14 to 15 - what comes after the calm?

what a night! - after having rather little to no wind the last days, the evening of day 13 started with a nice breeze and grey skies which almost had us thinking we took a wrong turn somewhere and are in the irish seas.
towards the night the wind increased to high twenties/low thirties and rain fronts (so called squalls) passed us by.

Mark had gusts up to 37kn in his shift and with only a tiny bit of sail out did over 12kn down the steep waves. I tried to get some rest in the front of the boat, but the noise of maloo running down these waves was almost deafening.

in the morning the wind was still around 27-30kn with the sea now being very messy and the rain fronts changed into walls of water coming down on us. I don't think I have ever seen so much water coming down as rain - which left me rather amazed and totally soaked. our hands swelled up from being wet constantly, making it hard to pull sheets or hold the helm.

this was probably the hardest night of our trip so far (knock on wood!!!!) for us and for our maloo, leaving me absolutely exhausted after a night without sleep and heavy conditions on watch. but luckily maloo went through it all without any damage or complaint, which is quite amazing given the fact the we were thrown around like a rubber duck.

with all that wind though our progress was fantastic....I almost saw us there in rodney bay drinking our well deserved rum punsh. but things come differently then expected - and so the wind left us for the major part of yesterday....so did the rum punsh in my hand! - as we want to keep the fuel for maybe the last day before st.lucia using our penta is out of option.

in the evening a steadier softer wind returned and since then we are under genoa only (rolling less than goose-winging) and making about 6,5 to 7kn straight for st.lucia.

with 587nm to go (at 5:45 UTC-2) we hope to get into rodney bay by saturday morning (if the wind god is with us even friday) - in both cases a really good result for maloo and us!

so on the menu we had potato-salmon patties (which turned our to be rather tasty but otherwise a disaster) with tomato-salad and given the fact that we were all rather tired last night, penne with pesto!

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 10 to 13 - becalmed

after the first mahi mahi, Michael caught the next one - this time a 85cm and app.4,5kg fish - almost too pretty to be eaten, but it was very very tasty!

we had a great sail up until the night before last night. after a big rain shower the wind disappeared completely. also the swell died down a bit.
so far we tried every possible sail-setup to keep the boat moving with only 8-10kn of wind. but the rather big waves (for this light wind) cause the sails to flap heavily, because the wind just can't keep them full.
rather exhausted and frustrated we have decided to give our trustworthy volvo a go as the rolling over the waves is easier to handle when the boat is moving.
unfortunately this will mean quite a penalty for the rally across the atlantic, but as we saw the other day, also a lot of other yachts made the same decision.

it is quite an amazing sight though being in the middle of the atlantic with wonderful cloud-structures around you and a rather calm sea (I will try to post some pictures when we are in st.lucia)
however, after a couple of days we are all waiting for the wind to return which should happen some time today (sunday) according to the grib-file of our weather program.

on my night watch tonight I got almost hit by a flying fish jumping onto maloo. he only missed me by a couple of centimeters before slamming into the bimini and landing on deck. lucky I could quickly return him to the water.

at the moment we only have 889nm left till rodney bay and with the temperatures rising to 30°C (water is 26.1°C) we can feel getting closer to the caribbean.

If the wind returns we hope to arrive on the 14th/15th of december!

as promised here also our menu update: it has been fresh mahi-mahi (dolphin fish/dorade...however you want to call it) with tomato-onion sauce and couscous, chinese stir fry with gingered beef and lamb chops with tuscan string beans and gnocchi.
so - still no signs of starvation on maloo!

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 6 to 9 - half way!

the last days were again good sailing and no breakage!

Fishing wise Michael had a few bites on the hook - one of them must have been really big as it tore the 40kg line. in the evening though, just as he was bringing in the lure for the night a wonderful mahi-mahi bit, was landed and filleted!

the weather is quite alright - probably not as hot as hoped, but the wind is good and the wind direction helps us too.
nevertheless we took it a bit easier the last 2-3 days as we all felt quite tired after nights with heavy seas (i had to put on another sea sickness patch, even though I hardly have trouble with sea sickness) - so instead of changing sails immediately we sometimes went along with lesser wind and did 6kn instead of our normal speed. unfortunately we also got overtaken by a couple of boats...but hey, we all had a great sleep!

we had small repairs like undoing the furling line on our headsail. it somehow rolled up wrong and caused the furler to block. but it was just a matter of 10min on the front of the boat getting it sorted. so "knock on wood" maloo is doing great!

it is somehow strange when you look out into the vast blue and never get bored of looking at it. the color of the sea somehow also seems to change (even though I know this is rubbish) but the light and sun angle is a different one being further south and with water temperature rising to 24,6°C I so look forward to a swim in the caribbean.

so far there has also been no way of being bored, I actually seem to have no time for reading my books I was so looking forward to.
whenever I am off shift, there is something to do like: check the veggies in their boxes and turn them around, cook, have a little rest, have a shower (which proves to be a quite sporty event with the boat moving so much)...etc.

food the last days was a chicken-curry (for me with veggies of course;)), bangers and lemon-mash (really yummy) ( i.e. bratwurst mit zitronen-kartoffel puree, for all my non aussie-slang-speakers out there) with a carrot-salad, roasted chicken legs with roasted vegetables.... so you see, we still eat fresh stuff.
cooking also is quite a difficult task to master, when the boat is heeling over 30° in one moment and then 20° on the opposite side- just yesterday I spilled a cup of dry rice. the remains we will probably find till we arrive in australia. I am proud to announce though, that I even managed to make pancakes the other day for breakfast.

today we also celebrated our half-way party! we said our good byes to spain in style with a couple of goodies we brought with from the Canaries such as iberico ham and salami, yummie goats cheese (that even mark liked) and a wonderful bottle of cava. the highlight was definitely the mahi mahi though that i did in the pan with just a little olive oil and lemon. I have to say, that was probably the best fish I ever had!
this lunch was also a little boost for the moral on board. we have been doing all right so far, still with being thrown around in the boat so much it is sometimes rather hard to keep a happy face all the time. but as we get closer and closer to the trade winds and the sea easing off, spirits rise.

if the wind-god is with us, we might arrive saturday in one week - so fingers crossed!!!!

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 4 and 5

day 4 started with a rather annoying swell, that led to little sleep. the wind was constant ENE between 18-25kn and had us travel with good speed. maloo is currently doing around 160nm a day which is quite good for a loaded up barge like her ( I reckon we added another 1,5 tones to her 10,5 before we left!)

again we had lot of dolphins and I never get tired of looking at them...this time they were spotted like dalmatians;)

the day went by rather uneventful, which is good (because events usually mean that something is broken) - we currently try fix, what we think might be a loose rudder bearing, but nothing major to be concerned about.

the constant heavy rolling due to those messy swells is rather exhausting  - physically, because you constantly have to hold on to things and balance, and on the nerves, because simple things like poring a cup of tea turns out to be a real circus stunt!
so instead of the usual 10-12 second wave passing underneath, we have 6-8 second swells rather steep (which is a bit more mediterranean than atlantic)

night 4 was a roughy too! mark had 30kn constant on his shift and very messy seas - the wind died down on Steve's shift and started to go funny on mine - I had to dodge a couple of rain-sqalls. It was great to ride the wind behind them though with 8,5 to 9kn.

it's great though to have the wind even when it is a bit on the stronger side...sitting in these waves with no wind would be a real disaster.

slowly but surly the temperatures rise...I suppose the "Adventsengerl" had to wear a lighter outfit than back home in austria when it dropped the adventskalender off.
can't believe it's only 24 days till christmas...and hopefully only another 15 days for us to st.lucia

oh -lunch was a nice wrap with beef, avocado and mango lime chutney (without the beef for me) and last night it was x-treme bbq-ing for mark doing pork chops on the webber on high seas - and a salad.
today it will be homemade carrot-ginger-pumpkin soup with (also homemade) turkish bread for lunch and most likely roast chicken or bangers and mash for dinner (or maybe we do manage to catch a fish today!?)

st.lucia, here we come! DAY 4 and 5

day 4 started with a rather annoying swell, that led to little sleep. the wind was constant ENE between 18-25kn and had us travel with good speed. maloo is currently doing around 160nm a day which is quite good for a loaded up barge like her ( I reckon we added another 1,5 tones to her 10,5 before we left!)

again we had lot of dolphins and I never get tired of looking at them...this time they were spotted like dalmatians;)

the day went by rather uneventful, which is good (because events usually mean that something is broken) - we currently try fix, what we think might be a loose rudder bearing, but nothing major to be concerned about.

the constant heavy rolling due to those messy swells is rather exhausting - physically, because you constantly have to hold on to things and balance, and on the nerves, because simple things like poring a cup of tea turns out to be a real circus stunt!
so instead of the usual 10-12 second wave passing underneath, we have 6-8 second swells rather steep (which is a bit more mediterranean than atlantic)

night 4 was a roughy too! mark had 30kn constant on his shift and very messy seas - the wind died down on Steve's shift and started to go funny on mine - I had to dodge a couple of rain-sqalls. It was great to ride the wind behind them though with 8,5 to 9kn.

it's great though to have the wind even when it is a bit on the stronger side...sitting in these waves with no wind would be a real disaster.

slowly but surly the temperatures rise...I suppose the "Adventsengerl" had to wear a lighter outfit than back home in austria when it dropped the adventskalender off.
can't believe it's only 24 days till christmas...and hopefully only another 15 days for us to st.lucia

oh -lunch was a nice wrap with beef, avocado and mango lime chutney (without the beef for me) and last night it was x-treme bbq-ing for mark doing pork chops on the webber on high seas - and a salad.
today it will be homemade carrot-ginger-pumpkin soup with (also homemade) turkish bread for lunch and most likely roast chicken or bangers and mash for dinner (or maybe we do manage to catch a fish today!?)