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

st.lucia - the door to the caribbean

Happy 2013 everybody!!!!

now, what a few of weeks!

arriving in st.lucia was definitely a highlight.

never, after having left turkey, have i met so many truly friendly people and colorful characters.

so colourful the people, so colourful is the island.

on the west coast you find this lush dense green, a mixture of palm trees, mangoes etc. and the greatest conditions for sailing: 15-20kn of wind on 90° and no waves!

the east coast is windblown and not as lush, the sea is rough and colder but never the less Mark and I felt reminded of the NSW coast around Byron Bay.

after a great week of welcoming parties and getting togethers sharing stories of the great crossing, my Mami arrrived and we did a wonderful island tour getting to see the highlights and eating great local food. the remainder of the volcanic activity on this island is a hot mud bath. with a strong sulfur smell we preferred to just look at it from far though. Mark and I have seen (and more importantly smelled) similar things in Vulcano... and my Mum - well, you can't impress someone who's been to Iceland recently with a bit of boiling mud;)

Christmas was relaxed with a nice dinner with family and friends in Marigot Bay on the 24th and a beach bbq on the 25th. one outstanding present i got from my sister in law Barbara and my brother! as if they would have read my mind, they picked the perfect gift! - before leaving las palmas i was desperaty looking for a small nativity set for christmas - but the spanish like it biiiiiig when it comes to that kind of stuff. so having limited space i missed out!

a few weeks later i open one of my presents and what do i find? a wonderful nativity set...in a snow ball - and now comes the best: it plays "silent night"  - just wonderful!!!!

and with my mum bringing a glowing chistmas tree with her - the 24th was picture perfect!

we also tried to discover the beauty of the capital city of St.Lucia called Castries -having arrived too late for the local market we unfortunately failed tragically. the only thing that was left was heaps of people on the street listening to ear-defening loud music, which was fun but not pretty as such. The only restaurant open served us pig-tail-soup for Michael and Mark and cold (not sooo bad) cheese Macaroni for my Mum and me.

the St.Lucians love their loud music! so many times have we seen massive stereos on the porch of houses ready to blast the soul out of passing-bys ....i suppose you can't file a complaint at the local cop-shop about that;)

even though it would have been rather tempting to stay in a beach chair and get carried away by rum punches and cold beers we have to move on - there is so much more to see!

our next stop was Bequia where we had a lovely New Years and relaxing days swimming, snorkeling and eating good food - sitting on the beach in one of these comfy beach chairs was also not too shabby.

we did a short trip to Kingstown for a sad sad good bye to my mami, who proved to be absolutely seaworthy and able to climb into any dinghy around!

we had moved our boat to a mooring while away just to make sure maloo would be safe. when we came back we got approached though by the owner of the bouy asking us if we could move as a volvooceanrace70 would need the buoy. they had moored in the marina the night before but with 4,5m draft were touching the bottom (which is not too nice, especially if you have a canting keel) surprisingly we draw much less ;) and therefore had no problem giving up our buoy and take their marina spot instead....we thought!

at first we struggled getting the anchor in as there were no mooring lines on the ground....and once the hook was in, there was such a surge from the beach that our poor maloo was thrown about almost hitting the dock and being launched into the ropes that we were fearing the cleats would break out.

so we moved again in complete darkness onto another buoy.

the guys on the Volvo however made up for it big time by taking us out for a sail the next day. "true north" was originally "green dragon"  - the chinese-irish entry for 2008-09 volvo ocean race.

and even though it was the slowest boat in the race...what a machine! it just takes off with 20kn like an airplane! - and the best thing: mark and i got to helm it!!!! - unfortunately our maloo felt terrible slow afterwards!

the day after we moved on to the tobago cays - loosing the clew on the mainsail just coming out of bequia. lucky as we were it ripped out with little wind and in bright daylight allowing us to furl the sail away without any other damage. i hate to think what would have happened if this had ripped in the middle of the night with a 35kn gust (like those things usually do) - we probably would have had big damage as the sail would have caught on the rigg surely...but for some reason we seem to sail under a bright lucky star that so far has prevented us from serious damage....and i hope it will shine our way in the future too!

snorkeling in the cays was just amazing! lots of turtles to swim with, beautiful corals and the most colorful fish. unfortunately it was a bit blowy...nevertheless we had the best lobster dinner toghether with our friends from Senta. Karen, John, Finn , Lizzy and Nathan - thanks again for a wonderful night on the beach!!!! - truly to remember

so with the view of Petit Tabac (the island Jack Sparrow go deserted on in i think the second part of " Pirates of the Caribbean")  Betsy from Union Island cooked us the freshest and best lobster i ever had and let me sneak peak in her pots.

we then moved to Chatham Bay on Union to spend another couple of great days snorkeling....a highlight was to swim in what would have to be the biggest swarm of fish i've ever seen - just an amazing experience.

we currently are in Clifton on Union and will move on to maybe Carriacou or straight to Grenada....wherever the wind takes us :)

I can only say: different to a lot of things I've heard about the carribean - i love it!!!! - people are friendly and even when they try to overcharge you, you can still meet in the middle. after all they are just trying to make a living too - the landscapes are stunning and the islands all have a different character. the sailing is great and i can only recommend to come here - no matter if on a boat or without - there is lots to see and great places to also do nothing and just enjoy life! 

St.Lucia, Anse La Raye

St.Lucia, Soufriere

caribbean building style

the famous two Pitons

sailing Mami - on the way to Bequia (mind the speed - bottom right....yes,8.8kn and still relaxed)

"true north" alias "green dragon"....with a great helms(wo)man

Tobago Cays - the caribbean paradise

Petit Tabac ( the Jack Sparrow Island) just after the daily rain

learning how to cook from Betsy

very fresh lobster soon to be found....

....on the bbq!

sunrise with waves breaking over the outer horseshoe reef of the Tobago Cays

happy new year every body! bussi karline&mark

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