Updates

When hearing and reading about other peoples Atlantic crossing this year, we are glad that we'll have a late approach for it. The tradewinds were late to establish this year and many of the people we've been in touch with or read about in their blogs, have suffered from seasickness due to poor winds and the rolling of large seas and many seem to have experienced their crossing as a very uncomfortable one. Our original plan was to cross the ocean in early December but as of many unfinished boat projects, we're about one month late to the original schedule. Good like that, and the new plan for the ocean crossing is set to begin after New Year. There are still a couple of things we need to complete on the boat and also a couple of packages to receive and we're scheduling ourselves for a departure towards Martinique on the 10th of January. Let's then all hope for the best and pray for the tradewinds to be working it like they should - and a landfall is wished to be made about 3 weeks thereafter - where we'll be good in time for meeting up a couple of friends on the Caribbean side. Cannot wait for getting started with the crossing, but also we're glad to have made the decision to await for a perfect time to get it all started instead of stressing us through this first part of the tour. By the way, Marina Rubicon where we're staying at the moment has been an excellent stop for us. Peaceful, clean, fresh, great service and good facilities. The price a bit high (23 Euros/night) but over all an excellent marina. We're just about to leave for Gran Canaria and Las Palmas this afternoon where we'll make a quick stop before heading to the Southern parts of that very same island. 

New Year is now due to be celebrated in Gran Canaria, we have no plans whatsoever on how to spend NYE, but I'm sure we'll figure something fun out tomorrow when we arrive. Christmas and New Years celebrations have not been high up on our priority list for this year. But at least we have the fridge full of Champagne for a new years toast. /Taru

Photo from the Atlantic beach of Rabat, Morocco.

Surf in Lanzarote

I have always known how important surfing was to Alex for about 15 years ago or so. When he was a surf teacher on the French Atlantic coast and when he was traveling the world from Mexico to South Africa to Angola and Bali, Portugal and the coasts of Morocco in search for the best waves, but I have not really seen it in action - and as it was such a distant image for me, I haven't really seen him, nor could I really picture him, as the surfer he obviously once was - even though I've seen some old photos of it. He's been mumbling about getting that board in the water once we get to warmer waters like the Pacific or such, while at the same time I have felt that he's been worried for being a bit too old and rusty - so with time I have also somehow thought that yeah, he probably is a bit too old and rusty to get it going on the big rolls. But so today I finally got to see him working that board for real for the first time in my life and while sitting some hundred meters away, prepared with my tele-objective, I could slowly start to realize the deep importance the surfing have had on him - and obviously still does in a nostalgic, deep way and I felt such strength of seeing him excellently maneuvering the board after such long time. Obviously a lot more stiff than I can imagine him working it in his 20's, but still he had the flow. 

For some odd reason I even almost started to cry for fucks sake, when I saw him taking off on a two meters left. Two meters (6,5 foot) is really nothing when it comes to serious surfing but it did made me proud to see my handsome man making some action after such long time. Is that the second you know that you never loved anyone higher - when you're almost 30 and you begin to cry when watching the love of your life doing something he really loves from the bottom of his heart or is that just a sign of that human beings (me) gets more pathetic with age? Seriously. Either way I had an amazing time watching the show and Alex was obviously really happy to have found himself some good waves again. Can't wait to learn this sport myself and I'm glad I have the perfect teacher for it.

Also I definitely need to get a good waterproof camera/video cam so that I can shoot better pics and videos of Alex (and maybe even me!) surfing on our tour around the world. This is something we cannot miss out on I'm telling you.
/Taru

Lanzarote!

We had a peaceful Christmas night on the sea with 20-25 knots of wind coming from the NW, right on the beam. 240 nm was quickly done in 39 hours. This is how it looked when arriving to the islands this morning- It is so hot over here, one could almost mistake these islands to be Caribbean ones. Sorry for the bitchy-early-morning-look on my face but that's how it goes when trying to avoid getting too much sun in the eyes while balancing with a bony ass trying not to fall over board and at the same time dying for getting back into the cockpit to enjoy Christmas breakfast with my baby.

Anyway, now we're finally here! I'll speak to you later. /T