BVI

 I know it's been a while since our last blog update, so here comes the latest news since we arrived in BVI on the 21st of October. The last leg of our journey from Panama was the Dominican republic to BVI, and it also turned out to be the hardest part. The wind was against us 25 knots the whole way, and it took longer than expected to get to BVI. When we finally arrived after 36 hors or so we anchored off Norman Island and spend the night there. The next morning we continued to Virgin Gorda. 

We spend the first two weeks in Yacht Harbour, the marina in Spanish Town. Dive BVI where I work has its headquarters there, and it is also the "capital" of Virgin Gorda. It soon turned out that the marina was very expensive, so we moved the boat up to Leverick Bay in the North Sound, where Dive BVI also have a dive shop. So now Windsong is sitting two slips from the dive boat, and I'm literally 5 steps from work. Very convenient, and it's also a very nice place here with pool, beach, restaurant and a very lively beach bar with live music every evening in the high season. We might need earplugs!

            

The dogs´favorite beach at Mosquito Island

     

                      

Afternoon cocktail in the pool

            

                      

    The beach at Leverick and the mast of Windsong in the background

  Painkiller, the famous local cocktail

Map of BVI

 Saba Rock, probably the smallest island in BVI

Panama - Haiti - Dominican Republic

Yesterday we arrived in Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic.

After leaving Bocas Del Toro we had 4 days of flat seas and no wind at all, and a single day of big swell before arriving in Haiti where we made a stop to see our friend Jelle. We stopped in Port Morgan and had a nice lobster dinner before we continued the next day. It took us 48 hrs to sail to the Dominican Republic, and almost all the way we had 12 ft waves and 25-35 knots of wind in the nose, so needless to say the trip was less than pleasant and we were all exhausted when we finally arrived. It is almost impossible to cook, sleep or do anything at all when the boat is moving in all directions and you are nearly thrown out of your bed when trying to get some rest.

After a good night of sleep we all felt much better, and today we've been on a trip to the capital, Santo Domingo. Thanks to Jelle we finally got solar panels for the boat!

The weather here is cooler and much less humid than Panama, and the place is nearly bug free.

All in all things that contribute to much better sleep!

We'll be here until Tuesday when we continue on the last leg to BVI, hopefully with calm weather and less swell than when we arrived.

Back in busines

Laurent and I are back on the boat after spending 3 months in Europe, and we can now call ourselves Mr and Mrs de Courtivron.

We had a great time in Denmark and France, nice to spend time with family and friends and enjoy some quality food.

We are just about ready to leave Bocas and set sails for BVI where I got a job at Dive BVI starting early November.

We have two new crew members onboard, Abi from England and Kevin from USA.

Our planned route is via Jamaica, Dominican Republic and maybe Puerto Rico, and at the moment the weather looks great for the passage so we hope to leave tomorrow.

Laurent, the dogs and I have left the boat in Bocas del Toro and are now in France. We'll be in Europe until mid September when we return to the boat and continue our trip.

We wish all our friends a nice summer without hurricanes!

The Panama Canal

On Thursday last week it was finally our turn to transit the Panama Canal.

Each boat is required to have a captain plus four people to handle the lines, so we asked our friend Leo and 3 of his friends to come and help us.

At 6:00 in the morning we were ready to pick up our pilot outside the Balboa Yacht club, and at 8:30 he finally came on board. We proceeded to the first lock, where they kept us waiting another two and a half hours before we finally got clearance to start.

We had hoped to be rafted with a couple of other boats, but were told to go through the locks center chamber, alone. In front of us we had another sailboat and a sport fishing boat.

We went into the first lock, the water came in and we were lifted 16 meters before we proceeded into the next lock and repeated the procedure. After the second Miraflores lock there was a one mile passage to the third lock called Pedro Miguel.

By the time we came out of the third lock and crossed the Gatun lake it was late afternoon, and we were told to spend the night tied up to a buy in front of the Gatun locks on the Atlantic side.

At 10 the next morning we got clearance to enter the first Gatun lock, and started our trip down to the Atlantic Ocean. We exited the third and last lock about an hour later and went straight to Shelter Bay Marina where we said goodbye to Leo and co.

We stayed two days in the marina and then set off towards Bocas del Torro.

It took us 24 hours to get to Bocas, and for the first time in ages we were just the two of us and the dogs onboard.

We are now anchored right outside Bocas Town, close enough to hear the live jazz music from one of the bars in town.

In a couple of days we'll go and explore some of the other islands in the area, there are a lot of beautiful islands around and most of them are uninhabited.

We're happy to be in the Atlantic Ocean again, and enjoy the clear warm water and beautiful coral reefs around. Time to go diving again...

Some more pics from Panama

We are still in Panama City waiting for the canal authorities to tell us when we can transit the canal. They say they have a shortage of canal pilots, so it may take another week or so. So we wait...

Panama City and Las Perlas

We arrived in Panama City on the 22nd of April, just in time to pick up our friend Ann who arrived from Minneapolis one hour after we pulled into the slip in Marina La Playita.

We had a bit of a rough trip from Golfito to Panama City, especially the area around Punta Mala caused some big waves and gusts of 35 knots of wind for 24 hrs.

After arriving we spend 2 days in Panama City, and then we went out to cruise the Las Perlas Islands for one week. The islands are very beautiful and most of them are uninhabited and fringed by the most amazing white sandy beaches. And there are absolutely no people anywhere, we were the only boat in most of the places we anchored.

We bought cheap lobster and prawns from the local fishermen almost every day and had a great time cruising the islands. The weather was hot and humid, and we had a squall almost every afternoon or evening.

One week ago we returned to Panama City, where we said goodbye to Ann whoe went back to the states and Mike who returned to Playa del Carmen.

We have spend the last week doing some repairs on the boat, changing our battery bank and alternator and preparing for the canal transit.

At the moment it looks like we'll transit Tuesday or Wednesday, and we haven't decided what to do once we get to the Atlantic side. Still cinsidering our options.