What happened to Jon?

Since I'm not on the boat anymore I am perhaps not supposed to write here, but I could not resist one last post. As you all know I left Trinidad before christmas instead of after, as I had originally planned. Mainly I left back home so early because a friend of mine suddently called me in Brazil and said he was getting married. On new years eve... So if I wanted to come, I had to either leave from Trinidad, as I did, or I had to spend most of the christmas week travelling on airports and ferries.

For you guys still on bonanza I can tell you that milk does not taste anything like the powder we called milk. Sleeping in a bed where I am able to stretch fully is not too bad, and no I did not get a cold-shock when I got back to Norway.

Finally I'll miss both the boat, the crew and all the sailors I've met on the tour (that I did not meet in Beque as planned). May you all have A MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

I will however still do some tweeks here and there on the webpage while I'm here in Norway.

Christmas in Bequia

It is christmas and we have celebrated together with scandinavian boats in Bequia in the Grenadines, 140 nm north of Trinidad. The 22nd, Halvor, Oyvind and Sandra arrived and the day after we sailed to Bequia. The wind and current were against us, so we had to start our engine to reach the christmas eve. The trip was very wet and all of our new crew got seasick and had to feed the crabs. Now everything is better and we enjoy lazy days here on this beautiful island. Chrismas eve we spend on the beach with barbeque and about hundres other scandinavian sailors. Many of them we have met before.

We will stay here for some more days and probably go to Tobago Cays for new years eve. Then we will return to Trinidad and haul out the boat the 6th of January for antifouling and some painting.

Merry christmas to everybody back home. And Jon, people are asking for you...

Arrived in Trinidad

Before we left Belem we had great expectations of making new records regarding daily sailed distances on our way up to The Caribbean. From what we could read, the currents should be strong and with us, and so should the winds. The winds however turned out to be close to absent the first week and had it not been for the strong currents we would have had problems reaching here before our visitors from Norway. (As you can see there were no "200nm sailed last 24hrs" in the posts from the last leg.)

During the last leg Jon decided to skip the Christmas celebration in Beque as the rest of Bonanza is doing and head home for wet snow, freezing temperatures, a life with shoes on his feet, home made bread, a toilet that doesn't move, and a Christmas with the family. A week or two to adjust back to normal life before he starts working is probably not a bad idea.

As we are here in Chaguaramas bay waiting for our visitors we are checking prizes on the work we want to have done on the boat in january when we come back. The boat is still in a generally good condition, but as all sailors know, there is always something that needs to be done on a boat.

Iridium messages Brazil - Trinidad

(12.19.2005) 1041N 06138W Arrived Chaguaramas bay on Trinidad! Bonanza has sailed from Norway to Caribbean!

(12.18.2005) POS 1051N 6028W 80NM TO GO 142NM LAST 24H. TRINIDAD&TOBAGO IN SIGHT! FAIR WEATHER AND GOOD SPEED TOWARDS A NEW PARADISE!

(12.17.2005) 0950N 05817W 131nm last 24h, 222nm left. Alot of wind now, good speed. Rainshowers.

(12.16.2005) 0901N 05615W 118nm last 24h, 353nm left. We look forward to visits and christmas on Bequia. Are you on the plain, Halvor and Oyvind?

(12.15.2005) POS 0813N 5425W 114 NM LAST 24H. LITTLE WIND IN GENERAL BUT SPEEDRECORD YESTERDAY OF 9,4 KNOTS!LITTLE COOLER IN THE AIR.

(12.14.2005) 0722N 5243W,125nm last 24,585nm left. Getting some more wind now,but it is still unstable. Heavy rain today. Morale is still good on board.

(12.13.2005) 0551N 5116W. 94NM Last 24hrs,710 to go. Cooking on old parafine,down to one hot meal a day. Managing well so far.

(12.12.2005) Pos: 0451N 05001W 75nm last 24h, 804nm left. At moment no wind and very calm see. Paraffin bought in BelEm no good, experimenting with diesel.

(12.11.2005) POS 0404N 4903E 146 NM LAST 24H.LITTLE WIND NOW BUT FAVOURABLE CURRENTS AND FAIR WEATHER

(12.10.2005) 0207N 4751W 106nm last 24hr, 1025nm left. Caught one king mackerel just before dinner last night. Hoping to catch some good currents soon.All ok.

(12.09.2005) 0020N 04754W 133nm since BelEm, 1131nm left to Chaguaramas bay on Trinidad. Heading north out of delta and to deeper water. Water still brown.

(12.08.2005) Leaving BelEm,1265 nm left.s01,27 w48,31. Not much to say except that we will miss brazil and all the friends we are leaving.

It´s a wild jungle and we are leaving it tomorrow

We have now spent two weeks here in Belém, and have experienced a lot. Belém has by far exceeded our expectations. What we believed would be two weeks of moscitoes and rain turned out to be two weeks of sun, beaches, lush jungles, great food and loads of friendly people.

The trip from Belém goes straight to Trinidad, Tobago to pick up our guests for christmas before we head for Beque. the distance is 1300 nm and we plan to spend around ten days if the currents and winds are as good as we hope. In case you are wondering, we decided to drop Devils island.

On our way north we will try to update the page dayly as we have done before, but this time we will also include our position so that you can see excactly were we are if you enter the position in a mapprogram. (such as http://earth.google.com/ )

In case you have not noticed we have uploaded more than 60 pictures from Brazil that you could check out on the right side of the page.

Enjoying Brasil

We are starting to say that every place is the best place we have been so far, but this time it is really true. Belém has everything we could wish for and much more.

David and Jon went to a hotel on an island further out in the delta last weekend to relax and enjoy some time away frome the boat. While they were away from the boat Arild and Hansi were taking some local trips around in the Amazonas from Belém.



Since then we have been out trying to impress the local people with the norwegian dancing. We have also been to a jungle-expedition with a professor and her students from the local university, we have taken swims on beaches in the midle of the Amazonas, eaten as much beef as we ever though was possible, met a lot of nice local people and gotten bitten by quite a few mosquitos.



All is well with the crew of Bonanza and we are still enjoying the city where the statistics say there are 4 brasilian girls for every guy.