bonanza

"Bonanza" is sold..

2006-08-07T12:36:00.000+02:00

"Bonanza" is sold! Now we are not sailors anymore. Buhu..

"Bonanza" is back home

2006-07-18T12:11:00.000+02:00

Monday the 17th of July, about 1 pm, "Bonanza" arrived home port Hansnes marina in Arendal with David, Hans Olav, Ragnhild and Arild onboard, after 1 year and 2 days of sailing. Unhappily Jon could not come to join us the last leg from Merdø to Hansnes. Trond in "Orinoco", Ragnhilds parents and more boats joined Bonanza as we sailed in the Galtesund and sighted Arendal and Pollen. Arriving Hansnes, were David's parents live, a whole bunch of people, family, friends and some journalists, were there to welcome us. David's parents served cakes and coffe, and later real norwegian meatballs. That was a great day.

We will stay here some days to prepare the boat for sale, and then the trip is definitely over. It is a little bit sad, but also nice to be home again. WE HAVE HAD A GREAT YEAR! And to everybody that dream about sailing, we want to say: DO IT!

"Bonanza" still for sale

2006-07-15T14:20:00.000+02:00

If you want to buy our proud ship "Bonanza" it is still not too late. The new adress for the prospect is http://www.finn.no/finn/boat/object?finnkode=7962026

"Bonanza" will probably arrive home port Arendal Monday the 17th of July about 6 pm!!!

Arrived, explored and leave Falmouth

2006-07-06T16:21:00.000+02:00

We arrived Falmouth early morning Tuesday the 15th of July after 3,5 days crossing the Biscay from La Coruna. We didn't have much wind, so we had to power quite, or use the green sail as we like to call it. As you understand we didn't see the feared and scary Biscay all sailors talk about.
In the need of time we have to move on from this nice and welcoming small town. We will sail directly to Helgoland in Germany, so that we can spend some days there and catch up with old local friends we met on the way to the south of Europe one year ago.
The weather forecast looks ok and we still hope to reach homeport as planned the 15th of July. We can't wait a minute more to taste David Mom's homemade meatballs and the wellknown Lundstrom creamcake with marsipan topping.

Finally ready!

2006-07-01T13:03:00.000+02:00

Yes! The new stays are finally in place. Of course the delivery was late and the work was more time consuming than expected. We had to take down the whole furling and split it in all its peaces before we could fit the new stay inside. Now we have a strong rig that we trust will bring us safely across the Biscay.
We are leaving in a few hours on a good forecast. There will still be no messages from us in the open ocean because we have terminated the satphone subscription.
We estimate 4-5 days on this leg but dont worry if it takes more time.
We are short on time now and have decided not to stop in Skagen. We still hope and plan to arrive in Arendal july 15.

In La Coruña, Spain after boring incident

2006-06-26T12:27:00.000+02:00

Yes, we are safe, but our forestay snapped with a scary sound halfway to Falmouth and we chose to go to Spain to do the repairs. It was 200 nm shorter and, wind was more favourable and we had a weatherforecast for the entire period it would take. We decided that we could sail in light winds if we had the wind from behind. The first day we sailed to come within engine range of La Coruna. The last 4 days we have been hand steering while motoring. Because of only light winds, we avoided big motions in the boat and we don´t thing further damage is done to the rig. Now we will stay here until the repairs are done, probably also changing the backstay, and than set out for the crossing of Biscay.

We have been here in La Coruña before, the 21th of August 2005 we arrived here from Falmouth. So that means that Bonanza has crossed it´s wake for the first time on this journey!

Leaving without satelitte phone

2006-06-16T15:43:00.000+02:00

Yes, it is Friday, and the SIM card is not here. The post office know nothing and the courier DHL says it is probably on its way to Funchal on Madeira and will be there the 21st of June! And as you know, Madeira is not the Azores, but another group of islands in the Atlantic. We don´t have time to wait for something that we don´t know when will show up, so we have decided to leave without. There will therefor be NO iridium messages on this site and no messages whatever before we arrive Falmouth, England, hopefully the 27th or 28th of June.

We are leaving on a good weather forecast with no heavy winds in sight for the next week, with a stable high pressure over the Azores. We are expecting light winds and will probably use the engine to make as fast as possible passage. We will not receive eatherforecast on our satelitte phone, but are able to download weatherfax on our PC and listen to weatherforecast from England when we approach.

Still here

2006-06-15T18:24:00.000+02:00

The SIM card did not show up yesterday, and today it is a public holiday, but we hope we can leave tomorrow Friday!

Leaving the Azores

2006-06-13T18:01:00.000+02:00

We have been her one week now and time has passed very quickly. We will probably leave for Falmouth, UK, tomorrow, if we get the new Iridium SIM card in the mail. Happily, the phone is okay, but the SIM card was not working, so our service provider has shipped us a new one from UK.

We rented a car on Sunday and drove around the island twice, it is not very big. At the western tip is was a volcanic eruption in the 1950´s that created a new peninsula and made the lighthouse there useless. It didn´t show from the sea anymore! We also drove to the top of the island, the about 1000 meters high crater that formed the island many years ago. The crater is 2000 meters wide and 400 meters deep, and an impressing view. We also stopped to look at the container ship that drifted ashore in December 2005 because of engine problems. They have tried everything to get it afloat, but useless. It will soon be parted up and sunk in the ocean.

Most of the norwegian boats we met when we arrived, have left. But Sunday, Agape surprisingly showed up, after 30 days sailing from Florida! We have had a great time, and yesterday, they joined us to celebrate Arild´s and Hans Olav´s birthdays with cake and candles in Bonanza. Arild is now(15th) 29 years, and Hans Olav(11th) 27, but we still feel young. David took a flight to England to visit his sister Saturday. He will join Bonanza again when we arrive Falmouth.

The weather was bad when we came here, and many boats waiting to leave occupied the marina places. But after a couple of days at anchor, we got ourselves a place at a pier. We have now packed the dinghy for probably the last time on our journey. The weather is better now, but we will probably face light head winds, but no heavy winds, at least the first week. We plan to use about 10 days to Falmouth.

We have painted our names and the boats name on a pier in the marina. Everybody do because if you don´t, that means bad luck. Now we feel that we can safely leave for England.

Bonanza has crossed the Atlantic again!

2006-06-06T19:23:00.000+02:00

We arrived at Horta on Faial, one of the Azores islands, yesterday morning, after 15 1/2 days at sea. The morning before, we cheched out the harbour in Flores, but the conditions were really bad, so we decided to continue to Faial. Everything has gone well, no serious problems at all.

Horta is nice, and we have met some of the norwegian boats that are here, some of them we haven´t seen for a long while. The norwegian boats that are here are Fatuhiva, Apricus, Vanvara, Felizie and Aurora. We have also met the french boat "Voile Magazine" that we first met in Brazil, and then in Trinidad.

Something is wrong with our satelitte phone, we don´t know what yet. We will sure try to sort it out before the next leg to Falmouth. This is the longest crossing any of us have made, but the time passed fast, with the help of DVD´s and books. The weather was variable, with winds from 5 to 40 knots, but most of the time from a favourable direction. The last weekend a low pressure developed over the Azores, and we expected a lot of wind. Together with Harald, our weatherman in Norway, we decided to sail more north to avoid the heaviest winds. That was a smart move, after we arrived we talked to other boats that had experienced 40 to 50 knots of wind, in norwegian "liten storm", the last day of the crossing.

Yesterday a friend of us, Ragnhild arrived, and she will sail with us the rest of the way to Norway. Nice with new crew. We plan to stay on the Azores until about the 15th before heading for UK.

Iridium messages Bermuda-Azorene

2006-06-04T15:02:00.000+02:00

(6.03.2006) Fikk melding av arild idag, fra mobiltelefon. Alt er ok. Dei er på 3922N 3110W. Regner med at dei er framme på Faial i morgon.

(6.02.2006) 3909N 3401W 117nm last 24h, siste dager blir pT kryssen, nok om d! bonanza ruler... je je je

(6.01.2006) 3858N 3634W 129nm last 24h, 374 left. Wind 23kt fra NW. This night motoring because no wind. Still plenty of diesel left.

(5.31.2006) 3914N 3918W 139nm last 24h, 503nm igjen! knuser pT i en knop medstrVm og vind aktenfor tvers. nydelig dag pT dammen!

(5.30.2006) 3849N 4216W 118NM LAST 24H. 642NM TO GO.HEADING MORE NORTH BECAUSE OF A STUPID LOW PRESSURE WICH IS OFF ITS NORMAL TRACK ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

(5.29.2006) 3728N 4437W.91NM LAST 24H.760NM TO GO.GIGANT WHALE CLOSE TO THE BOAT TODAY! JACK BAUER PULLED IT OFF IN THE LAST MINUTE!

(5.28.2006) Arild ringte og sa at det var noe trøbbel med sattelitt-telfonen, så de kunne ikke sende melding. posisjon: 3706N 4627W. 102NM last 24h

(5.27.2006) 3640N 4831W 116 NM LAST 24H. GOOD BREEZE FROM THE NORTH, FAIR WEATHER, COLD AT NIGHT. JACK BAUER CICKS ASS!!

(5.26.2006) 3616N 5052W 108nm last 24h, the front has past and the weather is clear again. Jack Baur running good against terrorism and we run the sea.

(5.25.2006) 3546N 5259W 103nm last 24h, 1177nm left. 4h motoring today, now sailing again. Wind SE 7kt. Only 20.7 degrees in the water now!

(5.24.2006) 3505N 5457W 119nm last 24h, 1280nm left. Less wind, about W15. A lot more comfortable now. Thunder and frightening lightening tonight also.

(5.23.2006) 3433N 5716W 134nm last 24h, 1399nm left. Had thunder and lightening tonight, still 25kt wind. Jack Bauer is doing well, will he find the bomb?

(5.22.2006) 3359N 5953W 140nm last 24h, 1533nm left to Horta. Very nice speed, but 24kt wind and 2.2m waves. Sun now but a front is aproaching.

(5.21.2006) 3315N 6232W 121nm last 20h, 1673nm left. A really burnout start, steady 15-20kt wind from W-SW. Passed 10000nm total sailed distance this night!

Starting Atlantic crossing today

2006-05-20T17:11:00.000+02:00

We are leaving today for the Azores, a leg of about 1800 nm. If we choose a more northerly route, it will be about 1900 nm, but also more wind and a faster passage. We will decide when we see how it looks like out there. We think we will use about 18 days, an average of about 100nm a day. Our computer passage planner says 13 days, but we don't believe him. We will keep you updated with satellite messages as usual.

We had to order the rigging parts, four shroud exit plates, from USA, but it took only three days with FedEx. We are very happy that we could do this repair now and that we have a rigg we can trust. The old plates were cracked and it felt very bad to set sail with them not changed.

We had a uncomfortable night when the cold front passed us on Wednesday. We had wind of 25-30 knots, gusting 35 knots, and the rain was very heavy. It was impossible to take the dinghy ashore without getting soaked because of the spray. But anyway, better to be in harbour than at sea when the weather is bad.

Now everything is ready, we only have to check out, buy some fruits and vegetables, stow the dinghy on deck and fill diesel and water. We will now bring about 250 liters of diesel, more than ever before. But this is also the longest passage so far on our trip. But we look forward to go to sea now, and we are well prepared.

PS! We bought ourselves some new DVD's, among them the complete "24 hours" TV-series. That means it is no problem if the passage take us up to 24 days...., we will still have one episode a day!

Bermuda

2006-05-15T18:22:00.000+02:00

Who can sail without wind? Yes, Bonanza can! The leg from Cuba to Bermuda took us no less than 13 days, and we had expected about 8 days. With little or no wind except the last day, we averaged about 70 nm a day. We don't have big fuel tanks on Bonanza, only 70 liters and about the same on jerry cans, so motoring the whole way was not an option. But we are sailing, aren't we? And then, we arrive when we arrive, impossible to plan the wind.

Quiet days on the sea is not bad at all, and the days passed very quickly. We read many of our books and saw all of our new DVD movies that should last to the Azores! All the way, we had company of sailing jellyfish, called Portugese Man of War. They have a sail and we have heard that they can even sail against the wind. The are also very dangerous, so you don't want to touch them. In the middle of our passage, we could hear stations from Florida on our VHF. That amazed us, it was a distance of about 500nm, and far above normal VHF range of about 40 nm. Also, approaching Bermuda, we could listen to Bermuda Radio several days before we arrived.

Harald, Arild's brother did a great job sending us weatherforecasts every day on the sat-phone. In addition we downloaded weatherfaxes from USA on our SSB receiver. Together we could make up our mind about the weather situation. On this leg we had nothing to fear. The next leg will be worse, with greater probability of strong winds.

Bermuda is nothing like the Caribbean, it is more like Europe, but with some very special houses with white roofs. It seems like a wealthy island(s), but the bad thing is the prices here, it is worse than in Norway. St. Georges, where we stay, is a small town, but very nice. Many boats are anchored in the harbour, many of them are bound for Europe. Many norwegian boats have left for Azores already, and some left yesterday. We will stay here on Bermuda until Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the weather. A deep low is moving in from the west, and we want to wait until it has passed. We will use the time to fix a minor problem in the rigging and buy more jerry cans. If we have the time, we want to go to the Maritime Museum. Bermuda is a british crown colony with alot of maritime history.

Iridium messages Cuba - Bermuda

2006-05-14T17:18:00.000+02:00

(5.14.2006) 3223N 6440W Finally on Bermuda after 13 days at sea! Plan to be here only a couple of days to prepair for next leg.

(5.13.2006) 3124N 6553W 82nm last 24h, STILL NOT HARMED BY FRIGHTENING PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR THAT HAS SURROUNDED US FOR MANY DAYS NOW!

(5.12.2006) 3020N 6655W, 77NM LAST 24HR. 172NM LEFT. JE JE ITS CLOSING DOWN!

(5.11.2006) 2918N 6748W 41nm last 24h, 249nm left. Last night no wind at all, better now but NE, wrong direction. But weather is nice, not so hot anymore.

(5.10.2006) 2842N 6811W 95NM LAST 24H. 290NM TO GO.

(5.09.2006) 2730N 6924W 76nm last 24h, 385 left. Good wind right now, making 4.5kt. Almost finished all our DVD movies, but have plenty of food and water.

(5.08.2006) 2629N 7013W 79nm last 24h, 461 left. Still light and variable vinds, but we make progress. We understand that sailships feared the Sargasso sea.

(5.07.2006) 2519N 7056W 68NM LAST 24H. 540NM TO GO. NO WIND, DRIFTING WITH CURRENT IN THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE...

(5.06.2006) 2427N 7145W. 41NM LAST 24H, 608NM TO GO. ALMOST NO WIND, USED MOST OF THE DIESEL.

(5.05.2006) 2359N 7219W 84NM LAST 24H. FINALLY BETTER WIND!9 DOLPHINS AROUND THE BOAT TODAY.

(5.04.2006) 2251N 7313W 57nm last 24h, 733 left. Slow sailing, but very comfortable. Enjoying DVD movies and a lot of new books. Sun is shining today also.

(5.03.2006) 2214N 7402W STILL AGAINST NE WIND.82 NM LAST 24H. 790NM TO GO. GOOD WORK WITH THE FORECAST, HARALD,SO FAR VERY ACCURATE!

(5.02.2006) 2133N 7516W LIGHT WINDS FROM WRONG DIRECTION:-( 45 NM LAST 24H, 900 TO GO

(5.01.2006) 2104N 7557W Customs cleared, leaving Cuba for Bermuda. Nice weather and forecast. 926nm to go, estimated time 8 days.

Soon ready to go to sea

2006-04-28T14:52:00.000+02:00

Arild and David are now back in Holguin, not far from Puerto Vita, where "Bonanza" hopefully has been taken good care of. We don´t doubt it. Hans Olav and Sandra are still in Havana, Sandra leaving for Austria on Sunday. Hans Olav will come back to the boat the same day. Sandra has been with us since December, and it has been a great pleasure. She has become a part of the crew.

The time some of us spent in Viñales was great, we saw and learnt how tobacco is grown in one of the best tobacco areas in the world. The valley is a UNESCO heritage site, and the landscape is very special, lush and green, and with small mountains spread around in the valley.

Departure from Cuba is closing in. Before we can leave, we have to repair our stowe and track a problem we have in the electrical system. But, soon, probably on Monday, we will set sail for Bermuda. We will try to keep this page updated with satelitt messages as before.

The bad thing is that we will not experience 1th of May here in Cuba. Preperations are made all over the country now, and it would for sure been an memorable day!

Still in Havana

2006-04-22T17:55:00.000+02:00

We have been in Havana in almost a week now, and we like it. We have explored the old city of Havana, museums, fortress and cuban life in general. The city is great, but has been even greater. Old beautiful buildings are likely to fall down and maintanance seems to be an unknown word. The state owns the buildings, and it does not have money to repair anything.

The cuban people are very nice, but have for sure realized that tourists have alot of money, when you walk the streets, you are seldom left alone, everybody wants to do you favours, sell you cigars, invite you to dinner og ask you for money. Not strange actually, normal salary here on Cuba is only about 15 dollars a month. People don´t have much, but seem very happy even tough. People speak mostly spanish, so we have to practice our spanish skills, that are not much to write home about. Cubans are now learning english at school, but not many years ago, they learnt russian instead!

If anybody should wonder, nobody use american dollars here anymore. It is prohibited and now tourists have to use pesos convertible. The value is about the same as dollar, and with pesos convertible you can get almost everything, but only almost. You can even buy Coca Cola in the "dollar-stores". Cubans usually earn "moneda national", which are also called pesos, but you have to pay about 25 of those to get one pesos convertible. With this money you cannot buy much, but street food is often in moneda national, and then you can get a meal for almost nothing.

The norwegian boat "Agape" is here, we haven´t seen them since Tobago Keys, and it was very nice to meet them again. They have been sailing another route than us, via Venezuela and Colombia. They have the boat in the Marina Hemmingway here in Havana. They had visit from their son and a friend, and together with some other norwegians they had met here, one night we were not less than 12 norwegians for dinner!

We haven´t seen Fidel yet, but even then we feel he is everywhere. In the newspapers, on posters, in the museums, in the souvernir shops and in the book stores. He has a great impact on the people and the country, but he is now 79 years old, and he cannot live forever, so the coming years will be excitening for the cuban people. What is happening after Fidel?

Hans Olav, Sandra and Arild will leave for Vinales tomorrow, but David will stay in Havana. After some days there, we will meet again in Havana, and then go back to the boat. We plan to leave Cuba on Sunday the 30th or Monday the 1st, that is in about one week. The next stop is Bermuda and then the Azores in the beginning of June. We plan to be back in Norway the 15th of July, if anybody wonder about that. But not yet, before that, alot more to see.

Havana

2006-04-17T17:15:00.000+02:00

We came to Havana yesterday, and we haven´t seen much yet. Today we will go to the Museo de Revolusion, one of the main museums here in Havana. We live in a nice casa particulare with a nice host. We will sure enjoy our stay here.

We should take a bus from Trinidad to here, but it broke down and we got a taxi for the same price. After a few kilometres, the taxi got trouble with the clutch and could hardly shift gear. Almost in Havana, we had to change to a new taxi. But we got here, and on the way we passed Plaza de Revolusion, where Fidel Castro has his office. Though, we did not see him!

Arrived Cuba

2006-04-12T17:47:00.000+02:00

We arrived Puerto Vita in Cuba monday, and shorty after David's parents arrived. However, they had to wait a couple of hours before we could go ashore, first the doctor, agricultural department, customs and port captain had to visit us and we for sure had to do the immigration. We also got our ship searched by a drug dog and a couple of officers went through everything, even our dirty underwear. But they were all very polite and nice, so we got a very good first impression of the country. The marina lady, Tina, welcomed us heartly with flowers and a lot of useful information.

After one night in the boat, we have left for a couple of weeks of backpacking. We first travelled to Holguin, and from there took the nightbus to Trinidad, a city with many tourists, but not without a reason. The streets are stone paved and the buildings colonial style. We live in a kind of guesthouse called "casa particular", private homes with rooms and breakfast, very nice.

We still travel with David's parents, that brought us mail and gifts from home. We will spend a couple of days here before going to Havana.

Leaving for Cuba tomorrow morning

2006-04-06T23:09:00.000+02:00

Everything is almost ready now, we have been shopping food for at least a month. We do not expect to find much in Cuba, and in Bermuda it is really expensive, so this is the last stocking before the atlantic crossing.

Tatjana, our german crew, have bought a flight ticket from Cuba, and will go with us there. We plan to use about three days to Puerto Vita, Cuba, and the weather forecast look good. Not too much wind, but at least a pleasant sailing.

Selling "Bonanza"

2006-04-06T23:04:00.000+02:00

We have decided to sell our boat when we come home in July. You can look at the prospect at finn.no by clicking the link on the top of this site. It will not be easy to sell our ship and home for one whole year, but we have realized it will be too difficult owning a boat four persons together living in different corners of Norway. So that is the reason.

Cabarete

2006-04-03T19:39:00.000+02:00

We are now in Cabarete on the north coast of Hispaniola. This little town is crowded with tourists because of its amazing long beach. The conditions for surfing and kiting are among the best, with steady winds all year, so this is the place if you want to learn. But it is expensive, so Hansi and Sandra are not taking lessons even if they started in St.Lucia.

After Santo Domingo we took a bus to Jarabacoa not far from the mountains and the national park. The day after we took a local transport(guagua) to the little village of Cienaga, from where it is possible to walk Pico Duarte, the highest mountain in Carribean. But, this is a big prosject, you need camping gear and guides and mules an it takes three days, so we decided not to. But the transport from Jarabacoa to Cienaga was an experience, a pickup car loaded with 14 people on the most, 9 of them on the back, along with food, cement, diesel cans, beer and a poor hen in a sack. Maybe not safe, but we didn't fall of. In Cienaga we were invited to the house of an old man and probably his daughter. They served home grown coffe from their garden, with a lot of sugar, and they also gave us a some grape fruits. Very nice people, and even if they only spoke spanish, we were able to communicate a little.

After spending one night in Bonanza in Luperon, we took taxi and bus to Cabarete. We were happy to see that the boat was ok. Not so much to worry about maybe, boats have stayed here for many years on the same anchor and the theft is not so common. On thursday and friday we will leave for Puerto Vito on Cuba, where we can place the boat while travelling on Cuba by other kind of transport. Our german crew, Tatjana, is suppose to leave the boat here in Luperon, but she has to find a new boat in order to sign out from Bonanza. She is working her way through the world, and she got a job on a restaurant in Luperon the same day we arrived. If she does not find a boat, but has the money to buy a ticket from Cuba, she will probably come with us to Cuba.

Here in Cabarete, the hotels are really cheap, but nice standard. We enjoy sleeping in a real bed and zapping through the channels on the cable tv. We have also met many norwegians here. 30 norwegian students from HIF(Hogskolen i Finnmark) live here here for three months, studying tropical outdoor life. Sounds really nice actually!

Santo Domingo

2006-03-28T18:35:00.000+02:00

We are having a great time here in Dominican Republic. We have rented motorbikes with no lisence and drove all the way to Cabarete, a very long beach and a surfers paradise. The traffic was really chaotic, especially in Puerto Plata. Now we have left Bonanza in Luperon and have taken the bus to Santo Domingo, the capital. This is an old city and a lot to see if your interested in history. The city has a city wall to protect it from pirates in the 16th century. We will stay here a couple of days before moving to the interior and the national park with alot of tall mountanins. Actually, the highest mountain in carribean, Duante, lies there.

Luperon is a small town with really many yachties. The marina and the yacht club is where the yachties mingle. We have got to know the family on the norwegian boat Veto and had a great time with them. We have also got to know Rafael, a previous proffesional baseball player, that now are working driving el comandante around to newly arrived sailboats.

Arrived Luperon

2006-03-23T19:23:00.000+01:00

We arrived Luperon this morning, after 4 1/2 day at see. The leg was unusual pleasant with 10 to 15 kt wind and almost no swell all the way. Now we are checked in, the customs came to our boat, and the agricultural authorities will come about 3 o' clock. Why they have to search our boat we don't know, but we have nothing to hide, so it is okay with us. So far, this country seems like a nice place, a little different from the rest of Caribbean and a lot cheaper.

Iridium messages St.Martin - Dominican Republic

2006-03-23T19:20:00.000+01:00

(3.23.2006) ARRIVED SAFELY IN LUPERON, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.

(3.23.2006) 1952N 06949W 105nm last 24h, 64 left. Have sailed over the 7th deepest deep on earth, 8962 meters. Fantastic sailing. Spanish studies onboard.

(3.22.2006) 19.33N 68.00W 120nm last 24H RELAXED SAILING,FAIR WEATHER AND LIGHT WIND FROM ENE

(3.21.2006) 1859N 6558W 99 nm last 24h, 289 left. Can see the lights from Puerto Rico. Wind picked up a bit, are now making 6kt! Sea still calm, really nice.

(3.20.2006) 1832N 6418W 75 nm last 24h, 388 left to Luperon in Dominican Republic. Light winds, spinnaker today for first time.

Delayed departure

2006-03-18T16:31:00.000+01:00

When everything was ready to go, we discovered that something on the genoa furlingsystem was broken. It took us the whole day yesterday to sort out how to solve the problem. Now we will hopefully get what we need at the rigging workshop, and it will then be better than ever before. The plan is to leave this afternoon.

Leaving for Dominican Republic

2006-03-16T19:31:00.000+01:00

We will tomorrow leave St.Martin for Dominican Republic. It is about 500 nm and will take us about 4 days. We will try to update the website with position from the sat. phone.

We have met a german girl here, Tatjana, that were looking for a boat to go to Dominican. She will go with us. Even then, we are only five, and we will have lot of space...

St.Martin is kind of expensive and it is a lot of tourists here and also alot of superyachts. We are anchored in the Simpson lagoon, were the water is dirty, so we really look forward to some clear water under our keel.

St.Martin

2006-03-08T16:08:00.000+01:00

Just a little post to tell that we are now in St.Martin and everything is well. Lars and Kristin Marie, that have been with us for two weeks now, will travel home tomorrow. Since last update, we have been on St.Lucia on independence day, Dominica with two days of carnival, Antigua with it's 365 beaches and now St.Martin. We will stay here for some days, doing everything ready for the long trip westward, probably to Cuba. From here to Cuba it is 1100 nm, at it will take us about nine days. Before we go, we will also publish our latest pictures.

St.Lucia

2006-02-24T16:15:00.000+01:00

Bonanza is now anchored in Vieux Fort in southern St.Lucia. A fishing village almost without other tourists and cruisers. The village is most charming with nice people and a beautiful windward beach where Hansi at the moment is taking kiting lessons.
Kari and Froystein has returned to Norway and Lars and Kristin Marie is expected onboard today. We have to admit that we actually anchored outside the wrong airport...but what are buses for?

The passage from St.Vincent was a rough one. Wind gusting up to 30 knots straight on our noses almost the whole time. The good news is that all windows and hatches are now totally waterproof!
To be honest we are a little disappointed about the Caribbean weather. It rains a lot and the wind and swells is not exactly providing comfortable cruising conditions. Seems like the raining season is still not over...But as long as the scenery is beautiful and the company is good we are not complaining.

Maybe you wonder about the roaches? Well, we only see dead ones! Our weapon seems to have conquered the little invaders.

The Bonanza treasure on Fort Duvernette, St.Vincent

2006-02-24T14:51:00.000+01:00

Before we left St.Vincent a real treasure was burried on a very pirate looking place. We encourrage anyone to go treasurehunting! A map and description will soon be put in a bottle and thrown i the sea. In case it should not be found you can read the letter and see the map here.

1. Moore up to the stone jetty. Beware of shallows and current.
2. Turn right at the path crossing.
3. Take to the left of the barbed wire and follow the rear side of ruins to the rock top.
4. Look through the iron ring towards the west.
5. Where your eyesight crosses the top and seven feet below, and seven feet left under pile of rocks, there lies the Bonanza treasure.

Union Island

2006-02-14T21:56:00.000+01:00

After a great time in Englishmans bay snorkelling, and in Charlotteville, renting car and walking in the rainforest, we left Tobago yesterday evening heading for Union Island. After 18 hours with 2,5 m waves and wind of force 6(estimated because our wind instrument is not calibrated yet, it shows too low wind), we could anchor outside Cliffton on Union Island. Even tough almost every leak has been sealed, a new leak was discovered in the anchor locker in the bow, causing wet cloths and water on the floor. So, when a project is done, always a new one appear.

Now it is raining heavily and Arild and Froystein discovered they had alot of Trinidad and Tobago dollars left in their wallets. Unhappily they cannot change it into the local currency here even if it is neighbour countries. Not very logical, but if anybody need 360 TT dollars, just tell us...

Seven people onboard

2006-02-08T18:37:00.000+01:00

Bonanza is not very large, but most people get impressed when we tell them how many we are onboard. But with careful planning, it is no problem. Yes, Kari and Froystein finally arrived on Monday, and they already enjoy the carribean life. Today Kathi will leave our ship, and it has been nice to have her onboard. Then we will be only six, sombody that want to come?

Yesterday Arild, Kari and Froystein rented a car and participated in Rally Tobago in order to get to Charlotteville to sign in the new crew members. This had to be done not later than 24 hours after arrival, even if it is several hours to Charlotteville from Pidgeon point where we are now.

Hans Olav and David went with the ferry to Chaguaramas in Trinidad to pick up our "new" 9,9HP Yamaha outboard engine. We bought it from our friend Kris, and it is an 2000 model, but shall be as good as new. They are now about to try it, and from now we will have the fastest dinghy in the harbour.

We will probably stay here some more days, sailing up to Charlotteville to check out of the country. On the way we will sure make a stop in Englishmans bay, we have seen the pictures, and is seems like the most idyllic place.

About upside-downs

2006-02-06T18:06:00.000+01:00

What is worse than getting your dinghy turned upside down and the engine full of saltwater? The same thing with yourself inside! YES, we have tried that also, in Castara bay, with a huge swell on the beach. Next time we will count the waves. But nobody got hurt and some locals helped us with the engine, and now it runs again. Actually, it runs so nice, that we wonder if we at all need the new Yamaha 15HP we have ordered.

Today Froystein and Kari will arrive from Norway. They landed on St.Marteen on Saturday, but the airline system here in Carribean is clearly not among the easiest. After two days and seven more islands, they will hopefully arrive Tobago in one hour or so. If the flight is not delayed...

Tobago

2006-02-02T17:30:00.000+01:00

Bonanza is now on the beautiful island of Tobago. We left Trinidad with a perfect waterline and a shining hull. The most important things on the "to do" list were accomplished but we still have some work to do before we are totally ship shape.
We powered all the way to Charlotteville due to the direction of the wind and current and had a pleaseant crossing. We will spend some time here and explore this tropical paradise.

War on Bonanza!
Since Trinidad we have more and more often caught unwanted stowaways. They hide in unbelievable places and as the cowards they are they usually come out at night to haunt the crew. We are talking about the cochroaches. The most digusting creature alive on the planet have invited themselves onboard. In the dark corners they are thriving and multiplying. But they have come to the wrong boat! After consulting experienced sailors we have decided that a full war without the possibility of a truce is the only solution. Our weapon:
Capsuals with a mixture of Boric acid and condensated milk are now placed all over the boat. An eye for an eye, it is payback time!
Follow our struggle on this site.

The dinghy upside down..
Our first night in Charlotteville was spent in the good company of S/Y "Babette" on a good local restaurant. When we returned to the dinghydock we heard from some helpful friends that some big swells had flipped the dinghy over. They had mooved it up on the beach and saved it from further damage. The engine was packed with sand and salt water, both which is not known to be good for an outboard. We got the right tools and a waterhose from Bonanza and started the salvage operation. The day after the engine was running again, although not very good. Our outboard has been difficult for a long time and this did not make it any better.
In our dreams we picture ourselves with a brand new 15hp outboard. One never knows, the prices here are good....

Going sailing again

2006-01-27T21:42:00.000+01:00

Now we want to go sailing, even if we are not finished with everything. We will leave for Tobago tonight, getting advantage of less wind in the night. You will maybe say that you need wind to sail, but from here to Tobago it's upwind, and the current is also very strong, so motoring is the best option.

Our engine is now running again, after we had service on the injectors. We will buy new ones, but the old ones will help us out until then. Leaks around mast and in front hatch is sealed, we hope, and our instruments are now all working properly. The last things we will do in a idyllic bay in Tobago, and then we can take a long wanted vacation and relax in our "new" vessel. We have been working hard for three weeks now, and have not seen anything of Trinidad actually. But, maybe later, now it is Tobago, the island some of us have been dreaming about for years...

After Jon left, we are only three captains left. Sandra is our crew and her sister, Katharina, will join us for one more week. The 5th of February we will get visitors from Norway, Kari and Froystein, and they will join us for three weeks up to St.Maarten. There Lars and Kristin Marie will visit us for two weeks. Yeah yeah, we have a lot to look forward to.

New pictures today

2006-01-23T14:34:00.000+01:00

New pictures published today, look under "Christmas" and "On the hard". This weekend not much has happened, but today a man will come and look at our engine. For a trained mechanic, it should not be a problem to find out what is wrong. Besides, some of us went to the movies yesterday, we all think it is nice to be back in the water, and we hope we can soon leave for Tobago.

Splashing after two weeks on the hard

2006-01-21T16:22:00.000+01:00

Bonanza is back in it's right element after two weeks on land in Poweboats boatyard in Chaguaramas in Trinidad. It has been two weeks of hard work, but now Bonanza looks like a new boat outside. The waterline is raised above the water, and two red stripes are repainted in a ferrari-red color. We have applied new antifouling on the bottom, even if the old one was still fine. As a last touch we have buffed and waxed the hull. When we splashed yesterday, happily we could confirm that the waterline is correct. Thanks to helpful adivises from Kris, who works here in the yard, but that also has become our friend, we now know how to set a waterline with waterhose and fine line tape, so if anyone need a new waterline, just ask us.

We are back in the water, but we still have alot to do before we can leave. We bought and installed new instruments for the cockpit, but three out of four did not work, and had to be returned. We are also working with sealing leaks in windows and hatches, replacing a broken winsh, repairing sails and alternator, plaining doors that don't fit and welding the anchor roll. Our biggest consern right now is the engine. It has worked very well for six months now, but the saltwater episode during christmas has obviously made some trouble. Now it makes smoke like a campfire, the sound is not right and it runs uneven... The problem is probably the injectors, and we will get somebody to look at them on monday.

We will not leave here before the engine works and the boat is ship shape. This is the best place to fix things in the entire Carribean, and everything that has to be done we will do here. Now the plan is to stay until thursday before leaving for Tobago. Hopefully Sandra's sister, Katharina, will get some sailing before she has to leave. Even if we work every day(that's not naturally to us anymore, we have become very lazy),we really enjoy this place. Convenient with many facilities, and we have also made friends here.

Back on Trinidad

2006-01-05T15:18:00.000+01:00

Now we are back in Chaguaramas bay on Trinidad after celebrating new years eve in Tobago Cays, an isolated group of small islands with nice beaches. The leg back to Trinidad was far more pleasant than the leg from Trinidad, but we were in a kind of hurry, we had to reach the immigations and customs before they closed yesterday, because Halvor and Oyvind were to leave today. We didn't make it, and had to pay alot of TT dollars due to overtime. Anyway, now they have left for Venezuela, where they will stay fo a couple of weeks. We are very happy that they wold come and celebrate christmas with us on Bonanza. We had a great time.

We spent about a week on Bequia, exploring the nice beaches, climbing coconut trees, picking lime and oranges, playing beachvolley, swimming and being with friends from other boats. Arild and Halvor took the ferry to St.Vincent and stayed there for one night. They walked the Suffriere volcano and ate bananas. On the way back to Bequia, the took the ferry "Bequia Express II", that was an old norwegian ferry called "Austratt", and on which Arild's uncle has been working for three years!

New years eve, we left for Tobago Cays, like many other norwegian and swedish boats. We were to race with "Animara", but the start were delayed because the engine would not start. Luckily, Oyvind is a diesel mechanic, and he soon found out we had got saltwater in the engine. This has never happened before, and is quite a serious problem. After two hours or so, we were ready to go, and for some miles, we were in the lead. After being passed by the boat of Dencil Washington, "Animara" hoisted three sails, but we had to continue with our two. The final result is obvious, but next time, we hope to race on even terms...

Tobago Cays was nice, a national park with nice beaches and no houses. The new year was celebrated in "Animara" together with friends. When we entered the new year, most of us took a bath. The bad thing about the Cays was the weather. To much wind made many boats drag, but happily we had no problems. But the engine gave us more grey hairs as we got saltwater in it two more times. With wind gusting 45 knots, and without a working engine, some of us got a bit uncomfortable. But Oyvind fixed the problem again, and now we close bot intake and exhaust from the engine every time we stop it.

Here in Chaguaramas we have alot to do on the boat before we can continue. We will haul out the boat tomorrow, and will say on land for at least one week.

What happened to Jon?

2005-12-27T01:44:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-26T21:56:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-20T15:43:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-19T13:18:00.000+01:00

(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

2005-12-07T16:52:00.000+01:00

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

2005-12-01T23:13:00.000+01:00

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.

The Atlantic ocean has been crossed!

2005-11-23T19:56:00.000+01:00

We have finally crossed the Atlantic and are now in the midle of the Amazonas river, in Belem. 15 days at sea is behing us and both crew and boat survived the crossing. Some nerves were stepped on and the boat had some minor things that needs to be fixed, but nothing the crew of Bonanza can´t handle.

We had good winds most of time. No storms or strong gales and all we saw of the doldrums were two hours without wind. We had no problem catching fish on our way while we were fishing. Much thanks to a captain on a spanish fishingboat we met in Mindelo that gave us some good advice and some excellent hooks. Though we stopped fishing after we got poisoned by the tuna. Wich was a pitty because we could see a lot fishes all the time in the sea. Tunas jumping and flying fish flying in big groups in front of the boat. We even had visits from both wales and dolphins several days. A funny thing we realized after counting our total catch across the atlantic is that we caught more birds than fishes. (Not counting flying-fish) Even after we stopped fishing with a fishing line we continued to get birds. This time with the help of our "wind-mill" on the back of our boat.

The last two days here in Belem has been spent trying to check in to Brasil. (Let´s just say that Brasil would have perfect if beuracracy was your hobby...) Jon´s birthday was celebrated yesterday at several official offices around the city. In other words a day that will be remembered.

We are planning to make take a tourist-boat further in the river and spend some days at a hotel if we can arrange for the safety of our boat while we are away. According to a "local" american this might very well be possible.

A small note about messages to our sat-phone.
The three last letters in the norwegian alphabet are translated into several numbers when they arrive on our phone. Cutting down on the end of the messages sent. If you use ae, o, aa or similar it would be nice. (We even understand it if you use e, o, a)

Iridium messages Cape Verde - Brazil

2005-11-23T19:40:00.000+01:00

(11.21.2005) Amazonas sailed last 18hrs.0 left. Belem is just an inflation of the dingy away.

(11.20.2005) 135nm last 24h, 4nm left to waypoint, 86nm to Belem. Sea is brown. Some of us can see land, it is only 15nm away.

(11.20.2005) Breaking news! Bonanza is now on the southern hemisphere. We have now crossed equator.

(11.19.2005) 125nm last 24h, 139nm to waypoint Amazonas. Probably crossing equator tomorrow. Very hot and humid, nice to have the sea nearby.

(11.18.2005) 112 NM LAST 24H. 264 TO GO. GOOD WIND, CURRENT NOW FROM THE SIDE. TO HEAVY RAIN&WINDSQUALLS TONIGHT.

(11.17.2005) 62NM last 24hr.376 left. New bottom low distance. Eating coconuts like mad. Jon lost his helmet.Less counter-currents last hrs.

(11.16.2005) ONLY 78 NM LAST 24 H, DUE TO LITTLE WIND AND STRONG COUNTER-CURRENT. 438 NM TO GO. NICE AND SUNNY, BUT HOT!

(11.15.2005) 104nm last 24h, 516nm left. Short distance because of calms, squalls and unstable wind. Freshwater shower and 20l drinking water collected!

(11.14.2005) 128 NM LAST 24 HOURS.RAINSHOWER FOLLOWED BY A STRONG BUT SHORTLIVED GUST OF WIND.

(11.13.2005) 147nm last 24h, 748nm left to coast of Brasil, from there 90nm up the Amazonas river to Belem. Wind 20kt, waves 2,5m.

(11.12.2005) 144 Last 24hr,895 left. All well after the bad tuna.Got 33 flyingfish on deck last night wich is a record.More wind today.All ok.

(11.11.2005) 147 last 24hr,1040 left. Yesterdays tuna gave us foodpoisoning,but we are ok now.Got 1dorado but noone felt like fish for dinner. All soon ok.

(11.10.2005) 132nm last 24h, 1186nm left. Seagulls still like our fishing line. Yesterdays tuna marinating for todays dinner. Small tuna today. Like blid!

(11.09.2005) 140nm last 24h, 1319nm left. Hansi caught a 10kg tuna and a seagull. Overcast but still hot. Fresh bread for lunsh. Wind only 10-12kt.

(11.08.2005) 128 NM LAST 24 H. 1459 TO GO. WAWES:1,5M WIND:10-20 KNOTS BOATSPEED:5-7 KNOTS.SAIL REPAIRED.TWO UGLY SNAKEFISH.

(11.07.2005) 130nm since yesterday, 1587nm to go. One dorado and one seagull on the hook. Genoa damaged, sewing now but will take time.Flatnose whales today.

(11.06.2005) WE ARE LEAVING IHLA BRAVA IN ONE HOUR, LEAVING "ANIMARA" BEHIND. 1717NM TO GO TO BELEM IN BRAZIL. ESTIMATED TIME 14 DAYS.

Ihla Brava

2005-11-04T17:46:00.000+01:00

After travelling quite far, we found an internet place. This will sure be the last real update before arriving Brazil. We plan to use about 15 days on the passage to Belem in the Amazonas delta.

Now we and the crew on "Animara" are in Vila de Nova Sintra, a village in the mountains of Ihla Brava. Very nice place and nice people. Probably the most excotic place we will visit on our journey.

"Bonanza" and "Animara" are both anchored in Baja de Faja, a nice bay surrounded by high mountains. The road from the bay to the village is spectacular, "Lysebotn" in Norway will not be the same after this. Though it is not raining much here, the hillsides are really green and exotic.

Yesterday one local fisherman came swimming to our boats and gave us a lobster he just had caught using nothing but his hands and snorkling equipment. One other local showed us how to prepare it and where to find the good meat.

We still have left to discover the natural bathing pools in the bay. Probably we will combine bathing in the pools with a norwegian barbeque tomorrow.

Special greeting from Hans Olav to Sandra and from Arild to Kari. You are always with us in our thoughts.

Iridium messages Cape Verde

2005-11-03T18:51:00.000+01:00

(11.03.2005) ARRIVED BRAVA. LOST THE RACE AGAINST THE BIGGER NOR BOAT.WE FOUND A REALLY NICE BAY HERE.

(11.02.2005) SAILED 28 NM, 96 TO GO TO IHLA BRAVA IN THE SOUTHERN KAP VERDES.RACING WITH OTHER NORWEGIAN BOAT.ALL OK

(11.01.2005) STILL IN MINDELO ON SAO VICENTE. DEPARTURE DELAYED TO TOMORROW BECAUSE OF HEAVY WIND. 25KT, GUSTING 40KT, BUT ANCHOR HOLD IS GOOD.

Leaving Sao Vicente and heading for Brava and then Brasil

2005-10-31T15:22:00.000+01:00

We are soon leaving the island of Sao Vicente and heading south. We´ll take a small stop on the small island Brava in the cape verdes before we head over the litle lake for Brasil. The trip down to Brava is around one day and then we head for Brasil after spending some days on Brava. Our plan is to leave Brava on friday and head straight for Belem in the amazonas.

Here in mindelo we´ve met a lot of nice people and have really enjoyed the place. Yesterday we went to the neighbour island Santo Antão with a ferry and saw some really spectacular roads and nice villages. The whole island is filled with small terrasses in every imaginable and unimaginable hillside to prevent the soil from being washed away during rain. It is really impressive to think about al the work they have put in to it. On top of that all the roads on the island are paved. We drove 40 km over to the other side of the island and the road was spotlessly paved the whole way.

Isla Brava is supposed to be one of the smalles inhabited islands in capo verde and supposed to be one of the nicest. We really look forward to go there and perhaps find some clear water to try our snorkel-uqipment.

We´ll try to update the webpage by sat-phone every day when we are out sailing, but as you might have noticed not all messages came through. Should the webpage not be updated it does not mean that anything bad has happened to us. It only means that the update didn´t come through. (Or in the worst case, that we have become lazy.)

PS. We have also uploaded some more pictures here.

PPS. Everytime we receive a message on the sat-phone there is a real bonanza-feeling on board so keep sending them.

Arrived Mindelo! (Cape Verde)

2005-10-26T17:58:00.000+02:00

We have now arrived Mindelo and had a great voyage over from the Canaries. The wind was mostly good and we even set a speed record one day with 156 nm over 24 hrs. As you might have noticed from our previous posts we also tested how it works to update the webpage from our sat-phone. The experience with it was good, but some messages didn´t come through. For all the parents back home: Don´t panic if we don´t update a day. It is most likely to be a technical problem with the web. It doesn´t mean that bonanza has sunk with all it´s crew.

During our trip we caught a really big dorado (picture will come later), and some really ugly thin fishes that always came on during the night and mostly just freaked out the one catching it. We didn´t eat those. We also got our first experience with flying-fish. During the day they flew through the waves next to our boat and during the night day flew onto our boat. Jon even got a flying fish in his bed. It took a while before he figured out what was vibrating between his legs, but when he realized what it was he quickly got out of bed. Waking up with a flying fish vibrating between your legs is not as amuzing as the story it creates...

We also met an other norwegian boat Animare with 5 guys our own age. It is always nice to meet other norwegian boats and especially when the crew is young...

Mindelo is the first place we have come to outside europe and a lot of things are different from the tourist-places we have been to so far. Wich is both good and bad, but mostly good. The atmosphere here is relaxed and the people are kind.

More updates will come before we leave in about a week, but untill then: keep sending messages on our sat-phone. (Our cell-phones doesn´t work here.)

Satelitt messages Gran Canaria - Cap Verdes

2005-10-25T18:13:00.000+02:00

tue, october 25, 2005:
ARRIVING MINDELO IN CAPE VERDE.EVERYTHING OK EXCEPT CELLPHONES.FISH ARE JUMPING,AND THE WEATHER IS FINE.
mon, october 24, 2005:
ALL WELL ON BONANZA ARRIVING MINDELO TOMORROW.SOME TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH WEB
sat, oct 22, 2005:
SAILED 146 LAST 24HR.430 TO GO.SUNNY AND PLENTY WIND.ALL OK.
fri, oct 21, 2005:
118 NM LAST 24 HOURS. MAN OVERBOARD EXERCISE TODAY.DORADO ALL EATEN UP. CREW&BOAT OK!
thu, oct 20, 2005:
77 MILES LAST 24 HOURS.694 TO GO.COUGHT A 5 KILO DORADO!LITTLE WIND, GOOD WEATHER.EV.BODY OK
wed, oct 19, 2005:
88NM SAILED SO FAR.771 LEFT. SUNNY,BUT NO FISH YET.HOPING FOR MORE WIND.

Leaving Gran Canaria heading for Cape Verde

2005-10-18T13:44:00.000+02:00

We have now bought enough food for a month wich is clearly noticable from the outside of the boat and how it floats in the water. Since our last post we have started to get our feet back on the ground and are now ready for the sailing over to Cape Verde. We plan to spend approximately one week in open sea before we reach land again, wich should be enough to acclimatize Hans Olav.

Thanks to the new sat-phone we got we will also try to send daily updates from our phone to the webpage. They will be short and the headings will look strange but at least you can see where we are and how we are. Feel free to send us messages on the sat-phone from this link. It should be free.

Ohh and some new pictures have been added to the atlantic islands set.

Love is in the air...

2005-10-15T17:56:00.000+02:00

It is not that we have fallen in love with Las Palmas, but first things first...

Jon finished a diving course here on Las Palmas. The instructor was Italian and could almost speak English, the powerpoint presentation was in spanish wich Jon don´t understand and so was the diverstables. Luckily the videos and the final test were in english. While Jon were "relaxing" on the diving course, Arild and David washed and worked on the boat. It is now starting to look like a boat that have sailed far. (Even if you don´t look at the rather obvious Norwegian flag.) Much thanks to a, from a distance, profeccional looking sun roof we had made for two botles of whisky.

Then to the reazon of the title... Some stupid fool let Amor loose on Bonanza, and even the new electrical "flyzapper" we got from Emma and Stefan could help us from the effects. Last weekend Fenny came from Holland to visit Jon and Kari came from Norway to visit Arild. David on the other hand was waiting for a certain Norwegian boat we met on Madeira. The days went by while the others went on romantic trips to other parts of the island.

On thursday David´s birthday had come and almost before he could comment on why Agape the norwegian boat hadn´t come yet, two smiling sisters were standing on pier. That certainly put the smile back on Davids face. The rest of the day was spent visiting "El buen jamon" to buy ham and sitting in the boat eating ham on white bread with olive oil. Ohh and just to top it all he first got a cake from the girls and then a cake from the lokal finnish bar where he have become a part of the family.

Now that I am sitting here writing this post, we´ve sent Kari and Fenny back to their respective countries and are waiting for Hansi to arrive tomorrow. The plan about dropping Brazil and rather go to Gambia has been rejected and we are now ready for Brazil... Or as ready as it is possible to be after a week like this. Luckily Hansi has an education that makes him suited to deal with three lovesick guys...

We have added some pictures to the atlantic islands set...

Las Palmas

2005-10-03T17:25:00.000+02:00

We arrived Las Palmas this morning, after sailing as slow as we could the last hours to avoid coming in in the darkness. We had a nice passage, but the first day we had a big swell that made us sleep most of the day, and our new crew, David, to get seasick. Maybe we forgot to mention him in the last post, but David is danish and is hitch-hiking across the Atlantic. We gave him a lift from Madeira to Gran Canary, and her he will try to find a job before hitch-hiking to the Caribbean and US in November.

We finally caught a fish with our new fishing equipment. When we were preparing dinner the first day, a dorado found the octopus too tempting, and suddenly he ended up in our pan. The fish could not possible be more fresh!

Trond, that has been sailing with us from Muros in Spain, leaves us tomorrow. Next week, Fenny and Kari comes on visit, and at the end of the week, Hans Olav will finally join us.

Not many nordic sailors to see around, probably it is too early. The plan from now is to head for Kap Verde 15th of October, and from there towards Brazil about 1st of November. But plans can change.

Heading for Canary Islands

2005-09-30T16:29:00.000+02:00

After a nice taxi-sightseeing around the Madeira island today, diving in the national park and barbeque on the beach yesterday, we will leave tonight for Canary Islands, probably Gran Canaria. We have had a great time here, but according to Eleutério Gomes Ferreira Rodrigues, our taxi-driver, we have only seen one percent of what Madeira has to offer. Anyway, we have to leave beacause Trond is flying home from Gran Canaria the 4th. The distance to Gran Canaria is about 250 nm, and with the nice breeze forecasted, we will be there on sunday or monday probably.

Madeira

2005-09-26T17:45:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we sailed from Porto Santo to Madeira in a nice northerly breeze. Before we left, Jon and Trond painted our name on the wall in the marina, as many other boats have done before us. Anne on "Galadriel" baked bread in the morning, and gave us one for breakfast, and it tasted delicious. "Super-Bernt", the new ultralight and ultrabig windvane on the windtiller, steered us steadily all the way. Approaching Funchal, many dolphins came to visit, and also a big whale came up to take a breath eight metres off our starboard side. Fantastic view in the sunset!

We motored the last miles into Funchal, but found that something was wrong with the engine. We couldn´t make more than 3,5 knots at 2000 rpm, usually we make 5,5 knots at this rpm. We dived to check our propeller, but found it ok. Today we spoke with the danish sailor/mechanic Henrik on "Pi", that told us to change the fuel filters. Jon also dived to clean growth on the propeller, so now we hope that the problem is solved.

We have met many scandinavians here, many of them we have seen before. Nice to meet people that speak an understandable language. Tonight we have planned a beach volleyball contest on the artificial beach. Mainly it will be a Norway vs. Sweden match. Used to the winning role, we expect victory tonight!

Building in the sand

2005-09-26T17:42:00.000+02:00

Pictures from the sand sculpture contest in Porto Santo.

Enjoying life on Porto Santo

2005-09-22T20:04:00.000+02:00

We´ve now spent some days on this magnificant island. Already we´ve gotten known as the youth-boat among the other boats. One of the first nights we invited most of the other scandinavian boats for a barbeque on the beach, it was a huge success. When we finally managed to get up the day after we hired some mopeds. Please don´t tip the moped-rental about this site, but please enjoy the pictures...(click the link on the right side that says "atlantic islands")

Here on the island a Colombus-festival is starting as i am writing. And Arild has entered a sand-sculpture contest tomorrow. The crew will cheer and support the brave contestant morally during the contest.

Update:
Arild and his team brought home the first price in the sand-sculpture contest! The competition was very tough, mostly because of the last minute participitation from Jon in S/Y Galadriel. This resulted in that both the first and second price went to norwegians! We are the champions!

SMS from 881621440739@msg.iridium.com

2005-09-21T00:22:00.000+02:00

IF THIS WORKS WE CAN UPDATE FROM OUR SATPHONE

Porto Santo

2005-09-19T17:16:00.000+02:00

A little post to inform you that we arrived Porto Santo yesterday evening, after 4 days and 4 hours sailing. Porto Santo is a island in the Madeira group, and the distance to Madeira is 30 nm. (If you didn´t know this, don´t be too depressed, we didn´t know either before some weeks ago.) We will stay here for some days, maybe a week. Tomorrow we will rent scooters and drive wildly around the island. We also want to see the house of Cristoffer Colombus, he lived here once and his house is now a museum. The beach here is one of the best we have seen so far, and we´ll propably spend some hours on it.

We had a great voyage from Carcais to Porto Santo. The wind was from north all the time, and was steady between 10 and 22 kt. The two last days we had a clear sky and were really enjoying the boat life. Bathing in a rope behind the boat was a daily ritual. We also made bread in our new owen on the Optimus stowe. The bread was very good, espesially with butter and cheese (though it could have been a slight bit less heavy. always leave room for improvement). We also made improvements in our celestrial navigational skills, taking several sun sights and calculating our position. This is the way the sailours found their way across the oceans, before the time of the GPS.

The fishing is still a great dissapointment, during our passage we had fish on the hook at least twice (we think we had), but never managed to get any onboard. We have today been talking to the crew on another norwegian boat that had caught several tunas and dorados on their way to Porto Santo, we have received some good tips and believe our chances of getting fish will increase from here on. We still have the faith, because there is always hope in a hanging snore(Eggen)!

lisboa - cascais

2005-09-12T14:54:00.000+02:00

After some days in the Alcantara marina in Lisboa we started to realize that all other norwegian boats were out in a place just outside Lisboa named Cascais. As we had visitors from Norway and Germany we decided that a trip with the boat was a good idea.

The day after it was time to become tourists and do things such people normally do. We went to the village of Sintra where there are many castles and lots of opertunities to blend with the japanese and german people with cameras.

As we had gotten a tip off the castle on the picture above we decided to go up to it. Like the norwegians we are, we like to walk. almost up there Jon decided to ask a policewoman for directions to the castle. She sent us back down the road and told us that we had gone wrong. So we searched and finally found someone who had walked down through the forrests from the castle. They didn´t tell us how far it was... Short story: we came to the castle just before it closed and decided that we didn´t bother to pay 6€ for an hr in the castle and went back down to the village with buss. It drove just past where we turned after asking the policewoman.

We are now finished with stuff like that and are prepairing for the next leg of our journey.

Viana do Castelo - Lisboa (or "the satelite-phone works!!!)

2005-09-10T11:37:00.000+02:00

So we found Lisboa, and sailed past the whole coast off portugal in one go. Only seeing some forrestfires and lights from the cities as we passed. Our visitors came and we now both have an owen for the stove and a satelite-phone that works. Nice to have it fixed before we sail out in the big Atlantic ocean.

Lisboa is a great city and we have spent some days absorbing the atmosphere here. We´ve also met some other norwegian sailors and they are all anchoring just outside the city in Cascais so we plan to sail out there today with our visitors and join the sailing-getto.

After some days in Cascais we plan to head for Porto Santo, the island next to Madeira. It´s five days sailing from Lisboa.

The sun is shining and life does still treat us well. Especially now that we think we´ve found summer.

A special thanks goes to Carlos in Lisboa who drove us around in Lisboa and found everything we were looking for. He even found a new plate for our windfane, and it was free! He´s highly recomended.

HERE IS THE PREVIOUS LINK TO WHERE WE EXPLAIN EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE SAT-PHONE

Muros - Islas Cies -Viana do Castelo

2005-09-05T13:03:00.000+02:00

Trond finally came to Muros and we decided to leave the lovely little town of Muros and head south to the islands Islas Cies outside Vigo. We couldn´t have found a better place to introduce the cruizing life to Trond. The islands have large sandy beaches and numerous smaller ones, the hills are like the alps only smaller and the hillsides are green with woods and vegetation (ohh and the seagulls clean your table after you´re finished eating.)

The day on the island was by most of us spent sunbathing on the beach. Doing that the local way was a new experience for some off us as we realized the beach was a nudist beach. "When in Rome..." was said and blenda-white buttocks were exposed to more sun than they could handle.

After the day on the great islands we decided it was time to head for Portugal. We arrived yesterday to the nice little town Viana do Costello and are heading down to Lisboa today to meet some visitors. It´s 200nm down to Lisboa and if we sail the whole time we´ll probably be there on wednesday. (100nm a day if we sail both night and day.)

Our first impression of Portugal is great. The most important reason being: they speak english! Not much, but we can finally comunicate something else than "no comprende".

Camariñas - San Fransisco -Muros

2005-09-01T14:29:00.000+02:00

We left Camariñas just after our next post and had one of our so far best days of sailing down to the bay outside San Fransisco. Finally it was time to test our diving-equipment. Unfortunately someone was stupid enought to check the temperature on the water. The thermometer showed 16.7 C, Jon claimed it was 17 and David claimed it was 16. Jon took a bath, and David found an excuse to avoid taking a bath. Arild lay down and took a sunbath.

The day after David took the dinghy to Muros to buy fuel. The dinghy stopped and he had to row most of the way to Muros (2 nm). When he got there all petrol-stations were closed and the crew back on the boat got a phonecall claiming that it was much nicer in Muros than in the bay outside San Fransisco. It was.

We´re now waiting for our new crewmate Trond to come aboard. Before we set sails for Portugal.

A typical day

2005-09-01T13:52:00.000+02:00

Many people wonder what we are doing on the boat a typical day. Here is todays schedule so far:

10.23 Woke up
10.26 Stood up and found a sunny spot on the deck
11.02 Started thinking about taking a bath
11.17 Thought about taking a bath
11.31 Took a bath
11.40 More sun-bathing
12.14 Started to think about eating breakfast
12.32 Thought about eating breakfast
12.55 Had breakfast
13.01 Took the dinghy ashore to find an internet place

La Coruña - Camariñas

2005-08-28T10:19:00.000+02:00

We left La Coruña two days ago heading for Muros, the only place we had gotten a spesific recomandation for before we came to Spain. Our typical luck made us leave La Coruña on a day where we had a moderate gale straight in our faces. As we are humble beings we decided to find shelter and ended up in the litle village where we are now. On our way we tried to fish, but got interrupted by dolphins and sharks. And as we want neither of those on our hook we didn´t get any fish this time either.

Our plan today was to wake up at ten o´clock, check the weather and finish the discussion we started yesterday on wether we should use the engine to reach Muros in daylight or wait for the wind that was predicted this evening and set sails through the night, hopefully reaching Muros tomorrow morning. This time I´m afraid Arild is gonna suffer in the democratic prosess and we´ll start the engine pretty soon. (At least after I wake them...)

Beards gone.

2005-08-24T18:09:00.000+02:00

In case you were wondering how the bearded part of the crew look without the beards.

Dover - La Coruña

2005-08-24T17:36:00.000+02:00

We spent a couple of days in Dover to wait for the southwesterly wind to decrease. Our course from Dover to Falmouth was W-SW, and SW Force 7 was not too tempting. We left Dover Marina in the morning Sunday 14th. Soon a pidgeon came on visit, landing on the solar panel, looking a bit confused. After a minute or so, it discovered that the hatch was open and it flew bravely into the galley. It found it's favourite place in the aft port berth, and seemed to stay for the night. The company was nice, but we decided to let it go. Afterwards, we found some leftovers on David's clothes.

For the next day and night wind from north brought us to Isle of Wight, where we moored in Cowes Yacht Haven and took the Hi-speed ferry to Southampton. We had heard that Southampton was one of the best places to buy cheap boat equipment, and we needed another anchor, rope, radar reflector and other stuff. However, the trip was a disappointment, and the conclusion was that we should have bought everything before we left Norway.

Back in Cowes, we had to wait for highwater because of the strong tidal current in The Needles, the sound between western Isle og Wight and the mainland. The wind decreased and during the night we had only very light winds, 5 to 10 kt. Then we had to use the engine, as many times before. So far, we have had either to much wind, the wind against or no wind at all. Nice to have an engine then. Actually we want to sail, but because of lack of time, we have used the engine whenever the sailing was too slow. After Biscay this will hopefully change. We now have the luxury to wait for the winds to become beneficial before we set sails.

In the morning the 17th we arrived Falmouth, a nice town that reminded us of places futher south. The bay was really crowded with sailing boats, but because our dinghy was still in its bag on deck, we found a marina. We went to a chart dealer to buy maps and pilot books for Brazil, where we intend to go. After telling him that we were to cross the Biscay, he looked up the weather forcast for us and told us that today was a perfect time to go. Northerly winds for the rest of the week. -You should go now, go now! he told us. We agreed and went to the supermarked to buy food. We also bought a fishing rod for catching BIG fish,like tuna and dorado. After only eight ours in the nice town of Falmouth, we left for the Biscay, maybe the leg we had feared most of all. A lot of stories have been told about the bad weather and erratic waves that can be very high.

We had chosen a westerly course aiming for a waypoint west of Cabo Finnisterre. This course would bring us clear og the shipping lane and also the shallow waters futher east. The first night we had calm, and we were motoring until dusk. Luckily the wind increased and we could set sails. After listening to BBC4 on longwave, we epected a NW Force 6 during the next night. When eating dinner, we saw dark cumulonimbus clouds approching and decided to finish before reefing. We almost made it, but as the clouds arrived, the wind increased, and soon we had a steady Force 7 from behind. The waves built up imediately, but we tried to keep our course. During the night, we had an average wind of 30 kt, gusting 38 kt, and the strongest wind experiences so far. We steered by hand, because we thought it was necessary, but putting 'Bernt' in work the evening after, we found that the windrudder would steer even better the we could. So for the rest of the crossing, 'Bernt' brought us safely through the waves, that sure were the biggest any of us had experienced.

We made 7,5 kt speed at the most, a speed not often experienced in 'Bonanza'. 153 nautical miles during 24 hours is also our best so far. Then it should be mentioned that we are careful sailors. Our philosophy is that too little sail is better than too much. The wind decreased slowly and the conditions allowed everybody some sleep. The last day, we saw some dolphins around the boat. Soon, some friends came by, and then they were about 15 swimming around 'Bonanza' having fun! Fun for us also, trying to take pictures. It was amazingly hard to catch them with the camera.

Approaching La Coruña, the wind increased again, and that made mooring a bit difficult in the exposed marina. Well moored, we got to know the crew of two other norwegian boats, Helge and Glenn in 'Riga Balsam', and Kjell, Ragnhild and Una in 'Aurora'. We went out to eat dinner the same evening, and had great fun. The crossing of Biscay took us almost 4 days, that means an average of 115 nm each day. Despite a brand new fishing rod, no fish liked our hook. A little disappointment, but we have not given up catching dinner while sailing.

The first day in La Coruña, we went to the beach and did nothing. The next two days we cleaned the whole boat, did service on the engine, repaired the stove and tried to find the cause of an annoying leakage in the engine room. We also finally found a second anchor and some other equipment we have been looking for. So now we will soon leave the sivilization for lonely bays and beaches along the north coast of Spain. The rumour says it is something like a cruisers paradise! Until we return, asta lavista!

The promised story...

2005-08-24T17:34:00.000+02:00

This is a short story about how it goes when you don`t have the conscuisness to empty the toilet before it is too late.

When sailing on the canals through backyards and small cozy towns in Holland it isn`t easy to find a good place to empty a toilet. But our tank is big and to avoid worrying about possible problems to come we decided to temporally forget about our litle toilet-problem. We did empty it just before we entered the canals anyway. But as we got visitors in Amsterdam and the number of users increased from 3 to 5, the moment when the tank eventually would be full closed in rapidly. Happily unaware of our litle problem to come we left Amsterdam and set sails south through the canals. But when we stopped in the first lock on our way out of Amsterdam, Arild took a short visit down to the toilet...

While Arild was finishing his business down-stairs David was sitting on deck with the girls while the problem revealed it self. The problem is that we on our tank have a hole above water to vent the tank and let out excess air, but when the tank is full it isn`t air that comes out of the hole. When Arild pumped, David could, behind the back of the girls, see a projectile of brown, smelly water with small pieces of paper being shot from our boat. To his relief, the projectile missed the dinghy to the boat lying next to us with only a few cm and it didn`t look like anybody had noticed. As Jon came back from paying for the locks, David was putting up his best act pretending to search for the stupid boat who let out that awfull smell, sending dirty looks at every direction.(While explaining to Jon in Norwegian what had happened.)

As the sun was on it`s way down it became apparent that we would have to stop between two bridges, and there were no Marina within reach. We went back and forth between the two closed bridges searching for a place too moore. (And secretely trying to emtpy the toilet.) Litle did the kids who sang the bonanza-song for us each time we passed know about the real reason we had for passing so many times. Let`s just hope they didn`t get any fishes that they took home for dinner that evening.

reached Falmouth, leaving for Spain

2005-08-17T12:23:00.000+02:00

We reached Falmouth today on the southeastern corner off UK and are since the weather was nice we decided to keep on sailing to Spain. As we are in a bit of a hurry today there won't be much info in this post, but we have some good stories about a toilet and a pigeon to come. And off course some new pictures.

Too be continued...

quote man in map-shop: "You should go now! Go now!"

Dover

2005-08-13T15:06:00.000+02:00

We arrived Dover in Great Britain yesterday after crossing the feared english channel. We had a lot of variable winds and had to motorsail a great part of the way. In the darkest night we got 2 kt current againt us, and made hardly no progress. The traffic zone was crossed in daylight and made no problems.

Now the wind is west-southwest up to force 6 and we have to wait for better weather. Force six right in the nose is not very pleasant and cause sleepless nights. We will probably leave for Southampton tonight to buy some boat equipment. We hope to reach Falmouth in a couple of days, where we will wait for a good weather forecast for Biscaya.

Leaving Holland

2005-08-10T10:45:00.000+02:00

Our visit in Holland is rapidly approaching an end. We are now in Willlemstad and are heading for Dover in England as soon as possible. We had a short tour around Amsterdam and experienced the gay-parade as mentioned in the last post. We survived.

The girls followed us down to Gouda and will be missed.

Some pictures are beeing added to the page as I write and should be worth a visit. Pictures from Amsterdam and later will be added soon.

PS. As our satellite-phone is lost in mail, there is no need to try reaching us through that phone.

Amsterdam has been reached!

2005-08-06T14:49:00.000+02:00

We have decided to write most of our posts in english from now on. (Most of you understand english anyway.)

After delaying the departure from Helgoland for a night because of scary waves, we left the litle island tuesday morning. Wednesday we reached the netherlands and entereded the canals. We realized straight away that this could be demanding on our nerves if we didn't stop looking at the depth meter. As norwegians we are used to being on full alert when there is less than 10 meters under our kiel. We have had an avarage of 0.5 meters under our kiel since we entered...

Going through the canals has been a nice break from all the gails we have had so far and the waves and tide. Going by boat in the canals is more like driving a car. You drive on untill you reach a red light and then you wait for the bridge to open. If it's late you just have to wait for the next morning. Sometimes it feels like we are trespassing through the backyards of people. We have experienced waving 'hello' to people having dinner while we are sailing past in heavy rain. For a norwegian this is on the boarder of being absurd.

The people here are almost overwhelmingly kind. When we had some problems with our sails in Lelyhaven, we got so many offers from people who wanted to help that we had to turn some of the offers down. A big thanks to the couple who drove us to the sailmaker in Lelyhaven and all the people involved in getting the sail to Amsterdam.

Here in Amsterdam we just realized that there is a gay-parade. Luckily David knew some girls that can protect us. (Young sailors from norway staying here only for the weekend might send some signals we didn't mean to send...)

Me har no kome til Amsterdam etter aa ha vore paa Helgoland og venta paa at ein kuling rett i fleisen skulle gi seg. Aa seile paa kanalane her i Nederland er litt slitsomt paa nervene. For ein nordmann er det ikkje berre behagelig aa jevnt over kun ha ein halv meter med vatn under kjoelen. Etter at me gjekk paa grunn foerste gongen slappa me derimot litt av. Det er mjuk botn saa eit lite dytt i revers er alt som skal til for aa bli fri.

Folka her er overmaate vennlige og alle snakker behagelig godt engelsk. Ellers kan det nevnast at det Amsterdam er ganske prega av at det er homo-parade her i helga. Heldigvis kjente David nokre soete jenter her som kan passe paa tri unge seilarar fraa Noreg. Me planlegg aa dra vidare soerover soendag.

Dutch version: Skjipper macht ek oewervaren, ja of ne?

Helgoland

2005-08-01T15:43:00.000+02:00

Naa er vi paa Helgoland, selv om det ikke var planlagt. Etter Kielkanalen laa vi et dögn i Cuxhaven for aa handle kart, deretter hadde vi tenkt oss til Norderney paa de frisiske öyer. Men vinden, sjöen og strömmen ville det anderledes, og vi satte heller kursen mot Helgoland. Vi kom hit lördag, og söndag ble vi liggende värfaste i havna, vi maalte vindbyger opp i 45 knop inne i selve havna, og baaten krenget godt. Heldigvis laa vi godt fortöyd. Ute paa havet var det nok enda verre, godt aa väre i en trygg havn da. Naa har vinden löyet og sjöen er roligere, saa vi drar mot Nederland i kveld.

Helgoland er en flott öy, og vi har ogsaa blitt kjent med noen av öyas innbyggere. I gaar ble vi til og med invitert paa bursdagsfeiring. Vi har ogsaa truffet en norsk seiler, Jan paa baaten Tiramisu. Han har sjeneröst overöst oss med kart og god informasjon. Rederiet Bonanza takker.

Bernt Kristian, du er med oss i godt og vondt, diktet skal vi skrive ut og henge paa veggen. Halvor, krengometeret faar prydplassen i salongen. T-skjorta oppdateres jevnlig. Vi önsker oss en tatovering som den paa venstre arm!

English version:
We are now on Helgoland and have been here since Saturday. Yesterday the wind was gusting 45 knots and happily we were safe in the harbour. Today it is better, so we will aim for Netherlands this evening. Thank you Johanna, Julia and Sabrina for nice company and hospitality! See you next summer when we return.

Deutche übersetzung:
Disco Krebs über alles!

I Kiel

2005-07-26T14:11:00.000+02:00

For förste gang föler vi at vi er i utlandet. Vi ankom Kiel paa morgenen tirsdag etter nok et dögn paa sjöen. Denne gangen uten kuling, faktisk uten vind i det hele tatt. Men man har da motor. Noe batteriene setter pris paa.

Mötet med en fremmed kultur har värt lärerikt, men ogsaa utfordrende. Etter en shoppingrunde har vi funnet store forskjeller i lynne og temperament, men de har veldig gode Bratwurst her.

Vi har ogsaa traalet gatene etter en diodebutikk, noe vi til slutt fant i et bortgjemt smug. Mannen bak disken kunne sine dioder og fant fort en tilsvarende. Saa naa skal vi tilbake til baaten og lodde litt slik at vi igjen kan lese dybden under kjölen. Dersom operasjonen blir vellykket, skal David gi Arild en klem. Og et lamasslag. Selv om lamasen allerede er paa bristepunktet.

I morgen drar vi gjennom Kielkanalen og ut i det ukjente havet paa andre siden. Kanskje drar vi til Helgoland.

English version:
We are now in Kiel in Germany and have today studied the cultural differences betwwen Norway and Germany. We have found interesting facts, but the Bratwurst here is exceptionally good.

Tomorrow we will continue through the Kiel kanal and afterwards maybe to Helgoland.

Deutche übersetzung:
Rundfunkgerat. Diodemann, wir lieben dich!!

Kuling i Kattegat

2005-07-26T13:55:00.000+02:00

Nå har Bonanza brakt mannskapet trygt til det store utland og vel så det. Etter et helt døgn i sjøen ankom vi Samsö i Sør-Danmark lørdag. Fra Skagen la vi turen innom Læsö og Varberg i Sverige før vi igjen krysset over til Danmark.

Skagen er ikke en havn for de som må ha gjestebrygga for seg selv. Vi hadde flaks og fikk en plass da vi ankom, bare tre båter å stige over for å komme i land. Vi tok en pausedag i Skagen og gikk på museum og spiste is.

De siste dagene har vi opplevd at værmeldinger slettes ikke trenger å stemme. Om svenskene varsler 4-8 m/s og danskene det samme, kan det godt være en god kuling ut på havet. Men båt og mannskap har taklet kulingen bra, ingen større vanskeligheter å berette. Vi har fått testet vårt splitter nye stormseil og også prøvd å legge bi opptil flere ganger på en dag. Ikke fordi det var nødvendig, men fordi det å legge bi er en aldeles behagelig opplevelse og kan sammenlignes med å ta en pause når man går tur på fjellet.

Bernt styrer som regel båten som en drøm, og vi kan bruke tiden på andre gjøremål. Selv om det meste omkring på båten funker som det skal, er det alltid en lekkasje å tette eller noen stag å stramme. Bernt er forresten et vindror av typen Windpilot Pacific, og er oppkalt etter Bernt som egentlig skulle vært med på turen.

Kari som har vært med på hele turen til nå, reiste hjem fra Varberg. Takk til henne for hyggelig selskap, kjøkkenforkle og klesklyper. Så nå er vi kun tre tilbake, Arild, Jon og David. Slik blir det en stund fremover til Hans Olav kommer i oktober. Kari ønsket i likhet med Bernt å få noe oppkalt etter henne, og vi har derfor kallt redningsflåten for Kari. Så dersom det røyner på får vi kaste Kari på havet.

Neste etappe går til Kiel og Kiel-kanalen.

Ellers kan vi berette om at batteriene har det bra. Dynamoen også.

We arrived Samsö in southern Denmark today Saturday. After leaving Skagen, we stayed one night in Læsö and visited Varberg in Sweden the day after. The crossing of Kattegat from Sweden to Denmark took us 24 hours and is the longest passage so far. We have experienced winds of gale force, but both boat and crew felt safe. Next leg will be towards Kiel og the Kiel-channel.

Danish version
---------------
Om lidt er kaffen klar. Kamelåså.

Til slutt en liten gjettekonkurranse:
Hva heter tørrgjær på svensk?

Turen er i gang

2005-07-19T16:26:00.000+02:00

Då har me kome til det store utland. Til forskjell frå i Noreg høljeregner det her. Skulle du vere i tvil om kva med meiner med det store utland nett no, kan eg informere om at me er i Skagen, Danmark. Me kom hit mandag 2000 etter ei rolig natt over Skagerak. Eller rettare sagt, det var lite vind, men meir enn nok støy. Det skal bli spanande å sjå om det går ann å vende seg til alle desse lydane som kjem når me seiler ligg på sjøen i vindstilla.

Dei andre har nå gått for å spise is, medan eg vart sendt for å oppdatere nettsidene. Ryktene seier at det er ei usedvanlig smuk dansk pige som er raus med guffen. Ellers må ein vel kunne seie at livet som seiler er godt.

Kart for Kattegat er kjøpt inn og sikringane som rauk når me hadde litt trøbbel med motoren i Grimstad har blitt erstatta. Rederiet vil rette ein stor takk til Øyvind som var som ei hjelpande hand i nøden. Kva som feila motoren har me ikkje peiling på, men Øyvind klarte å fikse det med ein lett håndspåleggelse.

I morgon går turen vidare sørover mot Sverige og etterkvart Kiel.

We have arrived in Denmark and the crossing off Skagerak went well. However we still need some training before we are able to sleep at sea with all the different sounds on a sailing boat. We are directing our noses towards Sweden now.

Satelitt-telefon

2005-07-14T20:27:00.000+02:00

Vi har en Iridium telefon på båten som dekning over heile verden. Nummeret er +881621440739. Vi kan nås på dette nummeret så sant vi er på båten. Det går også ann å sende tekstmeldinger til telefonen via websiden denne linken eller ved å sende en mail til adressen 881621440739@msg.iridium.com. Husk maksimum 160 tegn.

Vi kan sende tekstmeldinger på opptil 160 tegn til epostadresser. Meldinger til og fra GSM mobiltelefoner fungerer ikke. Vi har også telefonsvar men regn ikke med at vi sjekker denne så ofte.

Tusen takk til snille foreldre der hjemme som sponset oss med ny telefon da den gamle på mysterisk vis forsvant i Posten!

The phonenumber above is for our sat-phone. It can receive text messages sent from this link or emails sent to the adress above. Feel free to send us a message.

Avreise nermer seg raskt

2005-07-10T17:33:00.000+02:00

Nå er dynamoen på plass og me kan puste letta ut. Dei fleste store tinga er på plass og båten er nesten klar for avreise. Nokre småting må fortsatt fiksast men avreise nermer seg med stormskritt og alt ser ut til å fungere.

Det har blitt lagt ut mange nye bilete frå dei siste vekene så det skal vere mogleg å se litt av det me har gjort.

Most preparations for the trip have been made and the boat is almost ready. We'll leave Norway next weekend and head for Denmark on our way to the Caribbean.

Mannskapet er på plass

2005-07-03T22:35:00.000+02:00

Sidan båten var på land har det skjedd mykje nytt på båten.

I starten på Juni var Hansi og Arild på båten og installerte vasstankar og nye batteri.
Targabøylen som David designa er på plass (bilete kjem snart)
VHF og GPS er på plass
Ny dynamo var nesten på plass, men er nå på ein liten ferie i Stavanger.
Heile det elektriske anlegget håper me er på plass, men er litt usikre ettersom dynamoen sa takk for seg og ville til heim att ein liten tur...
Nett til oppbevaring av saker og ting er montert over dei fleste køyene.
Stereoanlegget er på plass og er testa ut. Med så mykje høgtalarar tenker eg det skal bli liv når me kjem og legg til på gjestebryggene rundt omkring i Europa.
Nødflåten har vore på ein siste sjekk før turen, seil er henta frå seilmakeren, vindgenerator og solcellepanel er nesten på plass og mykje meir som me ikkje kjem på no i farta.

Denne helga har heile mannskapet vore samla på båten for første gong og me er skjønt enige om at det er mykje arbeid som gjenstår før me er klare til avreise, men har stor tru på at me er ferdige til å kaste loss fredag 15. juli frå Hansnes i Arendal.

Båten er på land!

2005-05-15T00:09:00.000+02:00

P1010566
Originally uploaded by hero101.

nett no står tri staute karar og skraper botnstoff av båten. Nokre bilete er lagt ut og ellers er det lite nytt å fortelle. Ting byrjer å kome på stell.

Og ellers kan det meldast om at dette er ein møkkajobb, men nokon måtte gjere den...

oppdatering (25.mai): David gjorde ein stor innsats når me andre måtte vende attende til avslutning av studiene og fekk båten nesten ferdig i løpet av forrige veke. Far hans påførte dei siste strøka og båten er nå sjøsatt. Alt er vel med båten.

Besøke oss i Karibia?

2005-03-26T20:31:00.000+01:00

Det er ein del av dykk som har nevnt på at det kunne vore kjekt å stikke innom oss sånn rundt juletider i Karibia. Dette set me stor pris på, men me har desverre ikkje ubegrensa plass til folk på båten. For at me skal få litt betre oversikt over kven som faktisk har råd og lyst til å kome så hadde det vore kjekt om dei av dykk det gjeld skreiv ei melding i gjesteboka.

Mao. har du seriøse planar om å ta turen til Karibia vinteren for å besøke oss på båten bonanza så skriv dette i gjesteboka.

Filmen bonanza

2005-03-09T17:22:00.001+01:00

Magnus, bror til Arild har satt saman ein liten filmsnutt frå i sommer. Den er på litt under 10 MB så om du ikkje har breibånd bør du ha litt god tid før du set igang med å laste den ned.

Trykk her for å laste ned filmen

(oppdatert 10.mars med lengre film)

(There is a short movie of the boat if you follow the link above. It's quite big so if you don't have a fast internet line, it might take a while to download.)

2005-03-07T21:32:00.000+01:00

Det er jo ikkje dumt å ha eit bilete av dei som skal vere med på turen. Eit førebels bilete i det minste.

ikkje Karibien, men Karibia!

2005-02-16T22:55:00.000+01:00

Om nokon skulle vere i tvil så er den korrekte uttalen av reisemålet vårt Karibia og ikkje Karibien. Dette ifølge norsk språkråd.

Ellers kan eg informere om at det er verdt å "bookmarke" denne sida. Om ikkje anna så for å sjå noko tøft i bokmerke-lista di.

bilete i margen

2005-02-15T16:22:00.000+01:00

Eg har lagt til ei remse med småbilete i margen som det er mogleg å klikke på for å gå vidare til ei side der ein kan sjå bileta av båten. Småbileta i margen vert trekkte tilfeldig av dei 47 bileta eg hadde av båten som eg har lagt ut.

Flickr er tenesta eg har brukt og den kan me óg bruke til å laste opp bilete undervegs på turen om me vil...

Dessuten så er det mogleg å sjå dei i lysbiletemodus dersom du trykker her.

Litt om skipet vårt

2005-02-09T19:31:00.000+01:00

Skipet vårt er av typen Hero 101, og er bygget i 1980. De fleste heroene ble levert fra verftet uten innredning, derfor kan kvaliteten og løsningen kan være svært forskjellige.

Vi kjøpte vår Hero sommeren 2004 i Bærum. Båten har hatt en eier fra den var ny. Eieren har innredet båten og ellers stelt svært godt med den.

Vi er kjempestolte av skipet vårt, og vi vet at det er en båt vi kan stole på. Denne typen båt har vært på langtur før, de fleste kjenner vel til historien om Sorgenfri.

Litt tørre fakta:

Lengde overalt: 10,20 m
Lengde vannlinje: 7,80 m
Bredde: 3,30 m
Dyptgående: 1,85 m
Deplacement: 4,6 ton
Kjøl (bly): 2,4 tonn
Mastehøyde: 14 m
Dieseltank: Aluminium 110 liter
Vanntank: 70 liter
Antal køyer: 7
Ruffhøyde: 1,85 m
Motor: Volvo Penta MD2030 28Hk (2002)
Rigg: Gjennomgående mast
Lystal: 1,13
Konstruksjon: Skrog i sandwichlaminat med divinycell som distansematerial
Konstruktør: Eivind Amble
Pris som ny: 170.000 kr

2005-02-09T18:39:00.000+01:00

Dette er reiseruta vår det første halvåret. Sånn i grove trekk...

Bilder av båten

2005-02-07T16:30:00.000+01:00

Det er jo for dumt å ikkje ha nokon bilete av båten liggande slik at dei som kjem for å se kva båt me skal reise av gårde i ikkje får sett koss den ser ut.

Klikk på biletet og sjå bileta...

Weee!

2005-02-06T22:57:00.000+01:00

seiltur.tk er oppe og går igjen. men denne gongen i eit heilt anna format ettersom eg ikkje klarte å oppdatere forumet og beholde dei gamle innlegga. tanken er at alle som skal vere med på seilturen kan poste her. det gjeld berre å kome igang...