"Bonanza" is sold..

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

"Bonanza" is back home

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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.