LinoCat

A nice way to close 2010. Lenny, 3070gr and 48cm tall, arrived yesterday at 13:03.

Hi, those of you who followed us over the atlantic last year with our blog might remember that we had a "virtual" crew member. Helmut and Sylvia helped us to keep our blog updated and also always informed us what was going on with the rest of the cruisers. Since then we had kept a sporadic email exchange but now it was to meet them anyway! We had planned a Vienna visit for quite a while but now we managed to meet with Titiksha on Sunday evening and had dinner together. Then i had a business meeting on monday and then late afternoon on monday we met Sylvia and Helmut from the catamaran Onotoa. They took us to the Christmas market at the Rathaus and the view was impressing. We had some mulled wine and thn went for a dinner together. Lani also liked them a lot, especially after Helmut shared his sweet dish with her :-) It was a nice evening and we chatted a lot about cruising and boats. I am sure, we will meet them again. Thanks again to both of you ! The Prater in the early mor...

Lani was very happy that Mathias and Ute came to visit her. It took them an amazing 9 loooooong hours due to the snow. But so we had the chance of nice walks in the snow and also some dinners and shopping and christmas market together. The Christmas market was full of people but manageable. Not like last weekend :-) I still like this view from our terrace. The colored light is coming from the neighbours by the way :-)

First: These are actual pictures of Lani and below you will find the pictures one year ago to show how she grew. Christmas cookies during the atlantic crossing. Well it is not really snowing here but rather 30 Celcius :-) Relaxing during sailing.....and having fun. Lani is always enjoying when pictures are taken

It has snowed tonight and this morning everything is completely white. Lani looked out of the window and started to sing a song about snowflakes (Schneefloecken, weiss Roeckchen). A blacksmith on the christmas market showing his skills. Lani is always interested when she sees fire and other people working. Maybe this is because she never see her das really "working" :-) One of the little Christmas trees at the "Wenzels Platz". We did not make it to the big one because it was so crowdy that we decided not to go there. The building faaaaar in the back is the museum.

For the Halloween party in the Kindergarten it was allowed that kids bring some sweets and that they should wear costumes.Lani was a mushroom. In botanical terms a fly agaric or Fliegenpilz in german. She even had white spots in her face. During the day in Kindergarten she was wearing the cape. The other kids were witches, spiderman, etc. Lani thought that some of the costumes were pretty scary. Yesterday evening we had noodles with mushrooms. She did not want to eat them and said Papa should have them all. So i started eating them. Then she asked if they are poisonous and when i said no she started to eat them and then even wanted mine back :-) Of course we also had a pumpkin with a candle. Chen helped preparing with the pumpkin and the cookies.

We just went out for 2 hours to let the engines run and to move the boat a few miles. Cartagena has many old fortress structures to see when you approach it. Some are quite old and some looks like they are from WWII. Unfortunately the weather was not so nice and the wind has dies down to around 6knots. So we only did a short cruise into the bay and then back again.

Today the ELIDA V was in the marina. She is 40m long and the mast is 45m high!!! She is built from composite and weighs only 95 tons. With a sail area of more than 800squaremeters she can do 20knots. COOL STUFF The boat is holding groups of young people who believe in Jesus Christ but it does not matter to which church they belong. Typically up to 40 young people are guests and the crew is around 12 to 16 people. The boat is very spartanic inside but built very safe and fast. The big Harken winches are operated by grinders and even the anchor is pulled up with them. This is the meeting room below. It can also be used for company sails. Maybe one day we will have our management meeting there. Here you can see Colin from Californa. He showed us around on the boat. Under http://www2.elida.se/default.asp?id=53 you can read more about this fabolous boat. Roger at the steering wheel. Almost as tall as he is :-) Check my big shoe size 47 against the winches and the traveler :-)

Roger working hard on the boat :-) Our upgrade from LinoCat. Well, if we would have 3.5MEUR to spend. Well Linocat is 11.55m long, this boat is 11.9m WIDE!!!! :-) http://www.haas-international.com/brokerage/detail.php?yacht=63 shows pictures. The wood inside was to dark, so Roger and myself decided not to buy her :-) Sand on Linocat.... LinoCat waiting for a sail. In the back is the Westerdam cruise liner. She later left for Malaga. We met a nice couple from St Francisco, she is orginally from Ireland and he is German. Their daughter is 8 years old and cruising with them since 4 years. They will do the Atlantic cossing in winter and so we exchanged books, DVDs and informations.

Pruhonicky Park is a botanical garden near the highway from Prague to Brno and is a very beautiful parc with many plants and many small lakes with fish. The pathways are easy to walk and so it makes a nice relaxing sunday afternoon walk. But be aware that you are not the only one having this idea :-) It can get crowdy during nice weather on weekends. Entrance fee is 50CZK per adults and kids up to 6 are free. Parking is 30CZK/hour IF a space is available. If not you cna park in the village near by. It is good to combine this park with the Aquapalace aqua parc in Pruhonice only 1km away! Lani had fun yesterday....

Here is the marina of Prague. Most of the boats are small because if you want to sail on the Moldau you need to take the mast down anyway. There are also some catamarans but also rather small ones. Today it was sunny with a little bit of wind and some sailboats were underway using the wind.

Hi, this weekend we had many visitors: Karin and Heinz, Sarah and Monty plus Eric. Just when we wanted to leave the old part of the city in the afternoon we heard strange shouting and saw people in weird outfits. It was a "flashmob", a gathering of people to perform things and they met to dance to Michael Jacksons song "Thriller". Here is a video from that event:

This is the block where our appartment is. The old street train is still cruising around and makes a nice scenic ride. The tower with the astronomical clock below. You can actually walk up and enjoy the scenery from there. here another view onto the clock. Grilling the famous Prague ham in the street. Some flowers and old buildings....