LinoCat

You know that you are back in Europe when Cappucino costs 5EUR in a normal restaurant. Yes, we are in Martinique to do some shopping, check out if we can get some parts for the boat and Chris wants a new haircut. Lani is putting together all her toys and is talking to them like to an audience on the bed :-) Yesterday we tried out Accras in St Anne. These are fried fish things which taste very good. We then went into the first restaurant but the waitress was SOOOOOOOOO unfriendly that we just left again. In the other restaurant they were friendly and we had dinner. This morning i picked up Tina and Chicco from Vanora and we went ashore to get Baguette. Then both boats moved to Le Marin marina and there we are..... This afternoon we will have a rental car and drive to Fort de France.

After a nice sail together with Vanora we reached St Anne after approx 4 hours. We took some snaps of Vanora flying "Wulle", their Gennaker. of course they were more than 1 knot faster with that sail compared to us. In the anchorage we just had a nice sunset and i will open a Piton beer as sundowner and then we will check out St Anne together with Peter, Tina and Chicco. You know that you are "back in Europe", when it is hard to find a free WiFi.

Many people asked me about our solar panels and controller and how much power we get out of them. The max A we see here in the Caribbean is around 46A during midday. The total of power added to the housebank is around 180 to 200Ah per day. That covers producing 125Liters of water, run 2 PC and the radio and the lights like cabin, saloon and mooring light (all LED). And this is without tilting the solar panels. If you tilt them towards the sun you might get almost 70% more but it is not easily possible in our installation. In Rodney bay we did some shopping and met with our friends from Vanora for coffee and then we went out for dinner to a Thai restaurant called KuDeTa and the food was very good. The water in the aby was very clear like we had not seen it before. Today we will clear out and sail to martinique together with the Vanora. We will nachor in St. Anne since we have never been there so far and then proceed to Le Marin for washing the boat and renting a car to go to Fort de Fra...

John and his family left us just at sunset to go back to Sweden. The water taxi picked them up and drove them to Soufriere. We also set sail just 20 minutes later and are currently heading towards Rodney Bay where we will arrive around 2300 local time. LinoCat will be anchored in the bay since i am sure the water shortage is still existent and in the bay we can produce our own water.

We were just drinking coffee early in the morning when i though: "Oh, have they installed another mooring just ahead of our boat 50m away?" Then i realized that we have been gone drifting away. The line at the bouy has been chafed through. What a luck that this happened in the morning and the wind was blowing away from the beach! The ble loop on the lower left in the picture is the broken one, now we tied into the other one. That leaves the lesson that we have to check the mooring lines daily i guess. The Vanora crew were less lucky, the just have lost their Dinghy :-( Not known how this also leaves a question mark. The good news is, that we will meet them very soon again in St Lucia and also in Martinique. Lani is daily climbing on the steering wheel and pretends so drive the boat. If you lift her up she even wants to grab the engine controls and of course presses all the buttons she can find. The anchorage here is almost empty this morning which i guess is quite uncommon in...

It is actually nice to also see at least one superyacht that belongs to a german! Prof Reinhold Wuerth has used the term "Vibrant Curiosity" as a motto in his company already in 2007. Here are some technical details: Designer: Nuvolari & Lenard Builder: Oceano Engine: twin 4,680 HP MTU engines Material: steel LOA: 85 m (278.9') Max Speed: 18.5 knots Year: 2009 Guests: 14 Guests (when cruising): 14 Cabins: 7 Country Built: Netherlands Unfortunately the launch of this boat was commented by the press in a negative way due to the recession. But between ordering such a beautiful yacht and the delivery there are usually years between. I think it is a nice boat and from what i know about the company he has very well deserved it!

Some more snorkeling pictures from the Marine Reserve park at the Pitons. The visibilty was not as good today since the wind has turned a bit and waves are coming in. The wind was gusting up to 38 knots today and so it is a little bit rolly. But good that on a catamaran this is not that bad. We also went to Soufriere to get some food. Our swedish friends will leave us tomorrow and it looks like we will then sail to Martinique after a quick stop in Rodney Bay. We hope to meet Volker C5CAT and also the Vanora crew there.