LinoCat

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.