LinoCat

LinoCat was loaded onto the MV Amstelgracht. The Amstelgracht is a carrier which carries other goods and the yachts are only additional cargo. Under www.marinetraffic.com you can see the Amstelgracht if she is in reach of a coast. Expected arrival in Mallorca is around 2. June 2010. Thanks again to Peter and Tina from the Vanora and also to Jeff Balentine.

We left St Thomas USVI the day Peter from "Vanora" arrived. He arrived to steer both boats to their cargo ships for the transport back. La Medianoche to the MV Slotergracht and LinoCat to the MV Amstelgracht. Thanks a lot to Peter, i think there is no one better to do that! Also check out their website on: www.bluewater-dreams.com (in german). From St Thomas we took the American Airlines flight to Miami and stayed in the Sofitel Airport which was very nice. We even got an upgrade to a suite for free :-) The next morning we went to Dolphin Mall for some shopping and then took the LH 463 flight from Miami to Frankfurt. The business class has 80 seats and the service was not as good as in the past but of course the seats much more e comfortable than economy class. We arrived 20th of May in Frankfurt and so we are now back in Germany after 1 year.

Yesterday morning my mobile rang: J:Are you Mr Michael Waldbrenner? M: Yes, i am J: Have you been living in Mannheim and went to the Liselotte-school: M:Yes J: I am Jeff B and i have been in your class and now i am the loadmaster for your yacht to put it on the MV Amstelgracht. Isn´t that CRAZY? So Jeff works as a commercial diver and loadmaster for yachts for different shipping lines and he was flewn to St Thomas to load around 30 yachts. He visited us a few hours later and we had a nice chat and also met for dinner in the evening. I still can not believe that! Also that his wife April was coming to visit him and joined us for dinner. Lani though that all the talk about school was boring and had a nice nap :-)

Many people ask me what is on the agenda next? Well, LinoCat will be shipped back on board of a freighter to Palma de Mallorca and from there it will be sailed to Portimao in Portugal most likely. When ? Good question the freighter left Florida a little late and has already been postponed a few days. The current plan is to fly to Germany this week. From the 1st of August i will be working again! YEAH! No kidding. Then we will see... What will happen with this blog? I don´t know yet, for the time beeing i will continue it and then maybe use it as a daily update for what is going on. Or it might rest until our trip continues? Who knows....

This is the Yacht Haven Grande in the bay. Big motor yachts and fancy Gucci stores. Not really my cup of tea. Crown bay marina is full so LinoCat will stay at the anchorage. There is a huge commercial laundry near Crown Bay marina where we dropped 4 big bags of laundry for around 40USD. If you want a taxi take one of the "safaris", these open trucks. Within the city you pay 1 Dollar and just hop on and off. Iguana in Crown bay. There was a parade from the young police recruits and other groups. They played cool musiy and were marching and dancing. It looked nice and they had fun. Lani got 2 clip on earrings from a local girl when we used the safari taxi. The girl was maybe 4 or 5 and wanted to give them to Lani. Cute!

After a nice snorkeling dive with Ralf this morning we lifted anchor and La Medianoche and LinoCat sailed with a nice tailwind to St. Thomas. We are now anchored in Charlotte Amalie harbour. It is a little bit rolly but a nice breeze and only 2 minutes to the town. Even the small Coast Guard dinghies carry machine guns on the bow... A typical shopping street with a bar. One of the neighbours from the anchorage again. The water was so clear that you could see them from above without a mask. Ralf checking out the edge of the reef. 2 friends

Well today was just another day at the anchorage. Ralf came over from La Medianoche for breakfast and then there was some snorkeling, some work on the boat and some snorkeling, a nap, some food, some coffee and so on. Ralf tried out his new underwater compact camera and here are his pictures. A nice eagly ray flying by. People asked me about the amount og gas, water and electricity we use: -100Liter / day freshwater -200Ah of power -2,75kg Butane gas per 21days Today i cleaned the waterline of Linocat with a sponge and i refilled the water in the batteries. They have consumed around 2 liter of water in 8 weeks. But that is OK due to heat and daily recharging by solar panels. The blacktip shark on one of the pictures below was shy and he was swimming away and so Ralf could only get him from behind and from a distance.