winny’s blog

Last night we arrived at St Lucia. Just in time for Peter to catch his plane back to Antigua.

What did we do so far.
We departed thursday evening with 3 crewmembers, 1 captain and a cat. We planned to go to Dominica first and to arrive there Friday morning. But the weather was worse than expected and because we had some serious rain and wind, up to over 30 knots, we staid in the shelter of Quadaloupe. We sailed in front of the coast during the night and whith sunrise we ankered in a bay and slept for a couple of hours. Then, when the weather improved we sailed on and arrived at Dominica at Friday evening. Beautifull sailing day with plenty of wind.

Dominica is a beautifull island just south of Quadaloupe. We sailed with a little watertaxi up the Indian river. It was as sailing through the rainforrest. Beautifull!

Looking at the weatherforcast it was the best not to leave Dominica in the evening but better in the night. Wo we slept a bit and left at 4 am at Sunday. Had some squalls and some very quiet stretches with no wind so it was sails up and sown, motor on and off but in the end we managed to be on time in St Lucia for Peters flight back.

We stay here for at least the day because of predicted very heavilly squalls with 40 knots of wind.

The next stops will maybe be Bequia, Grenadines, Bonaire etc.

At last, many obstacles with custums etc, we really leave Antigua. With pain in our harts of course.

But Dominica, and many other islands more to come, makes the difference.

We looked at the map, weather is good, not very stable but normale and enough wind to go.

Goodby Antigua, Dominica here we come!

Yesterday evening I arrived in Antigua. Flight was ok with only one hour delay. And flying with Jill on the same flight was really a bonus. We had time enough to catch up.

And Antigua is still beautifull and warm.

We plan now to leave tomorrow in the afternoon. First stop will be Dominica. About 12 hours sailing so we will arrive  the next morning.

Just back in Holland one week. Going back already.

Sailing De Grote Meid to Panama. Couldn’t possibly resist that.

Left pic: draw a horiazontal line in the middel and you see on the right Antigua and on the left the marina in Panama where we are going. Bocas del Toro, the picture on the right.

Long time no write. But there it is, a new post.

Brought the Watermeid to the marina in Barendrecht yesterday, for some sanding and varnishing while I’m away.
Look at the route we took and better still, it shows exactely where she is now in the shed.

On our trip the past week, I come to write more about that in the next weeks, we had something in the prop. Managed to get it out but there were some remains.

The Oosterschelde was sailing to.
Nice clipper.

The man eating gorilla. Escaped in Blijdorp the other day. Yesterday we went to see him. Scary, isn’t he?

They even asked questions about him in parliament, can you believe that? Must be cucumbertime.

It was very nice to be in Blijdorp again after such a long time. For Graham obviously it was his first time.

What a wonderful software Skype is. Remarkebly easy to use and even to install. Since half an hour ago my mother is on skype and what do you know? We even also chatted. And after putting the computer off and on again, just to try and see if she could do it all by herself, she said, a bit surprised: ‘ it’s dead easy’.
She could see me but I couldn’t see her because she doesn’t have a webcam. That is the next thing, now she is in for that too.

But I have to tell you, you don’t want the webcam put on when skyping with your mother… The first thing she said  when seeing me was: ‘you don’t look at your best Win’. So I immediately put the thing out again. Thanks mom

Today Theo and I sailed the Watermeid back to her own dock. We had a lovely day. Starting with brackfast, Theo provided just after we set off. It all did go way much faster dan I thought it would go. The first strech the current was the opposit direction but after less then an hour we had the current with us. It made us go very fast. We sailed from Barendrecht, the lowest point of the yellow trail on the map to Rotterdam in 4 hours.

We passed by Dordrecht of which I made some poor pictures with the, by now well known, phonecamera.

 

This morning the Watermeid was put into the water again. I was at the marina to see if she was not flooded because of the pouring rain the past few days, and aspecially nights. But that was not the case at all, luckily. The matrasses were dry, that being the most important thing.

The Watermeid was still ashore when I came at the marina but they could put it in the water at once they said. And when I asked how long that would take, they said only 5 minutes. Yeah… used as I am to the Caribbean 5 minutes I was quit suspicious. But indeed, 5 minutes it was. They picked her up, drove her to the slope right into the water, where she belongs.

Last night a string of very strong lights was shown on the line where Rotterdam burned down the 14th of May 1940. The duration of the bombardment was only 14 minutes. Thereafter were many fires, burning down the centre of the city.

The picture which was in the NRC, shows the firewall and the spots where the lights are.

I couldn’t see very much of it from my house, but the neigbours on the other side of the building had a very good view I suppose. It must have been very impressive.