Sailing Through Croatian History

Croatia, Dalmatian Coast, July 2011

So here I am on the bow, left holding the handle of the boat hook, while the boat hook chose to separate from the handle just as I was picking up the buoy mooring line and is now floating away past the boat. What is one to do?

Oh, I know, I jump in the engineless dinghy, rescue the boat hook, paddle back to the boat now circling the windy anchorage… windy being the meaningful word, as I and the dinghy are swept downwind, hanging for dear life on the mooring line of a neighbouring catamaran. As I wonder what my next step should be, I notice the boat hook gingerly floating by within my reach and Kuno with the boat just positioned downwind between me and the town quay doing his best not to run aground. I let go, landing on the boat, the boat engine spewing cooling water into the dinghy and all over me, but victoriously holding the errant boat hook. Welcome to the land of crazy mooring ways, furious unexpected winds and lightning storms, regular VHF radio marine weather forecasts that may or may not happen and may or may not be accurate, deep blue water, history that reaches thousands of years back and the most picturesque villages and towns that I have seen in my travels. Croatia.
 

Croatia is a land of memories for me, and Kuno and I visit many places where I used to go on vacation with my family as a kid. I don’t remember the particular places other than by names, but I vividly remember the smells and sounds – the warm wind on the ocean smelling of pine needles even half a mile off land, the cicadas that create a racket in anchorages, the smell of lavender and grilled fish as we walk along the town quays. We pick up our 37ft sailboat in Dubrovnik and wind our way through the central Dalmatian coast, visiting the islands of Mljet, Korcula, Hvar and towns like Trogir and Split on the mainland. Our friends Peter and Serap hop over from Turkey and join us for the first week. Having three weeks is a luxury with distances between anchorages being relatively short. We spend most of the time exploring the incredibly beautiful villages and hiking the trails (or sometimes lack of) up the mountains for the next best view. Geocaching keeps us honest (if there is one in the neighbourhood, we have to find it) and we generally have to climb at least one hill a day. Kuno insists on taking shortcuts and our legs are full of scratches as we bushwack our way through the islands. I am beginning to understand why our daughter chose to go to school instead. Occasionally we rent a car, moped or bikes and buzz around to see more of the area. The countryside here is full of abandoned forts and palaces, remainders of bygone era, now overgrown by wild vegetation. Grape and olive groves planted in endless amount of perfect ancient stone walls (we are trying to decide if Croatia has more than Ireland) neglected, growing wild, but still producing. We also find sad reminders of the wars of not so distant past; second world war and the independence war of the nineties.  The history of Croatia is rich, with remnants of Illyrian and later Greek and Roman presence evident everywhere, and most impressively related to the time of the marine merchant Republic of Dubrovnik, one of the most powerful republics on the Adriatic, competing only with Venice. Within our short trip, we visit three Unesco heritage sites – Dubrovnik, Trogir old town and the Diocletian Palace in Split. We leisurely sip an espresso while sitting on Roman steps, investigate the precise construction of stone church towers that belies their age, try to figure out the timing sequence of a church being built from a Roman mausoleum that was built on top of an Illyrian temple, admire the streets of white stones so polished by centuries of use that one has to take care not to slip. I have a fleeting comparative thought to the Haida Gwaii culture and history that we explored just a few weeks ago, separated by so much more than miles from the history here. Just like in all places around the world that we like, we hypothesize about having a property here. Perhaps getting into a bed and breakfast business, or olive oil and wine production, having a little mechanical repair shop, restoring an old mansion…?

Our evenings are my most favourite time. On the heels of the afternoon siesta, the heat of the day subsides and the towns come alive. Every little seaside town is full of konobas (restaurants) set up along the water, in abandoned gardens or within the walled perimeter of what used to be, a long time ago, a house. Tables are set up in every nook and crany and sometimes it is not obvious where the actual restaurant kitchen is. When we sit down it is not clear where the waiter will appear from and sometimes we see them walk from around the corner or for a block or two to bring us our drinks. That makes it challenging when trying to figure out where the washroom could possibly be. But everyone is very nice here and their English is impressive. I can read and understand much of the Croatian language, being of Slavic origin as my own language, Czech.

Markets and grocery stores stay open late into the night and we often can’t resist and return to our boat loaded with goodies. Kuno, true to his boating motto “You don’t want to run low on diesel and chocolate” investigates as many kinds of chocolate as possible, while I can’t get enough of the fresh bread. The vegetables here taste much more real than at home – all much firmer and tastier (tomatoes and carrots are to die for here) but some also more bitter (cucumbers).

Sailing here is interesting by the variability of the wind. We are surprised by the fierce nature of sudden winds that can arrive at any time – they even have names: bura, tramontana, jugo, mistral and sirocco, depending on the direction they come from. We try to listen to weather forecasts but they are unreliable or inconclusive. We try to find the safest anchorages for all possibilities, limiting our options. In some way, we expected to find more secluded, safe harbours. We encounter clouds so

sudden and dark that we call them Dementors (as in Harry Potter…), rain squalls so fierce that we don’t see the boats anchored next to us and lightning is so frequent that after a while it is almost a non-event. Anchoring and mooring is an adventure in itself and I have yet to execute a mooring job without some calamity or other. Kuno seems to take it in stride; by now he is used to me tying the line to the cleat on the wrong side of the stanchions, throwing a line to the person on the quay too early so that it lands in the water instead, and, of course, the infamous boat hook episode (that was only partially my fault). Most anchorages are too tight to swing around, so it

 is either a stern tie, picking up a lazy line from a restaurant or town quay, or tying between two buoys in the middle of the bay. Or, if you are on the island of Lastovo, tying up inside an abandoned submarine tunnel – I am not kidding, very James Bondish. Initially we are puzzled by people hanging their fenders when on anchor, but after some time it becomes obvious that this is not a bad practice, as anchorages are packed really tight and many boaters don’t seem to have a clue about anchoring properly. And so we too, on occasions, put out our fenders at night. Our sailing dignity, however, does not allow us to sail with fenders out, although even that seems to be a common practice here.

We are on our last few days in Croatia before picking Tatiana up from Oxford and continuing to Italy. We have saved the candy for last – the walled city of Dubrovnik, which we will explore in the next 3 days. Tatiana is having a great time in her school, making lots of friends and loving her school work. So great in fact, that she frequently forgets to text us and if she texts, it is very cryptic. That is a good sign, although we do feel a bit neglected. On the other hand, it is wonderful to just hang out together as a couple. We remind ourselves how in sync we can be and how easy and relaxing life is when one gets out of the crazy routine. What a happy time for all three of us, in our own way.

London in a week

1 - 9 July 2011

“Please turn off all your electronic devices, as they can interfere with the plane’s communication systems during landing” announces the captain. I think about the logic of my little e-reader causing an aborted landing, but acknowledge that perhaps this is not the time to debate the ridiculousness of this statement. I obey the request and we safely land in the amazing, fantastic, incredible city of London. While we wait the four long hours before we can check into our apartment, we take a hop on-off bus tour of the city. Tatiana snoozes through much of it, as it now is 4 am for us, but I take in the sights that I only vaguely remember from almost thirty years ago when I was here last. Not much has changed – Lord Nelson still stands on Trafalgar Square and the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace still attracts gazillions of people. The Tower Bridge guards the city as it has for centuries, but a new bridge is of interest to us, die hard Harry Potter fans. After all, every decent Harry Potter fan would recognize the Millenium Bridge in their sleep, expecting the Dementors to swoop in any minute. Our week long visit in fact ends up revolving around the Harry Potter theme. Not only do we get to visit all the London sites where the movies were filmed, the timing of our visit could not have been better, as the red carpet premiere of the last movie in the series is happening this week. Fans start staking good viewing spots in Trafalgar Square on Monday - for a

premiere that is happening on Thursday! It is cold and drizzling but the fans are obviously dedicated. By 6 pm on the day of the premiere, walking through Trafalgar Square is almost impossible. Tatiana is besides herself with excitement and gets a lift on Kuno’s shoulders. She can just make out Emma Watson on the red carpet via a giant screen in the middle of the square. I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks about all of this, watching from high above.

Tatiana is somewhat dismayed with us, calling us “tourists”, as we immerse ourselves into the hoopla of summer London and visit all the possible attractions a typical tourist would. She calls herself a “world traveler” and obviously visiting attractions is beneath the world traveler class. However, that doesn’t stop her to immensely enjoy Madame Tussauds wax museum, taking pictures with, who else, Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter, Lady Gaga, Enstein, and, OMG, Justin Bieber. She likes the visit to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and loves the giant 3 storey M&M store on Leicester Square. Her favourite restaurant ends up being the (original) Hard Rock Cafe. Who is the tourist now? We make a trip to Greenwich and spend some time investigating the intricacies of solving the challenge of determining the longitude (I suspect that Tatiana grasps the concept way better than I do), take an evening ride on the London Eye, have fun transporting ourselves through the history of British music in the Music Museum (wow, it makes you realize how much good music originated from British bands and also how old we are, clearly enjoying the memories of the eighties, seventies, sixties … , you get the drift, music, while Tatiana can only relate to the last section of the exhibit), attempt to shop on Oxford Street and Covent Garden (with neither one of us being a very good shopper, we come out empty handed and exhausted). Tatiana and I have a great time exploring Harrods, noting that they have a big sale on. We visit the shoe department and try on numerous shoes off the sale rack – with prices down to 1,000 pounds from original 3,000+. A girl just loves a bargain! For the first time in my life I put a Loboutin shoe on my foot, expecting nirvana, but to be honest, it is not much more comfortable than my regular shoes. The three inch heel doesn’t help. We wonder if the elephants that Harrods sells are currently on sale too? The performance of Wicked one evening is outstanding.

Time flies by and soon it is time to take Tatiana to Oxford and part our ways for the next few weeks. While Tatiana is ecstatic about ditching her parents and hanging out with her age group for a change, we are getting more nervous as time passes. On a rainy Friday we take Tatiana and her enormous bag on the train to Oxford and check her into the Oxbridge Prep program. For the next three and half weeks Tatiana will be roaming the ancient Corpus Christi College at Oxford University, taking Creative Writing as major and Speech and Debate as minor (do we really need a child that debates even better in the future?), and do who knows what in her free time. We spend our last two hours together shopping for posters to decorate Tatiana’s bare dorm room and by the time we are finished we can

tell that she now wants us gone. Reluctantly we leave, but not before extorting a few hugs and kisses and leaving a plethora of rules, surely to be broken. Before leaving Oxford altogether, Kuno and I visit the Bodleian Library, site of yet another Harry Potter movie scene, but more importantly one of the largest university libraries in the world, with documents dating back to Gutenberg and beyond. The rule is that a copy of anything printed in Britain, book or magazine, is given to the Bodleian library and so every day the collection grows. We return back to London in the evening, feeling strangely unsettled, a part of us missing, left in Oxford.

On our last day in London we recover and take advantage of being able to do
the things that a teenager would not enjoy (well, at least not our teenager). We visit the Cabinet War Rooms and Winston Churchill museum and in the late afternoon, attend the crowning glory of our visit – an Evensong service at the Westminster Abbey. We sit in the nave under Shakespeare’s memorial, our feet resting on Lawrence Olivier’s stone, memories of other famous people surrounding us. The music is beautiful and as I sit here, I let the words slip past me, not trying to understand; I feel the awe that comes with being present in a place like this, the organ and choir creating the backdrop for a strange feeling of elation and happiness, sense of being light and peaceful. My eyes are drawn along the columns to the high arches and stained glass windows. I notice that lifting up is the natural thing to do, but as I try to run my eyes down the columns, I feel resistance. How strange… On our way out, we light a candle with a wish to keep Tatiana safe and happy. Tomorrow we leave for Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Fishing 101

Strange things happen when one attends charitable auctions.  Items that one had no idea were a necessity just the day before, make their way into our homes and activities that under normal circumstances we would never contemplate become a do or die.  Take Kuno and I for example.  Those of you who have read our Caribbean blog know that fishing is definitely not our thing.  Yet here we are, compliments of an overactive paddle in a school auction, fishing in the ultimate fishing paradise – at the Langara Lodge in Haida Gwaii Islands.  We did have a reasonable excuse bidding on this trip, after all, going to Haida Gwaii was on our bucket list (well, we don’t actually have a formal bucket list, because if we did, it would be too long to be practical) and fishing on a trip like that would be optional, we thought, right?  Wrong.

We arrive at the lodge midday via a helicopter from Masset and are greeted by an endless amount of staff, food and drinks.  So far so good, fishing trip in style, I am thinking.  As we walk up to the dining room, a brand new big screen tv is pointed out to us; just arrived a few days ago.  Great, I assume, just like everyone else, the lodge is gearing up for the 7th Stanley Cup game.  Unfortunately I am promptly informed that no, the big new tv is to display the fishing results of each guest in a friendly competition.  In fact, our names are already displayed with empty fields just waiting to be filled with our daily catch.  Oh…  As I am contemplating a lovely afternoon filled with reading, hot tub, nap, perhaps a short walk, the lodge manager announces that our boat and fishing guide will be ready, waiting for us, in half an hour on the dock.  The peer pressure kicks in.  Everyone else is going fishing, in fact nobody else comes here to contemplate anything but fishing, and what would our poor guide think if we didn’t show?  And so we quickly down the superb food, fortify ourselves with good wine, dress into the supplied (and pre-warmed, I am not kidding) suits and boots that make me feel like a Michelin Man, and off we go fishing.  Our guide seems a bit perplexed that we do not know what to do with the fishing rods and asks what we mean when we say that we have never fished before.  The concept of fishing as an optional activity is too foreign.  Our guide is a Haida from these ex-Queen Charlotte Islands and we spend a good amount of time talking about Haida history in addition to fish.  We retire 3 hours later without any luck (on the fishing side).  When we ask how the fishing has been over the past few weeks, we are told that it was great – until today.  That must be a standard answer to anyone who hasn’t caught anything.  As it starts to drizzle, we get the same answer about the weather.

In the evening, following a delicious meal, the manager asks everyone what time they would like their wake up call and fishing start.  We hear indecent numbers such as 5:45 and 6 am, but don’t cave to the pressure and ask for 9:30.  The whole group goes quiet and looks at us in astonishment.  Oops.  Next day we reluctantly ask for 7am. By day 3, everyone seems to get it that we are here not just to fish, and an attitude of amusement about these outsiders who do a 1000 piece puzzle in the evening instead of going to bed to have an early start, sets in.  We, on the other hand, are learning patience; the main attribute of anyone who wants to fish. Bobbing on the water, watching 4 rods for a sign of a hooked fish – 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon.  We develop a technique of touching the line with our finger to avoid having to endlessly rotate our head from rod to rod.  Two days of bobbing with not a single fish.  Kuno breaks the stalemate and catches the first fish, a respectable 13lb chinook. 

One afternoon we take a break from fishing and our guide takes us to Kiusta, a Haida village abandoned about 130 years ago.  We see remnants of long houses, burial posts and totem poles, all now overgrown.  We get a great account of what life in a village like that would have looked like, the devastating effects of meeting the first Europeans (and eventually being decimated by small pox), and band politics today.  We talk about Haida society and art.  It is obvious to our guide that this is of more interest to us than fishing.  This pleases him for the time being, but we notice that the guides take pride in their guests’ catch and coming out empty is not a good reflection on them.  So we plunge back into the fishing.  We even extend our hours.  The fields on the board next to our names start finally filling in with mostly Chinook, but also a sockeye, coho and halibut.  One day we go fishing to the “west side” of the island where the big halibut roam – it is not uncommon for people to catch 100+lb halibut there.  This concerns me.  Our guide changes the rods – no more slacking off, now we have to stand and hold onto the rod.  The fishing gear seems quite expensive and with the bait and weight dangling somewhere 200ft below, I find it quite difficult to hang on as it is.  All I can think of is that if a halibut of any size gets hooked, it is much more likely for me to go overboard than for the halibut to be pulled on board.  Alas, after an hour of bobbing in the big swell, hanging onto the rod for dear life, I only manage to pull up an inedible rock fish. To my (and everyone else’s) amusement, on the last morning before departure, I end up catching the biggest fish of our whole group, a 31lb Chinook, and am now formally a member of the Tyee Club (never heard of that before).  And I have the pin to prove it.  Not to mention an overflowing freezer.  Beginner’s luck.

As our fishing adventure ends, it is just a few days to end of school and our departure for the European installment of Blue Moon Travels. Stay tuned for our next adventure.

Blue Moon Travels through the Caribbean Summary

April - July 2008

1600 nautical miles travelled (approx 2900 km)

13 countries visited: St. Martin/Sin Maarten, St. Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Barths, British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Turks & Caicos, Bahamas, Florida USA

Disneyworld

6 August 2008

“Have a magical day” the Disney rep on the phone finishes our conversation. And so we arrive to the land of magic and dreams come true and visit with Mickey for a while. Definitely a highlight for Tatiana, for whom this represents her tenth birthday present. But soon Kuno and I get immersed in the fun too and we happily spend four days exploring the four parks of Disneyworld. Much of it is very similar to Disneyland, just much bigger. There is no way that in one day we can explore each park fully, although a lot of the space is in reality filled with stores selling everything imaginable Disney. Kuno and Tatiana zero in onto the wildest rides in each park, while I am happy to join grandparents and small children in the waiting area at the exit, and watch them emerge with big smiles and a debate on how the rides could be made even more hair raising. Magic Kingdom, with its castle, princesses and some of the most classical rides, remains a favourite for Tatiana. It is fun watching her still getting excited about meeting the characters and getting their pictures and autographs, even when it means lining up for an hour. I thought she was too big for that, but apparently I was wrong. Hollywood Studios has some great exhibits about the original art of Disney movies and we learn about the process of creating a movie character. Tatiana takes a cartooning lesson and draws a great looking Goofy, while Kuno joins a stunt show. We are surprised by Animal Kingdom that transports us to the world of Asia so well that Tatiana says she misses being in Nepal. We get completely soaked on the Kali Rapids ride, down to our shoes and underwear. I am sure it is a ploy to sell more Disney T-shirts, but it works regardless and soon we too are dressed with pictures of Mickey, Goofy and Tinkerbell just like the rest of the visitors. Our favourite park ends up being Epcot as it takes us to France, Italy, Morocco, Japan, China and many other countries. We are thrilled to have breakfast in France, with fresh baguette and pastries rather than the standard American breakfast fare that we are sick of by now. The evening entertainment in the parks is amazing and we don’t tire of watching the nightly fireworks. It is like having the Symphony of Fire every night of the year in three locations… I wonder how much money is blown up over the course of a year here. But it is beautiful. One night we go see the show La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil and Tatiana sits on the edge of the seat the whole time absolutely fascinated by the acrobatics and artistry. We return to our hotel each night tired but thinking:

It’s the truth, It’s actual.
Everything is satisfactual.
Zippity doo dah, zippity ay,
Wonderful feeling,
Wonderful day!

And I can’t help but think how time flies; it feels like only yesterday when little "kindergartner" Tatiana opened Minnie’s fridge and was surprised to see it full of cheese.

Everything comes to an end, even magic and dreams, and it is time to pack up and go home. But none of us have any regrets, not even Tatiana. We are all looking forward to coming home and Blue Moon must be halfway across the continent by now. We arrive to a cold evening in Vancouver and I scramble to pull out my sweater for the first time after four months… We are home!

Fast forward a few days to a conversation between Tatiana and her friend Emma: Tatiana tells Emma that visiting sugar plantations during the trip was really boring. Emma asks Tatiana what a sugar plantation is. Tatiana gives Emma a five minute explanation that describes sugar cane vs beets, management of a plantation, configuration of the windmill and boiling houses, slavery and economic viability of sugar trade. Kuno and I smile and secretly high five each other…

Blue Moon arrived safely in Blaine after 11 days on the road.

Florida

Florida
27 July 2008

Blue Moon is packed and ready to go. Go on the truck that is. As I step onto the dock for the last time, Kuno just wants to check one more thing on the foredeck. That is when I hear a distinct splash sound. Not much I can do, the fishing net is locked up inside. Unsure of what Kuno dropped, I look into the water, but whatever it was, it doesn’t float. “Oh well” says Kuno, “I never liked that phone anyway.” Kuno hates Blackberries, but this one served us well, keeping us in touch throughout the trip (good thing I haven’t seen the phone bill yet). On the bright side, the phone is the only thing we have lost overboard during the whole trip. In fact, as we contemplate the end of our sailing adventure, we realize that we have had only very few mishaps and that as sailing trips go, this one went really smooth. I give most of the credit to Kuno, who never ceases to amaze me by his capabilities, ingenuity and plain smarts to deal with anything that comes his way.

Leaving Bimini, I was worried about coming to Fort Lauderdale. I read somewhere that Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale is the third busiest port in the US. We are not used to much traffic and here, container ships, cruise ships, fishing boats, power and sailboats, even kayaks, you name it, are all around us. And the bridges! Within the first thirty minutes of entering Ft. Lauderdale, I have the biggest scare of the whole trip going under a highway bridge that supposedly had enough clearance (just) for our mast to pass. Nervous as it is, Kuno says to me: “Look up to see if we will make it”. Well, have you ever looked up at something really tall directly above you and judged the height? Impossible, I was sure we were going to hit. But, the bridge clearance was as high as stated and we passed with a foot or two to spare. And then the Intracoastal Waterway and later New River opened in front of us and with it a passage through some amazingly beautiful neighborhoods of Ft. Lauderdale. We meander through surprisingly narrow channels about two miles inland. Every once in a while a big boat comes from the other direction and we have to stay to the side to fit. Incredible mansions along the way are fronted by docks with one or more boats tied up. The amount of money floating on the water in this area is incredible. The annual revenue from the marine business in Ft. Lauderdale alone is supposedly four billion dollars. Seeing the amount of boats, I am starting to believe it. I can see though why people like living here. It is very beautiful.

After another five bridges, including a railway bridge, that all open on demand via marine radio, we arrive at our final destination, River Bend Marina on New River. And now the hard work starts, dismantling Blue Moon in preparation for the long trip to the Northwest. Other than securing everything inside the boat, we have to take off and store the sails, bimini, dodger, boom and mast with all the stays and shrouds, the life raft, the dinghy davits. The deflated dinghy goes on the foredeck. Not having done this before, we get a rigger to help us take down the mast and prepare it for transportation. To break the boredom, Tatiana practices her RipStick skills and by the time we are finished she becomes quite proficient. While working on the boat, we sneak in a one day trip down the coast through Miami and the Keys. We love the coast, with its one continuous beach and fancy mansions along the way, but after having been through the Bahamas, the Keys hold little excitement for us. We drive through a bit of the Everglades Park, full of mangroves, shallow water passages, manatees and crocodiles. In fact, it seems that all of Florida is just very low lying and any new development starts by filling in a swamp. And we note that there is a lot of development going on. I guess Florida is still in denial about global warming.


And then it is finally time to send Blue Moon off. As I watch her, ready to be picked up by the lift, she seems very small. Without the crowning glory, her tall mast, she seems naked and vulnerable. But I think of the times when she faithfully got us through tall waves and high winds, strong and proud. And I can’t wait for when we have her home, mast up and ready to sail the BC coast. Once she is on the truck, we say good bye and drive toward our last adventure, the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and Disneyworld.

Kennedy Space Center is fantastic. Very well done and so educational. Emotional too. Admittedly, to the amusement of my daughter, I cry even during children comedy movies, but I couldn’t help but shed a few tears of pride watching a replay of Neil Armstrong taking the first step on the Moon. I didn’t realize how many problems they had during the landing. They lost communication with the command centre, then they realized that the landing module was going too fast toward the Moon and will miss the selected landing area, the computers on board had several intermittent failures and were navigating the module toward a rocky landing area from which they would not be able to take off again. Eventually, Neil Armstrong took control, ignored the computers and the control centre, and to everyone’s astonishment landed in a completely new spot with literally no landing fuel left. It made me realize that during the first flights the astronauts really had at best a fifty fifty chance of coming back. Pretty impressive stuff. In total, twenty four astronauts have died during missions or training. More than half of them of course perished in the two disastrous space shuttle missions. I can’t imagine the stress of all involved in launching a craft after a preceding disaster. And so we learn about the Apollo missions, get to see a real Apollo rocket and the Moon landing module, and about the space shuttles, including taking part in a simulated take off and walking through a training shuttle clone. Some of the equipment from the early days, like the Moon landing module (see picture), looks like something out of a whimsical cartoon, very basic and crude, almost funny looking despite its underlying sophistication. We drive around the compound and see the assembly building as well as launch towers. It would be very cool to watch a space shuttle being launched, but the next one is only in October. The first shuttles were launched in early eighties and for a while, in late eighties and nineties, there were as many as seven or eight missions per year. Last year there were only about three or four and this year so far two. Out of the five space shuttles built, three are still in service. A little funny story about the prototype glide test space shuttle Enterprise is that NASA wanted to name it Discovery, but about a hundred thousand Star Trek fans petitioned President Ford for the shuttle to be named Enterprise and apparently, looking for any votes he could get, Ford made NASA change the name. And so Enterprise was born. Or so we were told...

I am in awe of the space program, leaving aside the political drivers of the past. The visit leaves me with a sense of pride in mankind, in how much can be accomplished against what common sense might tell us is impossible. If only we had always enough wisdom to apply our ingenuity to the right goals.

Exumas to Bimini, Bahamas

Exumas to Bimini, Bahamas
19 July 2008

The contrast between our last few days in the Exumas and the hoopla of Nassau is unsettling. I got used to our slow days and quiet evenings in empty anchorages more than I realized. I thought I was missing the civilization of restaurants, stores and entertainment, yet when I got all of that in Nassau, I wished we were still in the Exumas. There is a lesson in this observation and despite the fact that we have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about “living in the now” on this trip, apparently I have not quite succeeded. Like the lizard above, I should learn to just stay still and soak the moment in for as long as I can.

The last few cays of the Exumas provided some memorable moments for us. Sometimes the best comes when not much is expected. On chart, Shroud Cay didn’t appear to hold much interest. The shores are lined with mangroves which makes exploration on foot impossible. Instead we hopped in the dinghy and started exploring the shallow channels that crisscross the Cay, calmly winding its way among the mangroves, providing shelter for birds and fish. In fact, for a shallow draft boat, the channels could provide a decent hurricane shelter. We meandered through many turns until the channel suddenly widened and opened to the other side of the island with one of the most spectacular beaches we have seen. The water was a deep turquoise in the middle of the channel, changing to the slightest shade where it spilled onto the white sandy beach with just a hint of pink. With the change of tide the water in the channel was running quite fast and we kept floating down the mouth to the sandbar just outside in the ocean, then running back to do it over again. The water, even on the wild side of the islands is warm, but when we dig our hands half a foot into the sand, it is nice and cool. No wonder so many of the sea creatures live inside the sand.

Leaving Shroud Cay the next day, we stop at Norman’s Cay, a private island with shady history tied to the Medellin drug cartel. Purchased by its boss sometime in the seventies, it served as a waypoint to smuggle drugs to the US. There is a wreck of a good sized plane in the bay that sits just below the surface and we anchor close by to check it out. I heard and read two stories about the plane. One said that it was shot down, the other that the pilot was high on drugs and missed the runway. He missed by a lot I might add. We snorkel around the plane that is still in an amazingly good shape, including the full body (sans cargo) and wings, a propeller on one of the wings and even some wiring in the cockpit. Small patches of coral are starting to envelope the wreck. I should note that while I like looking at coral and small colorful fish, I am never very comfortable snorkeling, especially when there are giant rays, nurse sharks and barracudas swimming around me. I have learned that none of them will bite me unless I bite them first (an unlikely situation), but that does not mean that I am comfortable around them. Throw a wreck of a plane into the mix and all I can think of is a big shark hiding in the belly of the plane waiting to surprise me. So I tentatively stick my head into the plane, making sure that Kuno is nearby as potential bait.

And then it’s just an overnight stop before we set out toward Nassau over the shallow Yellow Bank. The name is quite appropriate as the water here really changes from turquoise to yellow. We are not sure why. It is a good thing that we have the habit of having a lookout on the bow when crossing the banks, as this time we come across a number of coral heads that are not marked on the chart. It is hard to say how close to the surface they reach, to us they just appear as black patches in the water. We don’t take a chance and steer around them.

The Atlantis resort and marina on Paradise Island across from Nassau will be our home for the next four days and we can see its massive towers for hours before anything else of the island appears. We have been warned by many people that anchoring in Nassau is difficult and there are a lot of break-ins, even in some of the marinas. While Atlantis is outrageously expensive, it has the added attraction of an enormous water park. I am not sure who is more excited about it – Kuno or Tatiana. The marina wrap itself around the casino and the hotel and despite being fully booked, we end up being the only sailboat there, and as such a bit of a curiosity. This is definitely the land of power boaters. The more horsepower and fishing rods, the better. The water park turns out to be a lot of fun and not surprisingly, Kuno ends up being the most adventurous. Several slides feature nearly vertical drops and while I am quite happy to watch others scream as they plunge down and contemplate potential safety issues (like what would happen if one leaned forward on the vertical drop), Kuno lines up for slides with names like The Abyss and Leap of Faith. Tatiana is somewhere in between, not a chicken like I, but with a healthy sense of life preservation. Our favourite feature is The Current, a mile long circular river where one floats through waves, rapids, tunnels etc on a tube. Elevation is gained by being transported up, tube and all, on a conveyor before continuing onto another round. One can take a detour to various tube slides, most of them pretty wild. Unfortunately too wild for me as I end up with a whiplash. Atlantis also has some well done aquariums and we get to see hammerhead sharks, manta rays and the recently transferred (I think from Asia) lion fish that is spreading throughout the Bahamas and devouring reef fish at an alarming pace. Just like with the Portuguese Man-o-War, I am struck by the combination of a beautiful form and deadly impact. The rest of Atlantis feels artificial, overdone and overpriced and after four days we don’t mind leaving. Perhaps it just feels that way to us because of the pristine places we have just seen.


Back on the water, we are now in the deep again and it is time to pull out the fishing line. And this time we succeed. It seems appropriate that I am just reading Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea about an old fisherman catching his biggest marlin ever. And while our fish is tiny compared to that, it does many of the tricks that the story describes. Regardless of the size, there is a sense of excitement for me, who has never fished before. Sometimes the fish speeds up and with no pull on the line it feels like we have lost him, other times he dives or goes sideways causing Kuno to wonder how big he actually is. When we pull him out, he is beautiful, with big eyes and yellow sides. But the color quickly vanishes once he is out of the water. We are sure it is a tuna, but it is more difficult to tell what kind; we settle on Big Eye Tuna. Delicious dinner follows.

Our last stop before leaving Bahamas is Bimini, Hemingway’s fishing port. Here, the near presence of Florida can be really felt, as powerboats from Miami can, in good weather, cross within a few hours. There are more boats on the horizon than we have seen in weeks. We even see several sailboats. We arrive in Bimini in the morning after a night sail from the Berry Islands. The wind is light and we motorsail most of the eighty mile trip. Sailing at night has become comfortable for us and we switch our watches depending on the wind, the trickiness of the passage and how tired each of us feels. The only difference is that with the increasing boat traffic, we have to be much more alert now. Sometime toward the morning the wind died completely and as I wake up, we are gliding on 13 feet of completely still water, able to see the minute detail of the underwater life as if in an aquarium. It has a surreal feeling. We watch a barracuda make a quick pass and a little fish is no more. We see sea stars and blades of grass at the bottom. Not a ripple disturbs the water other than the wake of our bow.

But wind is our friend in more than one way as we soon come to realize. The stillness brings out the heat and bugs and it is virtually impossible to keep the boat at a reasonable temperature without letting in the bugs. As we are in a marina, we plug into the shore power and start up all of the fans that we have on the boat (a total of five), but even then it is barely bearable. Undeterred though, we explore the North Bimini Island, first on a dinghy and then on an rented electric golf cart that has seen much better days (many, many years ago). Offroading is definitely not its strength and Tatiana and I have to push it out of the deep sand when we take it a bit beyond its limits. Bimini is completely geared toward fishing, but, to my surprise, has very little tourism infrastructure otherwise. Even finding a decent restaurant for lunch turns out to be a challenge. But, to our excitement, the mailboat arrived today (it comes once a week) and that means fresh fruit and vegetables in the store. We load up on apples, bananas and tomatoes, as we haven’t seen anything fresh for days. Even Tatiana, who loves to live on pasta and rice, is desperate for something fresh. But progress is coming Bimini’s way and a change is in the making as a grandiose resort / marina / vacation housing project is being developed in the northern part of the island. We have seen the same happening on many of the Bahamian islands and although the islands are by no means untouched by tourism, I suspect that it is nothing compared to what it will be in ten years’ time. Especially on the islands close to Florida. Perhaps the Out Islands will keep their innocence longer.

A new life springs into us as the wind picks up again the next day and Tatiana and I decide to climb the mast, something we haven’t done before. Climb is a bit of an overstatement, as in reality Kuno winches each of us up in a bosun’s seat, with only a slight help from us whenever we can step on the mast spreaders or pull up on the shrouds. Our mast is 54 ft high above the water and that is pretty high when one is perched up top. But the view is fantastic. To give us a sense of what it is like when there are waves (we are in a marina), Kuno rocks the boat. While I am quite tentative about this, Tatiana thinks this is great fun and asks if we can do it more often. I am just hopeful that I will never have to climb the mast while underway.



After more then a month, it is time to say goodbye to the Bahamas and embark on our last sail of the trip, forty miles to Fort Lauderdale. A truck is scheduled to pick up Blue Moon in a week’s time for its long journey to the Pacific Northwest. I hope she will like it there…

Exuma Cays

Exumas, Bahamas
8 July 2008

“Look, he likes pizza!” exclaims Tatiana as she watches the big fish residing under our boat devour what was supposed to be her dinner. More and more pizza goes overboard, followed by red beets (which the fish didn’t like) and cookies (no luck either). Poor guy, he is probably going to throw up at night.

We finally succumbed to the lure of catching our own dinner: we are now in the ranks of cruisers who (attempt to) fish. Not successfully yet, just hopefully. After a search through the various lockers on our boat, Kuno discovered all that was needed to fish here. We are told it is pretty simple – a yoyo with a lot of nylon string, weight, big hook and a colorful squid. Picture this. Day 1: We let out the line, hook and all, and wait. And wait (other cruisers noted that it usually takes only a few minutes to catch something). Maybe we are going too fast. We adjust the speed. Nothing. At the end of the day, Kuno reels the line in and dryly says: “That was a very safe way to fish!” Not understanding what he means I look up and see that the hook was still inside the cork that we put on for safety during storage and handling. Ok, lesson learned. Take the cork off before fishing.

Day 2: Line goes in minus the cork. We adjust the speed and 30 minutes later there is a pull on the line. While Kuno starts reeling the fish in, I go get the fish identification chart and rum. Not to steel our nerves, but to subdue the fish. It is apparently a much more pleasant experience than using the winch handle. Kuno pulls a grey toothy beast in, nice dinner size, about 10 pounds. I pour a good shot of rum into his mouth and gills, while Kuno yells: “Mount Gay? Are you crazy?” Well, I thought I would make his passing a pleasant one, so that he doesn’t get a headache. Kuno and I start studying the identification chart, finding, to our dismay, that it is a barracuda (we think). Edible, but not top of the list. Potential issue with ciguatera poisoning. We decide to throw him back in on the chance that he can recover from the rum. We have pizza for dinner instead. And as for the next few days we will be in a park area with no fishing allowed, we may indeed remain unsuccessful in our attempt to feed ourselves from the sea on this trip.

We are now leisurely moving through the Exumas chain in the Bahamas, relishing the last few days of solitude before we enter the whirl of Nassau, and ultimately the dreaded dismantling of the boat and putting it on a truck in Ft. Lauderdale at the end of the month. While we are not looking forward to the mayhem of organizing the departure, all of us are starting to look forward to coming home.

We arrived in the cruisers’ mecca at the south tip of Grand Exuma, Georgetown, expecting to find a lot of boats, but by this time of the year, especially as hurricane Bertha is trying to make up its mind which way to go, the Exumas are empty and we have many of the anchorages to ourselves. Georgetown was an exception, with a few cruisers, who like us, for some reason or other, are late in their schedules, and a few boats who plan to weather the hurricane season in the area. After days of not meeting another boat while passing through the Out Islands, it is nice to have some company. We stay for a few days, just playing on the beaches, eating burgers in the beach bar, reading and sharing experiences. A huge rainstorm passes through our anchorage one night and washes Blue Moon from the accumulated salt. We haven’t noticed, but other boats also had an orange coating from an African sand storm that blew over us a few days ago.

I will forever have Exumas associated with the color of turquoise. I have never seen so many shades of it as in the water here. The Exuma islands are fairly flat, quite barren and there is very little civilization. But as we sail across the inside banks, the colors of our surroundings are of brilliant white beaches, jagged grey rocks and different shades of turquoise. The photographs can never make it justice. Yesterday Kuno was pointing out to Tatiana that the clouds have turquoise underbellies from the water reflection and she replied: “What do you mean? I don’t see turquoise clouds.” Turns out her grey lens sunglasses filter out so much of the vivid color that she has spent this vacation observing much blander scenery than we have. So now she is living the technicolor dream of brown polarized lenses, amazed at what she has been missing.

A big part of Exumas has been set aside as the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in 1959, the first such park in the world. Fishing is prohibited and it shows when we snorkel around here – we see yellowfin tuna, grouper and lobsters meander right under our noses without any fear. We resist the temptation.

We snorkel into the Thunderball Cave off Staniel Cay, a location of another 007 movie, Thunderball, and the variety of fish and coral we find there is amazing, illuminated by streams of sunlight coming in through the holes in the cave ceiling. Tatiana gets spooked by the swarming of the little fish around her, as somebody drops a piece of fish food into the water. Hundreds of them zoom in to eat the little morsel. I don’t know how the fish do it though, but no matter how close they get to us, they never seem to touch. The bottom of the anchorages and bays is littered with conch of all sorts and we have never seen so many baby conches as here. Apparently the concentration of conch inside the park here is 31% higher than outside of the park. It is funny to look at the ground and see the shells move, as they drag themselves along the sandy bottom in search of food. Nurse sharks and stingrays have become a common sight wherever we are, just gliding around us, looking for food. Many nights we shine the flashlight into the water and drop some food overboard to see what creatures come out. A group of yellowfin tuna was particularly excited to get some leftover schnitzel.

Anchoring in the Exumas is tricky, very unlike anything we have experienced before and we often pick up a park buoy instead of having to set two anchors. Even then, Kuno usually dives the buoy at slack tide to make sure that it is solid. Jumping into the water off the boat at any other time is dangerous, as the current is too strong. The Exumas, with its many cays, banks and cuts behaves in an unpredictable way. Well, unpredictable to us anyway. The tidal current through the anchorages is so strong, that on regular basis we hang on the buoy opposite to the wind or sideways to the wind. Last night we were doing 360’s, luckily on a buoy, not on anchor. The tide is important here and we rely on it when we pass through some of the shallower spots, giving us an extra foot or two under the keel if we time it right. I am often on the bow as a lookout, but it is so difficult to tell the depth; the water is so clear that I can see the rocks and sand ripples as well in 12ft of water as in 8ft. Yesterday I was telling our friends on another boat about our uneventful passage of the day across the banks, when Kuno piped up: “Well, actually, I kind of missed the middle of the channel at one point and we were in 6ft of water.” Oops, we have a 5ft 8 draft. Of course, the culprit was the current, or so Kuno says. But the reality is that the charted channels are somewhat unreliable, as the sand banks tend to shift over time. So we sail by looking and feeling and watching the depth sounder like hawks, all the time marveling at the bright turquoise around us.

And Tatiana, true to her style, is reading her way through the Caribbean, completely oblivious to many of the sights and marvels, including the skeleton of a 52ft sperm whale behind her!