Lat N 35 17 / long W 008 11

Day 31
Tonight the thing happened that you do not want to happen.
A large wave made it into the cockpit, splash,
completely drenched Th who sat on guard, washed through the whole cockpit,
went down into the interior and threw the rest at the foot end of
my bunk where I got a quick, cold and wet awakening. We have
had the same weather for 24 hours, then an extra large wave exerts itself a little extra. In the cockpit there were left a struggling
flying fish and a slimy octopus, and inside the boat, so much extra
inconvenience, it was very wet in my bed so now the whole boat is a
clothesline, salty textiles do not dry well. We are very pleased to have only about one more day to go before we're in port.
If I could make a wish now, sailing on the penultimate day is: that I
would like to see a "shore team" on the quay with buckets and rags
saying - "Hey?"
E and S, where are you?

Anna Karin

Lat N 34 24 / longitude W 011 32

Day 30
The sea was not calm for long, now it's freshening again. A fresh breeze from
South, yes you are right, SOUTH. We could not be happier,
it allows us to leap towards Gibraltar, where we first stop. From there
we will find out where it's best to put up Anastasia over the summer.
Not only has this been a windy night, there has also been rain and thunder. I saw
several bursts of lightning flounce down to the sea through an illuminated sky.
While we have some kind of lightning rod on top of the mast, we are
a small exposed dot on the sea in a thunderstorm.
When I was out camping with the family as a child, we had to sleep
in the car all night if there was thunder.

Anna Karin

Lat N 33 20 / long W 015 00

Day 29
Yesterday we passed Madeira, it took all afternoon and evening. We
had a couple of hours coverage on the GSM phone, so we took the opportunity to
call friends and family. It was fun to get a break in the otherwise
permanent view of the ocean. Gray ocean or blue ocean, calm seas and wild
seas. We have seen some water flowing past, or are we flowing
through? Never mind, we have now been four weeks at sea from Rio.

Anna Karin

Lat N 32 12 / longitude W 017 40

Day 28
When we sailed in the Pacific, we looked for the mountain of garbage which we had heard about, but there was no floating island of garbage, it was clean. French
Polynesia Marquesas, Tuamoto it was clean water. What could be seen
floating around was coconuts, palm leaves, branches and twigs.
In Patagonia, didn't see any trash in the water either, just kelp,
lots of kelp.
The garbage zone started off Rio de Janeiro, where it was like sailing in
a sewage plant. We believe that all debris from the beaches just went right
into the sea. In recent days, the trash has increased where we are sailing, we are
on the level of the Canary Islands and Madeira. If you just look down
is always something floating in the water. Buoys, fenders, PET bottles,
plastic bags. Plastic bags are sneaky, they float about half a meter below the surface.
World, recover!

Anna Karin

Lat N 31 17 / long W 020 28

Day 2
On such a long route you are guaranteed to get becalmed in some
part. We did not get our share around the equator, but have had it now.
The wind is so weak that it does not blow out the sails.
We have been running the machine more or less the whole
night. It's okay because we have plenty of diesel left. At the start of a trip, we have 500 liters in the tanks, plus 150 liters in cans. With this we can run by motor for approximately 1200 nm.
The weather is also nice, sunny but not too hot, and a crystal clear air.
We expect that this is the last Sunday at sea.

Anna Karin

Lat N30 14 / long 22 53 W

Day 26
After three weeks on the starboard tack, the wind has now given us
conditions to turn and sail by the port necks. The wind has
backed down and is currently NNW. We enjoy steering almost directly towards our
goal. Now everything must take its position on the other side. Things that
were safe in the bookcase before, now go flying across the floor. We must re-package
and fix down. The body has become used to compensating in one direction,
it must now use other muscles. Ocean sailing makes you lose strenght in your
leg muscles, when we went ashore after 30 days at the Pacific just before Christmas
I felt shaky the first few days.
Today we record less than 1000 nautical miles left.

Anna Karin

Lat 29 27 / long W 025 17

Day 25
Knäckebröd, I thought when I woke up today. Would be nice. Why do you find
it almost exclusively in Sweden? It is such a practical bread that does not become
stale when properly stored. One can enjoy it alone or with various
toppings. My absolute favorite is the butter and grevé cheese. We bought lots
at IKEA in Alameda in August. Due to a salt water leak on the first
stretch, we were forced to dump it all overboard. Now you dare start indulging
your fantasies about certain foods, we are approaching our destination. There is today not much more than 1200 NM to go.

Anna Karin

Lat N 28 00 / W 026 40

Day 24
Another stowaway. You may remember the last bird of indeterminate species,
which spent one night huddled in the outboarder, then went away. Our new
stowaway landed yesterday afternoon. He introduced himself as Mr
Dove. Walked around and inspected the boat. Toward evening, he had
decided he would stay overnight. He crawled into the rubber boat,
where he has been since. We have set out a dish of water for him. Mr Pigeon
has a ring around one leg, perhaps he has a letter attached to it. Then
he is a mail pigeon. I'm not going to touch him, I'm not so fond of
birds, what if he carries the bird flu virus.

Anna Karin

Lat N 26 11 / longitude W 028 07

Day 23
Destination?
Many wonder where in Spain we are going?
It is not yet decided where we will moor Anastasia. We are looking at
different options. It is likely that it will be in the Cadiz area or any
Marina on the southern coast.
When I sit and look at the chart around Cadiz, among other things, I see the river
Gaudalquivir with places like Seville and Cordoba. Then I think of
Red Orm, my favorite book by Frans G. Bengtsson and how Red Orm became a
galley-slave of Alemansur in Cordoba. To be a galley-slave, was no fun,
one day was ever the same so it was difficult to keep track of time.
However, he noticed three things, which showed that the time went. He was chained
to the oar as a beardless youth, and after a while his beard began to grow,
albeit it grew no longer than the oar, where it got worn away. "Of all the
ways to trim a beard, this was the worst". For my own part, I began
this journey from Rio, maybe not as a youth, but still beardless, and I
conclude it with a beard.
The other two ways that the Snake could measure the passage of time? Read the book!

Thomas

Lat N 23 56 / Long W 029 35

Day 22
Now we are on the "right" side of longitude W 30th. It's been a long and tough
struggle to get there. Not since March 28, we have been east of the line.
It's been a struggle to pass it again. Fighting the
Northeast trade wind. But this morning began with W29 59 on the GPS, and gradually convert in the right direction.
We have now got a wind that carries better towards the goal. Yeeapeee.
After three weeks under sail, you find that our focus is quite
limited. Our everyday events, which govern the whole world, or is
it not so?

Anna Karin

Lat N21 15 / long W 030 39

Day 21
The overview chart that we use now is called North Atlantic Ocean, Eastern
Part. It's the same chart we used 27 years ago when we sailed
to the Caribbean with our previous boat Aurora. We have it lying on the
chart table under the plexiglass sheet, we mark the 12-o'clock position and
sometimes we plot the low pressure tracks. When we took out the chart, I discovered
that the old plot from 1983 was visible still. I can read the dates and
positions for every day. Why I mention this is because today
we cross our own old track, then it was January 9, 1983, and today is the 5
April 2010. Then we calculated our positions with the help of the sun and
stars. Now we have 5 GPS's on board. Then we lived on 200 liters of
fresh water. Now we are producing our own new, if necessary. We had no refrigerator,
now we both fridge and freezer.
We had a good voyage then, and we have even better now.
Hooray for ocean sailing!

Anna Karin

Lat N 18 46 / long W 031 39

Day 20

Long-distance sailing calls for milestones. Previously, the equator. Beyond
that we have had "having less than 2000 NM left." It is a bit difficult to
calculate because we do not know how wide a turn we must make up towards the
Azores. Total distance could always be longer.
But we now hope that the in the next day we will reach the milestone.
2000 NM is still a long distance, for comparison, I remember
from the time when I sailed on the Mediterranean that the distance Skagen-Gibraltar
is 2000 NM and also Gibraltar Haifa.

Anna Karin

Lat N 16 05 / W 031 36

Dag 19

HAPPY EASTER from Anastasia to all blog-followers.
In a valiant attempt to convey the Easter mood, we got into a
yellow sail bag, took pictures, compressed one and sent it via satellite, up, down
to webmaster, to be able to publish the very latest
photo evidence of the two, still sailing. If you can see on our fruit net you can see it has turned all brown. We have sand from the Sahara all over the deck. Our latitude cuts through the Cape Verde archipelago.

Anna Karin

Lat N 13 29 / W 031 29

Day 18
April,April, month of fools

One of our ways to receive weather reports is Inmarsat C. Very good
addition to the GRIB files. Now we are in NAV / MET Area 2, which is
run by France. For a few days now there have been reports, but only the
first row, where the date and time is .. It has been very annoying since
we want to follow weather developments all the time. This morning I was watching
one like that, a one-line message, and came up with the idea to use the arrow keys to follow the row. Believe it or not but the whole weather report is there in only one
long, long, long list. When you select it and cut and paste into Word,
it becomes a full A 4. You can imagine how long that line is. Many thanks to
the French. International standard?

Anna Karin

Lat N 10 38 / W031 37

Day 17,
1 April, Change of plans
Since the trade winds now carry us in the direction of the West Indies,
we are going to bear up and set course for Barbados.
Carpe Diem. After the Caribbean, the Panama Canal and to the south again.
Another round, quite simply.
Is there someone who wants to come long? Submit an application, to address
mail bouy Atlantic, we will pick up the letter when we pass.

Anna Karin

Lat N 7 59 / W 031 32

Day 16
A few days have passed since we crossed the equator. We are very
pleased with the passage through the notorious doldrums - we did not have to struggle with calm belts and severe thunderstorms.
Now, however, we are into the NE-trade winds. We are sailing as close as
we can, but are pushed westwards each day as you can see on the positions. We
has pused up all our ballast on the starboard side, so comfort is
still high. As a broker said about the ballast: - "It's like having
8 men sitting on the rail." I am pleased that our ballast does not require three
meals a day.

Anna Karin

Lat N 5 30 / W 030 51

Day 15
Today is the full moon, at your home as well as in the North Atlantic with us.
When the sun went down last night the moon turned up in its full
splendor. It is so nice to have light all night. Moonlight gives more
light out at sea than you might think, at home it's usually drowns in all
the lamps from the city. For us it is a welcome light in the otherwise
pitch-black night watch.
The nightwatch can be oh so long if you're tired. If you can cope
you listen to audio books and old radio shows on the iPod. Or if there
is no salt spray, you can sit with the laptop outside and watch
a movie, it's pretty cozy. An old Hitchcock in darkness can
liven up an otherwise uneventful night.

Anna Karin

Lat N 2 40 / W 030 02

Day 14
Hot, hot, hot. We have 32 degrees C during the day and at night the
temperature goes down to 28 degrees. Dress code? You could say that it is
"casual". But today the sun passed the zenith, and tomorrow we may just like
you, look at the sun's south meridian passage. This will not affect the
heat in many more days.
For the rest, we sail north around longitude W 030, sometimes a little more east and
sometimes a bit more west. We would like to get a bit more over to the east,
but the wind is in control. Longitude W 030 degrees. Basta.
The wind does not know that the captains on board do not want someone else deciding
over them.

Anna Karin

Lat S/N 00 00 / W 029 55

Day 13
Celebration today, we are crossing the equator. The vernal equinox having passed, it's good to come from summer in the southern hemisphere to
incipient summer in the northern hemisphere.
It is exactly six months since we crossed the equator from north to south, at
longitude W 136, in an entirely different ocean.
We have during this time logged 13,130 NM.
• 38 days in port
• 76 days cruising in Polynesia and Patagonia
• 67 days offshore sailing

The most westerly point was Bora Bora in Polynesia at 152 W
The most southerly location was the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego at S 55
We started in San Francisco located at approximately N 37
The goal is set at the southern Spain of about N 37

Anna Karin

Lat S 2 18 / W 030 06

Day 12
Today I think of señor Navero who was the Big Fixer in Puerto Eden. In
Puerto Eden, there were no roads only a narrow wooden walkway in front of the
houses around the bay. Since it was almost constantly raining the footbridge
was slippery, except in places where they had attached pieces of tin, perforated
with a star chisel. Despite the village's small size there was a
police office, an armada station, a post office and a school. It was at the school
there was supposed to be internet but that's a different story. Señor Navero,
was an old fox in the dirtiest trousers I have ever seen. Tramping around in
rubber boots, owner of the village's hostel, and also the village's organizer,
he was the owner of the phone. Since we needed gas, we became fast friends with him,
and ended up sitting in his "lobby" where the TV and the stove were always on.
Our first mission was to buy diesel, voy a ver (I shall see) voy a
ver, 200 litros hmm, perhaps on Monday, got a liter price written down on
a small piece of paper. It would also be "microfiltrado" which sounded very
good. For various reasons already on Saturday we got more acute needs for
LPG (one bottle was poorly filled) Up to Navero señor, thought
there was no problem, LPG is used everywhere for everything in Chile.
But ... they all had big bottles and we had a small one, it
there was no one who had a change for filling. The solution to the problem
was to ride the ferry that went on Sunday morning to Puerto Natales,
get a replacement bottle, go back and get to Puerto Eden, Wednesday. Not so
attractive to us, but señor Navero could get someone who did this for
us. It all ended up after a hard evening's negotiations in the lobby,
we would get our old Chilean bottle filled + a new bottle, which we
purchased from an unknown man in the village for a decent price, that would also be filled.
This fits all very well on Wednesday when the diesel will come. Wednesday, would
not diesel come on Monday. No, no, there is no chance. Microfiltrado. We got
tired of Puerto Eden, the days passed slowly and on Wednesday morning, we were
leaving early. We got our gas and diesel, and while the diesel was transported
out in cans with the dinghy I went to the señor to make us debt free.
I thought it sounded a lot, looked at the little piece of paper, but didn't get the
numbers to match up, paid and watched, we were in a hurry to get away
so I thanked him and left. We lifted anchor and then looked
closer on the piece of paper. I can say that he had a premium
the good Navero, 100% on the price for the diesel, okay, he had no guests at the hostel,
and of course needed to raise money to live on. He is
forgiven and it turns into a fun memory of a great businessman.