Dear readers,

I need to thank you all for your emails and comments you keep sending to us. We read everything very carefully and we value and truthfully appreciate that you're getting in touch. Unfortunately we have came to realize that there would be no time for anything else in life than responding to your emails if that is what we would have chosen to do and even though I would like to personally reply to each and everyone of you who take your precious time to write to us, it is just simply impossible. And instead of me feeling bad for not responding to the 247 unanswered emails we have in the inbox in this very moment, I would now like to take the chance to answer to some of the most frequently asked questions which we encounter in the daily emails and comments from you.

Many of you seem to enjoy the photos on this blog, thank you very much, and you want to know what equipment is used: I am photographing with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and used are lenses such as: Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II, Canon EOS 70-200 mm f/2.8 L IS USM and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. Occasionally I throw over the camera to Alex, how else would we get all those narcissistic bikini pictures of yours truly. Sometimes there is also a remote control from Canon and a tripod from Hama Star in use, that's when Alex is fed up with taking my photos and also when we're both featured in the images.

The 5D is also a great video camera and while we still haven't even started any serious video shootings, I will with time show you how amazing videos this camera produces. The old camera which is the one used for all photos featured in this blog before September 2010, is a more simpler Canon camera. The Canon EOS 450D (called Digital Rebel XSi in the US) is the one I would like to recommend to anyone who are in the thoughts of beginning to understand the difference between a compact digital and a digital SLR camera. To this one I used the standard lens which came with it and also sometimes a great macro lens, the Canon EF-S 60 mm f/2.8. This camera is still quite a lot in use, especially because it is much lighter to carry around with than the 5D and also because I love the macro lens mentioned for close ups.

More frequently asked questions: 

How are we able to stay in such good shape when living aboard a small boat and can we give some advice for others who wants to stay fit while cruising? Ok, this is a tricky one as I assume you might think there are some miracle advice, but I'm sorry there aren't. Alex is simply born the way he is and all his sporty young years have made him an athlete for ever. Lucky him, I say, myself I'm born as a woman and while not being 21 any longer, I need my weekly workout and also I need to somewhat regulate my chocolate, cheese and wine intake, if you know what I mean. Added to that I am, just like many other women out there, pending in weight like a yo-yo depending on how much water my body contains for the day and even though I might look very well trained and fit one day, I could equally swollen up like a balloon for the day after. Obviously I will only show myself in this blog when I have my skinnier days, so keep that in mind as well. Other than that, I have my own workout scheme adjusted to the life aboard a sailing boat and if you are really really nice I might give you some video instructions one day. I'm joking.

Then we have a few of you who wants to know where my bikinis are from and on that I can tell you that they're purchased from everything from Missoni and Mango to H&M, La Perla and Calzedonia and all are blended and used in a sweet melange. My favorite mix is the black La Perla bottom with the yellow Calzedonia top.

Many of you guys out there are also planning your own great escape from mundanity and you want our help and advice in areas regarding sponsors, cruising budget, planning of a journey, advice on how to break free from the normality and other things concerning a life change/cruising/financials etc, as well as Alex practical suggestions for gear, equipment etc and as soon as our new website is up and running (hopefully launched in next week) I promise that you will have our reply on some of those questions, and maybe even all of it with time, over there. 

And that would be all for now. Thank you again for your emails and comments, they mean a lot to us. Please keep them coming.

/Taru

The boat

It is quite common to see other models of the Hallberg Rassy's sailing all over the world and sometimes we even have a chance to meet the same model we have, the HR 352. But it is certainly not too common to meet two of the same sisters on the very same day. First we passed by the Swedish boat arriving to Le Marin for a week ago, on the same night in Sainte Anne we ran across this German flagged HR 352. Always interesting to compare looks and features and also it is quite nice to see how good they look from a distance, just like our baby, Caos. The HR352 is, like the reputation says, a very comfortable, safe and strong boat for crossing oceans and many have chosen it for their own circumnavigation. Maybe that's what these people have committed to do, too?  /T

Just a quick note: None of the comments which is sent to this blog will be shown before I or Alex have accepted them, so you do not have to send your comment two times. Sometimes it can take some hours or even a day or two before the comments are moderated, simply cause we can't and won't be by the computer all day long. We always appreciate your point of view and the discussions we're having in the comment fields, but please be patient, don't repost if you can't find your comment straight away and it will appear next time we or I log on. Thanks. /T

We went out fishing the other day. First we had an about 2 meter long Sailfish biting off the line, then Alex picked up this exceptionally large Dorado or Dolphin fish or Mahi Mahi or whatever you prefer to call this beauty of the ocean. It measured 135 cm (4.4 feet) and he was a great fighter, took about 30 minutes to work it up on deck. /T

I remember that earlier, while we still were kind of attached to land and lived in Barcelona, I was sometimes wondering about how some of the cruisers we had the chance to meet got their energy and why they were so boring in the nights. They seemed to wake up so early full with energy and they were always tired and sleepy for a late nights dinner or a good party - something that me/we still occupied us with at occasions in our hometown - now I have came to a complete understanding.

When living so close to the nature, you want nothing else than to take advantage of all the sunshine hours you can get and nowadays I wake up at 6.40 - every single morning. It is like I had an inner alarm telling me that exactly at 6.40 it is about time to get up to not waste your time and I find it very refreshing to get out from the cabin, open the doors of the companion way and get greeted by the warm sun which is just about to rise. On the other hand I have hard to keep my eyes open after 9.30 pm and more than once a week I fall heavily asleep on the couch in our saloon or on the comfortable cushions in the cockpit after dinner. My body and soul have slowly got synchronized with the flow of the nature and rather than following the beat of the night like the night creature I earlier might have been, I now get up perfectly in time for when the sun rises and I go to bed when the sun have disappeared with it's light and warmth behind the horizon, instead of the opposite.

Very interesting. I can't even remember the night we were up after midnight and thankful I am for that, especially here in the Caribbean as the sun rises very early and also goes down soon after 6.30 every night. There are very few sunshine hours and these we want to take care of as much as we can. Very fascinating how the human mind and body have so easy to adapt and most wonderful it is how much better and cleaner the soul and mind feels when living by the laws and flows of the nature. And what an incredibly good sleep you get on top of that. Of course I can occasionally miss a real good wild fiesta, but now I kind of wonder if I really would have the energy for it all. Times has definitely changed. It is interesting, strange and beautiful at the very same time. 

So as this is a sailing/cruising blog - as much as it is a food blog, a travel and adventure blog and a blog about life, music, philosophies, bikinis, love, rum and everything else in between - I would now like to share with you some sailing/boat related information. Gregor, one ambitious reader from Slovenia sent us a list of things he wanted to have answered so let's just roll with it and go step by step in his list of wonderings. Here's just a part of the long list he sent over, more questions and answers coming soon.

If you for a single moment doubted on the amazingness we experienced the other days when on beach exploration in Les Salines, here's some more images for you. 

A life without a Blackberry or an iPhone is such a wonderfully relieving and fulfilling life and I'm glad they're all finally gone from our surroundings. Hello privacy! Do you have any idea of how many hours per day you gain by not being in constant touch with other people/your email/facebook accounts/twitter updates/blogs/news all.the.time? I'm thinking it must be something like 4-5 extra hours given to you each and every day when getting rid of the phone. The unconscious stress which evolves within us when constantly being reachable is one of all of those evil little things most of us just accept and keep living with in the modern (destructive) society - but let me tell you that nothing feels better than to cut old habits like those. I have thrown out so many bad old habits from my life lately and I feel so light. I feel free, you know what I'm saying? This above pictured moment shows the only type of phone communication we're having nowadays, along with some occasional Skype sessions with dear family members and friends of course, and the best thing is that it's completely up to us when we feel like being in touch and not. No beeping or ringing every minute from every corner, just a visit to the good old booth every once in a while. This is one of those things that we've discovered gives a new peaceful dimension to our lives. It's simple but oh so rewarding. Much more time for real life.

This is one impressive yacht we ran across the other day in Le Marin, Martinique. S/Y Drumbeat, a luxurious superyacht produced by Alloy Yachts. The 174 ft ketch was constructed and launched in New Zeeland in 2002, according to the constructor's website, and has a total sail-area of 1139 m2/12.220 sq ft. Beautiful, isn't she? /T

Hello!

We took a little vacation from the blog and our emails for some days as we found a little piece of heaven on this island. Clear turquoise water and powdery white sand. How cold is it where you're at, you said? The water is 29°C (85°F) over here. Did I say heaven?

We've collected so many photos of different, inspiring, interesting, special, odd boats in our memory cards from all the travels we've done around the world that I thought I could share some of them with you all every now and then. This specific one is one of those which breaks your heart when they appear in your direct surroundings. To brake a mast is something far more common than I thought as we see them everywhere and you know it could have happen to your boat, any boat. Especially terrifying and sad it is when you meet boats with a broken mast who just crossed the Atlantic ocean, just like we did. With that stormy ride we made our last days of the crossing, it could most definitely have been us arriving to the Caribbean in this very condition. These guys were in a way lucky as they were able to get to shore without assistance, we all know how bad it could have ended.  /Taru

It's seriously hot here today. Luckily I have my Spanish flamenco fan comfortably on hand. And let us not discuss my hair further. I'm undergoing a several steps decolorization/bleaching process and will soon be back to my original roots. It is about time to get back to some type of ash brown/copper blonde or whatever my natural Scandinavian hair color might be called. Just bare with me for a couple of more weeks and let's ignore the disaster until then..

Alex have caught so much fish during our life aboard that tuna, barracuda, dolphin fish (Mahi Mahi) and amberjack starts to feel a bit boring. More interesting it is when he pulls up random fishes with a new type of look, like this little bastard. But what is this? I know we have quite a few bird experts reading our blog who've helped us identify a couple of flying creatures in the past, might be we have some fish specialists here as well. So. What do we got here today?

Caribbean, as far as we have understood, is beautiful and colorful, a bit inspiring, and the light here is more than spectacular. The Caribbean islands we've seen so far might not be as secluded and private and not totally as paradisish and lush as some parts of Asia or the Indian Ocean as we know it, or might be we haven’t found those hidden gems as yet? Search continues. One question for you who've been around the world: What are your absolute most favorite, dreamlike, unexploited paradise in the Caribbean sea? And we're not looking for places where you'll find 250 charter boats anchored on the same spot and beaches overcrowded with tourists, no it is the quietness and privacy combined with a dreamlike atmosphere and a breathtaking nature and sea life we're after. Or do we really have to get out in the Pacific to find that?

And then another question: since we've already decided to stay around here in Central/South America for the rest of the year before we head out in the Pacific, we're also keen of finding the perfect place for putting the boat, and ourselves, for the hurricane season. So far we have these options on our list: Grenada, Trinidad and Brazil. Have any of you spent the hurricane season in any of these places and what are your experiences with them? Is Grenada really a safe place for the boat during the tropical storms and what about the ABC islands?

Thankful for your thoughts.

/Taru and Alex

We kind of ignored the carnival this week which has been going on for five days or such and we decided to go out only on the last night. Too bad for us that the final nights celebration ended already around 10pm as people finally* would get back to work on the morning of today. That didn't stop us (me) from dancing to the last zouk beats playing on the beach last night though. Here's some retro zouk love music for you all, straight from Martinique.

*I'm saying finally not for the fact that the carnival is over, but because we're waiting for shipments and packages to arrive and finally the postal service is working again.

Sorry to sound like a fucking cliché or a complete hippie all the time but when I see these pictures we took the other day I, again, get reminded of the point in what we've chosen to do with our lives. For are there anything greater, stronger than the happiness and contentment you can feel from only being close to another human being? The one you love most. Just like that alone could be enough to feed ones soul.

We're now gone from all the stress, gone from a destructive world and instead we're spending more time with each other, enjoying what mother nature have given us. In peace. On our conditions. In our speed. Someone once said "the hard thing is to find a person you stand for a longer period and in more than ten minutes at a time" and I can definitely relate to it from an earlier life but this time it is all so different. So simple. So real. So... right. 

I vote for love to be the new universal religion. That's at least what gives us strength, hope and a peace of mind.