Our Caribbean guide in Yachting World


Do not miss to pick up your own copy of Yachting World in the stand at your local magazine shop today or later this week. The issue features our six page article with all of our Caribbean favorites when it comes to restaurants, beaches, anchorages, bars etc. Do not miss if you will ever be traveling in the Caribbean! 

The issue should be out today or later this week in most countries around the world, but probably not before next week in the Caribbean. It has been an honor for us to be asked to write a piece for this magazine, the worlds oldest and one of the most read sailing publications in the world. Please read our story and let us know what you think!

Here's the link to buy it for your iPad if you can't get a hold on the glossy paper magazine (should be available in any proper magazine shop in the world though).

8 comments

At the Southern tip of St Vincent

Traditional fishermen out at sea. Loving their modest appearance and the fact that they aren't using an engine. They must have strong backs after rowing like this for decades. A complete contrary to the young fishermen who rely on 150+ hp outboards mounted on a 20 ft boat...

1 comment

A walk in the mountains

We were in the petite town of St Pierre, Martinique, the other day. That's the city which had a volcano eruption for a hundred years ago or so where all population of 30.000 except two people died from the dangerous ashes, within minutes of the eruption. This Mount Pelée volcano is still active, though it is not considered to be a big threat at the moment. Anyway, this town has a great anchorage for us sailors just next to the center of the village and we always make a stop here before heading North up towards Dominica, Les Saintes or Guadeloupe, it makes the passage shorter and it is always a nice place to stretch your sea legs for a day or two. Usually we hang around in town, checking out the offerings at the market, walking by the beach or visiting the artisans on the small streets of the village. This time we decided to get out hiking in one of the high volcanic mountains surrounding town. A trek that we knew would take around 3-4 hours.
Finally half way up.. luckily we brought enough of water. It is deadly hot to walk like this on steep hills in the middle of the day in 35°C/95°F.
Beautiful views over the town and the famous Mount Pelée in the background. Our boat is just under the leaves in the left of the picture.
We continued to walk our way up the hills. Pretty soon up at the top. Unfortunately we hadn't thought of how hungry one could get while walking like this. Hadn't brought any food. Maybe a bit of chili peppers straight from the bushes, anyone?
We thought it could be a good thing to walk through a grassy field. That's until we realized that the field belonged to someone... This guy didn't look too friendly and he studied us with this particular face all the way until we had left his ground.
Another one. Thought I'd shit my pants when I heard noises in the grass and saw this huge head popping up like one meter away from where we were walking. 
We continued our walk and now I was dying for food. We found this dude laying on one road like a watchdog. "Why don't we have some goat for lunch?", I suggested. Alex didn't quite agree. "I didn't bring my rifle baby, besides he got a yellow necklace, it seems to me like he belongs to someone". Alright then, we continued our walk. God, was I hungry.. and so disgustingly sweaty..
We walked and we walked and finally we saw something, was that only an imagination or was that really a broken hose laying on the ground, spraying out fresh cold water? Yes it was. We refreshed ourselves for a while. So incredibly good and energizing in the oppressive heat. All refreshed and happy we continued our hike up the hill. When we finally found .....
A banana tree! The joy, finally some food! 
Alex got up quickly and pull down a good cluster of fruit.... only to find out they were rock hard and completely non-edible at this time. I cried for a while and then we decided to call it a day and walk back home to eat. The camera battery died in the minute of picking down the bananas so I can't show my tears, sorry. Luckily we got a hitch back home and what had taken us about three hours to walk up took around 9 minutes to get down. 

Just a regular day of our lives..

4 comments

While awaiting the right winds

We're done with what we had to do in Antigua for this time. While waiting for a good weather window (yes we have finally learnt to await the good winds instead of always beating against whatever there is) to be able to smoothly move on up towards SXM. In the meanwhile we're dedicated to everything childish and wonderful we can think of. Sailing small boats, climbing in mountains and trees, cast fishing, swimming with turtles and discovering the sea creatures underneath the surface of the sea. Life can be so damn serious at times, so better to enjoy the simple pleasures whenever there's a chance to do so.

1 comment

Sunday sailing


As members of the Antigua Yacht Club, we're free to use any of the clubs boats, windsurfs and other water sport activities, among many other benefits they have for their members. So we've been checking out the collection of boats that they have for a while now and yesterday was my first time ever to set sail on a boat smaller than 35 feet. We took one Laser Pico together, thought that could be alright for me to begin with. We tacked and gybed back and forth, around and around in the bay of Falmouth Harbor, got all wet and salty. It was so much fun, I can't even tell you! It gave me a total new feeling of the technicality of a boat, its weight and movement. The wind felt more powerful in any increase or change and even the few capsizes' we made felt exciting and important to go through. Alex was also happy like a child, love seeing him in the element he loves the most. We agreed on that this must definitely be something we will spend more time doing.

And where was I when these photos were taken you ask? So after been sailing for an hour or two, I told Alex to drop me as close to our boat as possible, I jumped into the water with my harness and all, swam to the boat, run in to dry my salty hands, grabbed the camera as the photo nerd that I am, snapped some pics of Alex zooming by and back in the water I went to join the ride once again. What a perfect Sunday adventure. Next time we'll try the faster Laser's for sure.

5 comments

A hard-drive full of pics..

Just a few more photos added to our Facebook page. If only I had the time to tell you all the stories and show you all those millions of shots we've taken in the past few months... But this will have to do in the meanwhile.

leave a comment

Food on the hook

Did I tell you my man is the best fisherman in the world? Because he is. I will never have to worry that we might have to starve the day when we run out of money, loose our boat and get washed up on a deserted island somewhere far far away. At least we will have plenty of fish to eat.

1 comment

5 favorites bottles from the West Indies (and I ain't talking rum this time)

There are so many delightful recipes to get inspired from here in the Caribbean and they all have a bit of sting which is always very welcome. Best way to collect and keep these wonderful flavors for the days when we're no longer here, are to stock up on your favorite sauces on bottle. I'm sure most of these can be found in other variations around the world, but these are my five favorite Caribbean bottles of joy that I have came to love during our stay here in the West Indies:

Garlic Sauce - Simply a bottle full of garlic. I'm addicted to this shit. Just opened our second bottle in less than five months so you can only imagine how good we smell around here. Can be used for everything and anything.

Passionfruit sauce - A delightful, creamy sauce based on passionfruit but which also contains onion and salt to balance out the sweetness. This one is perfect for BBQ marinades and salad vinaigrette's. 

Coconut oil - Can come handy instead of olive, sunflower or whatever oil you're used to cook with but I use this mainly for baking due to its wonderful light sweetness. It doesn't have any coconut flavor as one might assume, only a very tiny hint of something reminiscent of vanilla, or nuts perhaps.

West Indian Hot Sauce - Just as the name suggests. This is a very very hot yet marvelous sauce that I add into most of my concoctions. Chicken stew, meat casseroles, thai mahi mahi and so on. This sauce is filled with the explosive bonnet peppers so be careful with how much you add to your food..

Green Seasoning - Another true Caribbean classic. A great supplement to any dish. This sauce is based on papaya, onion and peppers making it quite round in flavor. It is much lighter and a bit sweeter in taste than the previous, perfect when you're having visitors who are not too fond of entirely burning hot food.

4 comments

Back in Antigua for a few days

If only it could be the beginning of 2012 so that we could move on to the Pacific ocean, Asia and beyond, but until the storm seasons are finished here and on that other side of the world and until we're done with what we have to do here in the Lesser Antilles, we will continue to zoom around these islands that we are so familiar with by now, here in the Caribbean. We are currently taking advantage of and enjoying all what we can of this calm before the high season officially begins in a few weeks. 

3 comments

Sweaty in Guadeloupe

It is so hot here I'm melting. Constantly need to add frozen fruit sorbet into my system to be able to deal with this oppressing heat. You might think I'm joking but I would change a couple of days of my life to any cold city with chilly fall winds in a heartbeat. If it just wasn't that far away.. 

Here's btw some of what we're listening to at the moment:

The way you wanna - Feivo (new track by Alex brother)
And there goes the sun down, finally we're able to breath, think and live normally again. Happy Thursday everyone, we'll celebrate the sunset with some barbecued chicken and red wine on the beach tonight.

2 comments

Conch for lunch?

Yes please. Half a kilo, freshly caught, 7 Euros (if you're too lazy to pick them up from the bottom of the sea yourself, that is). Curry conch in the making....

1 comment

The world in my eyes


Just a few of my favorite shots from this month. Location: La Désirade airport, Les Saintes. Model: the sexiest man alive. Here accompanied by one of the most genius songs/tracks ever written/produced. Don't forget to observe Dave on stage at 1:31 and 1:43 please, I'm dying of his impeccable sense of style and perfection in every goddam detail. Fucking dying.

6 comments

Beautiful Saintes

We are back in the peaceful Saintes again. We've been around here now quite some times, so much that people have started to remember us in the bars and on the streets and it feels kind of homey to get back here once more. This main island of Les Saintes, Terre de Haut, is a lovely little fishing port where time moves slowly and people from an interesting melange of backgrounds seem to be living in a comfortable pace. Les Saintes is unique in the way that it is one of very few islands in the Lesser Antilles with a majority white population, the reason being that not much slaves were brought to or used here during the colonial times. Most of the early settlers were from Breton and Norman in France and apparently there is a strong Breton cultural influence on the island. Nevertheless they all seem to have mixed up well with the black/Caribbean people, and they have developed their own Saintois look which is quite interesting and equally beautiful.

4 comments

Times are different now

When reading this blog one might get the impression that sailing around the world is only about cruising between paradise islands, snorkeling in crystal clear waters, sipping on tropical drinks while chilling on deserted beaches, hiking in colorful rainforest and so on but surprisingly (not), it is also a lot about physical work, maintaining your ship and keeping everything clean, tidy and in order and also to fix everything that might get damaged as you move along on the seas. Like this little chore that I have been delegated to perform once a week or so. Scrubbing the bottom of the dinghy from barnacles, algae and other sea creatures. Not a very fun job if you ask me, but that's something that must be done, as much as we need to clean the bottom of the (sail)boat every once in a while, clean and polish the deck fittings to prevent them from corrosion, change sails every time we are underway depending on the change of wind force, bring fresh water to the boat with jerry cans from shore when the water maker cannot be used due to inappropriate water in the anchorage, haul the dinghy up or down between the water and the deck of the boat when arriving to or leaving an anchorage - and then all kind of other small things that have taken myself quite some time to get used to, such as washing clothes for hand when there's no laundry place nearby, clean the dishes with salt water and only rinse with fresh to save on the water in the tanks, move things around on the boat every time we have visitors as there's not much more space than for two with all of our belongings and so on..

A life on land is very very convenient when you compare it with a life on a boat that's for sure, but it is also obvious that there are tons of benefits with a lifestyle like this that outweighs the physical work needed. It just takes some time to get used to it all, and thinking back now on the previous life which was lead before we move aboard this boat - I have hard to even remember how it felt to not have to work this hard with my body to get things done. And then I'm thinking about all that money I used to waste on taxis because I was too lazy to walk, all the dry-cleaning needed for the delicate fabrics of the clothes that I wore, all the membership cards to different sport clubs and personal trainers that I rarely made use of because of laziness and the massive amount of water I used to clean single pieces of clothes in the washing machine as it was "urgent" (and not to mentioned all the money spent on clothes, travels, dining out etc..) life is definitely much more simple now. More physical work, not at all as comfortable as on land, but also it is much more straightforward, pure and simplified in a way that is so liberating for the mind. 

Gone are the clutter, waste and laziness, instead we use only what we really need and if we wish to move from A to B we need to make sure to do so with our own physical efforts (with the help from the wind of course) and would there ever be any problem with the boat or any of our equipment, we need to make sure to fix it ourselves and with our own bare hands (mostly Alex', obviously). And I like it like this, simple, natural and straightforward. I think you would be surprised to see how fast it goes to wean oneself from the things that you thought were absolute necessities in life. 

If I could encourage everyone of you to get out sailing some more in your lives, I would do so - there is so much you'd learn about yourself, our world and about what one really needs that is quite interesting to experience. Also you will never ever be in better physical shape than what you are after a few months on the seas from all that hard work, that's for sure.

For the ones of you who hasn't been sailing much in your lives, what are your perception of a life sailing around the world like we do? Could you ever imagine yourself doing it for some years of your life, and if so, what do you think would be the positive/negative sides with a lifestyle like that? Am curious to hear your thoughts.

P.S: By the way do you see the thin black string hanging from my sunglasses? Alex got me those as I still, for some stupid reason, haven't learnt that the sea is a greedy bastard who swallows everything she can get a hold on. After loosing five pairs of Prada, Rayban and Marc Jacobs shades to the ocean in the past twelve months, it was about time to hook the new ones firmly in place. Just one of all those things one needs to get used to on a boat...

12 comments

Morning

Looks like it is only in the anchorages of the French islands where you'll find many boats during hurricane season. We got happily surprised last night when we arrived here to Anse Mitan and realized that the whole bay was full of boats. With actually people in them. Good with a change of view, normally we're used to be one of only 1-3 boats anchored during this dead season, on the other islands around.

By the way, we have totally forgotten to put a track on our travels this past month, but now it is possible to follow us once more. Just click here to follow our route and to see our current position.

leave a comment